Fuck.
A line? For a 7:55, TUESDAY night showing? Needless to say, RoboGal and myself snagged dinner mighty quick before returning to the side of the theater. The line stretched all the way down the length of the theater. Damnit. And then we realized -- no it didn't. That was the line for the 7:50. The line for the 7:55 was eight people long. Score. We hopped in line, and began to shoot the proverbial shit. The line grew behind us, eventually becoming as long as the one for the 7:55. We delighted in our nearly-front of the line status. We also discovered that a handful of those surrounding us were seeing the movie for the 2nd time. This is a movie with legs, I thought.
Or, as the RoboGF pointed out, a movie with a dead movie-star.
Never underestimate the ability of tragic death to sell your film.
Everyone has their opinion on this movie, and it's mostly positive. I won't disagree. At the same time, I'll keep it relatively short, because I don't want to waste your time. If you are, inexplicably, a human being in North America, or some other territory where the film has been released, and you have not seen it, then maybe, maybe, you might find something of value in this review. Otherwise... it is an exercise is readily available knowledge.
The Dark Knight is am ambitious and mostly effective tale of crime in the big bad city. As a whole, it works amazingly. It's in the details, in the nitty gritty, that the film's resolution begins to grow fuzzy.
Heath Ledger gives a great performance, and you've already heard about it. It redefines the concept of who and what the Joker is, so that really, this isn't THE JOKER anymore, it's The Joker... a completely different bad guy with the same name and theme-of-dress. This Joker is off the wall, ready to kill anyone, with a deep loathing of society and its rules.
As a counterintuitive counterpoint to this, he is the Napoleon of Batman villains, as he manages to out-plan, out-organize, and nearly defeat through assumed reactions the entire Gotham Police Department as well as Batman. Which is counter to the idea of the character, but since the result is so awesome, when we pull back... move further from the detail... it's a problem that's easy to ignore.
Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent is pretty great, and a very believable "white knight" to the city as its District Attorney. He's a man who wants to clean up the streets, and seems to have the integrity to do it... Which is why it seems vaguely out of character for him to threaten to blow a hole in one of Joker's Goon's head (even if Dent had rigged the results...). His transformation into Two-Face (a nick-name from his past that is never explained, and, again, seems counterintuitive when every other character keeps referring to how honest and true and good he is) is expedited in favor of speed, glossing over the natural progression of this transformation -- from ultimate good guy to ultimate bad. Instead, we just get him wailing, talking to the Joker, and deciding that without this lady-friend in his life, well, fuck, he might as well go around and dish out some old skool justice. I didn't buy it, and this is my biggest problem with the film. Two-Face was too rushed.
Not only that, but director Christopher Nolan sadly lets Eckhart slip into "yell" mode as the bad guy, chewing up the scenery and spitting it out onto the audience as if we were some kind of gigantic spittoon. Eckhart is a super solid actor, and his work through the rest of the film is very effective. It's only when his character loses his humanity... that Eckhart loses his grasp on the role.
Maggy Gyllenhaal is pretty useless as Rachel Dawes, and I have to say, I don't think it's a vast improvement from Katie Holmes. You can kick Holmes as much as you like for her "boring" and "wide eyed" (both quotes from someone in line) performance in Batman Begins, but I blame the lameness of the rest of that movie, and the total uselessness of her role, not the actress. Ms. Gyllenhaal brings maybe a smidge more humanity to the role, but she's such a pawn in the games between other characters that it's hard to feel for her at all. For me, there was no emotional punch to what happened to her. Nolan didn't make me care about her from the beginning. So why would I care at the end?
The Batman voice Christian Bale uses as Batman is stupid. You'd think that Billionaire Bruce Wayne, who managed to create a CAPE that turns into WINGS for GLIDING could attach a voice distorter onto the neck-piece of his suit. Too logical. More growling needed.
And Bale himself is fine. The problem with all Batman films is the conflict they feel between Bruce Wayne and Batman, and how much to show of each. I think this film also had that trouble -- the conflict of Batman is put on the warmer, not the flame, and doesn't hold up as well as other elements of the film.
It's been said before, but I'll say it again: Christopher Nolan cannot direct action. I enjoyed the film, but the action-bits were cut too fast, shot too close up, and semi-incoherent. The climax of the film, action-wise, didn't work for me because it's told partly through CGI, otherwise determining the geography of the action is confusing and badly done. Also, there are a lot of dogs attacking Batman.
Other issues: The stupid phone crap, the length -- which, while it never bored me, did feel like a two and a half hour movie, some weird end-of-scene cuts, the music, and some anti-batman behavior by Batman.
BUT: As a whole, the movie is awesome. The Joker's plan makes total crazy sense, and if you can buy he's the best organizer in the city, you'll buy some of the great feats he manages to accomplish, and the great time that it leads to. I also can't complain when Nicky Katt shows up in a film (his 2nd Batman flick), and when shit blows up. Gary Oldman is the most bizarre person to play a straight-man ever cast, but beyond a bafflingly badly handled mid-film development for his character, he portrays a real integrity to the character that's so necessary to balance the Bale-Eckhart show.
It isn't, however, the greatest superhero movie of all time. And I don't think Heath Ledger's performance -- as awesome as it was -- is deserving of an Oscar nom. It's admirable, and crazy, and great, but not, I think, particularly nuanced. However, lucky for the Academy, my opinion means bull-crap to them. Probably best they keep it that way.
If you somehow haven't seen The Dark Knight, do it now. Or wait a weekend.
It's not like it's going anywhere.
Oh, RoboGF, and everyone else in the audience, seemed to have a great time. And, if it helps, I'll be seeing it again. It's a beautiful beautiful woman... with bad skin. I think I can ignore its faults to get to the parts worth adoring. In fact, I think when I go back, I might have to grab a cup of that delightful drink they were offering... I might take a swig of this Dark Knight kool-aid. Will you?
-RoboNixon
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