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I saw The Dark Knight this afternoon.

I liked it . . . but didn't love it. While it has its moments, I'm not convinced it's the masterpiece everyone is chalking it up to be. Here are my likes/dislikes:

Likes:

1) Heath Ledger is every bit as extraordinary as The Joker as advance billing has claimed. As much as I love other portrayals of this role (Cesar Romero's from the 1960s TV show, Jack Nicholson's from Batman and Mark Hamill's from Batman: The Animated Series) Ledger's portrayal has to be considered the definitive interpretation of The Joker. What I like most about his performance is that the Joker comes across as seriously scary. At times, I almost felt like I was watching a horror movie.

2) Christian Bale is quite good as Bruce Wayne.

3) Aaron Eckhart is a big improvement over Tommy Lee Jones as Harvey Dent/Two-Face. (And it's a nice twist having The Joker become the "creator" of the arch-criminal known as Two-Face.)

4) The supporting cast -- Michael Caine as Alfred, Gary Oldham as Commissioner Gordon and Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox -- is a dream.

5) Cillian Murphy makes a small but welcome return as The Scarecrow at the beginning of the film.

Dislikes:

1) I don't like the Methody mumble Christian Bale uses when he's Batman. It makes perfect sense that Bruce Wayne would employ different voices as Bruce and Batman but the voice Bale uses as Batman is so mumbled that half the time I couldn't even understand what Batman was saying.

2) The Joker is almost so omniescient in this movie that it defies all reason.

3) Maggie Gyllenhaal is a welcome replacement for Katie Holmes as Rachel Dawes but the "girlfriend part" in these movies is always a thankless one and Gyllenhaal fares no better than many of her predecessors.

4) Director Christopher Nolan has no flair for filming fight sequences. He didn't in Batman Begins and he reveals himself as being even less capable this time around. The climactic fight scene between Batman and The Joker should be a triumph but instead it is a big, convoluted, incomprehensible mess.

5) Most disappointing to me is that Gotham City has no personality in this movie. The film was shot almost entirely in Chicago and, basically, it looks like Chicago. To me, this was a mistake. Gotham City is a character in its own right and it needs to have a distinct look to reflect its "personality". The best treatments of Batman on film have been those that have given Gotham City a unique look which mirrors the theatricality of the lead character and his foes. So, the 60s TV show/film rendered Gotham City in Pop Art terms while the Tim Burton films Batman and Batman Returns defined Gotham City as a Gothic nightmare. Without a signature look for Gotham City, The Dark Knight at times feels more like an episode of Law & Order than a Batman film.

So, there you have it. Has anyone else seen it?

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Maggie Gyllenhaal is a welcome replacement for Katie Holmes as Rachel Dawes but the "girlfriend part" in these movies is always a thankless one and Gyllenhaal fares no better than many of her predecessors.

I think some of these movies should just get rid of the token woman altogether. It’s a waste of their time and ours to have good actresses playing The Girl and I think it would also improve the films by eliminating unnecessary screen time.

Although I suppose from a professional perspective it’s better to have a nothing role in a blockbuster than no role at all.

To me, this was a mistake. Gotham City is a character in its own right and it needs to have a distinct look to reflect its "personality". The best treatments of Batman on film have been those that have given Gotham City a unique look which mirrors the theatricality of the lead character and his foes.

I think you’re right. A movie Batman without a distinctive Gotham City isn’t really Batman.

The reviews I’ve read have been mixed – I gather there’s a school of thought that says the film takes itself too seriously. It sounded to me like a drag, frankly, so I haven’t rushed out to see it. Also, it's two and a half hours, and I can think of no good reason for a summer pic to run that long. I sat through one of the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels because my nephew wanted to see it and I thought it would never end.

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Good breakdown, miliosr.

I've only seen Batman as a series of 6 or so trailers on the Times website, but they make the movie seem a bit, can you reserve the word lugubrious for it-- or slow and ploddy as Christian Bale's voice. (Josef von Sternberg's voice was also slow and molassassy, and all his characters, at least his men, spoke as slow and woefully as he did.)

I think some of these movies should just get rid of the token woman altogether. It’s a waste of their time and ours to have good actresses playing The Girl and I think it would also improve the films by eliminating unnecessary screen time.

Yes, yes, or else have a continuity person stand to one side and matter of factly read the Girl's lines to Boy.

Off topic: But isn't that how girlfriends fit into a lot of boyfriends' lives these days? We all like to be superior to the fiftes via Mad Men, but I think the fifties had its subversive strategies for everyone and some real, interesting bite to it. (And no one knew of, much less quoted Frank O'Hara then, a poorly appended MM detail. Rather, it was T.S. Eliot who spoke for the "silent" generation.)

Back to Batman: I think one of the reviews (the New Yorker's?) referred to these last two versions as taking the poetry out of Burton's, and another says that Nicholson was the real Joker, there was more depth to his performance.

And when will Christopher Nolan again do a small, somewhat personal movie, like Momento?

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And no one knew of, much less quoted Frank O'Hara then, a poorly appended MM detail.

Yes, and it would have taken some doing for Draper to find that book, too. But I thought they handled it plausibly and the quote from “Mayakovsky” worked very well at the end.

Off topic: But isn't that how girlfriends fit into a lot of boyfriends' lives these days? We all like to be superior to the fiftes via Mad Men, but I think the fifties had its subversive strategies for everyone and some real, interesting bite to it.

True to a point, but the decade earned its negative reputation for some pretty good reasons. My mother had some unpleasant stories to tell about office life for a secretary in those days, and what ‘subversive strategies’ there were available didn’t offer much in the way of relief.

But isn't that how girlfriends fit into a lot of boyfriends' lives these days?

I suspect that the inclusion of a leading lady no matter how perfunctory her role has more to do with steering away from any potential subtext of homoeroticism in movies aimed primarily at teenage boys and young men who are straight or pretending to be.

another says that Nicholson was the real Joker, there was more depth to his performance.

Ledger must be awfully good to be better than Nicholson.

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The trouble with the Rachel Dawes character is that she only really exists to cause tension between Bruce Wayne and Harvey Dent. Really, why bother to hire a talented actress like Maggie Gyllenhaal for this part when any Hollywood starlet could play the character? (I don't fault Gyllenhaal for wanting to break out of the indie ghetto she's resided in for some time but I'm not sure how much of a career bump she'll get from this.)

One reason I prefer Ledger's interpretation to Nicholson's is that -- to me -- Nicholson's Joker is merely a variation on a theme (the theme being the Nicholson persona.) Ledger, in contrast, disappears so completely into the part that you forget you're watching an actor. He really is that mesmerizing.

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Here are the two vying reviews I was thinking of:

Nigel Andrews in the Financial Times:

Ledger’s much-publicised Joker is a party trick that wears a little thin: a whiny, chuckling, jowl-wagging grotesque – Richard Nixon melded with early Richard Widmark – with peeling makeup and an everyday bad hair day. The actor’s short-fuse virtuosity doesn’t match Jack Nicholson’s teased-out teasing in Tim Burton’s Batman, though he is still more fun than the Americans here...

David Denby in the New Yorker:

At times, I was reminded of Marlon Brando at his most feline and insinuating. When Ledger wields a knife, he is thoroughly terrifying (do not, despite the PG-13 rating, bring the children), and, as you’re watching him, you can’t help wondering—in a response that admittedly lies outside film criticism—how badly he messed himself up in order to play the role this way.
I don't fault Gyllenhaal for wanting to break out of the indie ghetto she's resided in for some time but I'm not sure how much of a career bump she'll get from this

She's done a great recording of Bell Jar. ("It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer that they executed..."

And don't idie films yield some juicy parts?

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"It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer that they executed ... "

If the Rosenbergs had to sit through 154 minutes of Batman, they'd probably have suicided.

But I did enjoy the film, and I agree with most of the comments above, though I'd hesitate to even compare Ledger and Nicholson; both were amazing in very different ways, and both stole their movie!

I'm waiting for the 'Director's Cut':

"You know I thought about it, and by cutting out 34 minutes, including all 11 minutes of Maggie Gyllenhaal, I think it's a much better movie"

Gets my vote! :)

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And don't indie films yield some juicy parts?

They do, but it would be understandable if Gyllenhaal wanted to get roles in mainstream pictures as well. She and hubby Peter Sarsgaard are homecoming royalty at the indie senior prom, but it’s not enough after awhile. (I guess you get tired of playing ex-junkies and acting in ‘quirky’ comedies – indies can have their own kind of rut.) I also saw an interview with Laura Linney where she spoke feelingly about the difference in creature comforts for actors on the set. Not that she isn’t happy to do films like “The Savages,” but you can do good work in a big production, too, and stay in a nice hotel at the same time, one gathers.

But I did enjoy the film, and I agree with most of the comments above, though I'd hesitate to even compare Ledger and Nicholson; both were amazing in very different ways, and both stole their movie!

Nice to hear from you, Andrew73. Thanks for the quotes from those reviews, Quiggin. Guess I’ll have to go compare and contrast Jokers for myself. I almost went a couple of weeks ago but was shanghaied into seeing the new Brideshead Revisited instead.

It’s a sad sign of the times that movies that really should be ideal for kids are made too violent for them. There’s really no reason for a Batman picture to be that scary.

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It’s a sad sign of the times that movies that really should be ideal for kids are made too violent for them. There’s really no reason for a Batman picture to be that scary.

I don't think Nolan had children in mind as his main audience for this Batman series. As violent as the movie is, there's surprisingly little blood and guts. I think he is trying hard to not allow his Batman to turn into a campy costume play, which is arguably what Burton's films were. According to a comic book junkie friend of mine, Nolan's represents the original Batman better than any previous films or television series, and Ledger is the Joker. Up until now the character almost became a prankster of sorts who couldn't be taken seriously, but now he's real and gritty, and very psychopathic the way he was meant to be.

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And no Brideshead v. Brideshead v. Brideshead off-comment?

I will if I can summon up the intestinal fortitude. I walked out, even though Lord Marchmain was nearly dead. Fortunately my companion was of the same mind, which helped. It’s not the screwing around with the source material that bothered me so much (although it did) – my attitude tends to be, Fine, if you can get away with it and come up with something interesting. They didn’t.

I don't think Nolan had children in mind as his main audience for this Batman series.

I take your point, Old Fashioned, and thanks for posting, but I was speaking more generally – thinking not only of Batman, but also of older pictures such as Jurassic Park and The Last of the Mohicans, movies on subjects that are appealing to kids and would make enjoyable family films if they weren’t so violent and frightening – which they don’t have to be in order to be good, it seems to me.

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They do, but it would be understandable if Gyllenhaal wanted to get roles in mainstream pictures as well. She and hubby Peter Sarsgaard are homecoming royalty at the indie senior prom, but it’s not enough after awhile. (I guess you get tired of playing ex-junkies and acting in ‘quirky’ comedies – indies can have their own kind of rut.) I also saw an interview with Laura Linney where she spoke feelingly about the difference in creature comforts for actors on the set. Not that she isn’t happy to do films like “The Savages,” but you can do good work in a big production, too, and stay in a nice hotel at the same time, one gathers.

I think the point of an actor like Maggie Gyllenhaal doing a film like "The Dark Knight" is usually a combination of: a) paycheck (no shame in that, especially when one starts thinking of raising a small child like her young baby), b) respect for the creative team (Nolan and his team are well-regarded by many), and c) raising her profile enough to make her bankable enough to do her own passion projects. Maggie Gyllenhaal is a well-respected actress but her name isn't enough to get a passion project financed and made. Betting on a studio film to get to the A-list is a well-worn path followed by such former indie-niche players as Johnny Depp, Tobey Maguire and Leonardo DiCaprio, all of whom became "names" only after having a monster studio hit.

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A couple of replies to points made by other posters:

1) Maggie Gyllenhaal was right to take a part in The Dark Knight if for no other reason than to raise her profile among casting directors for big budget Hollywood films. I'm sure Gwyneth Paltrow was of a similar mindset when she agreed to appear in Iron Man. (Although in Paltrow's case, I imagine her primary motivation was to associate herself with a big Hollywood action movie after a series of indie and art house flops.)

2) The trend toward ultraseriousness in Batman films actually began in the Batman comics of the 1970s as a reaction against the lighthearted tone of the 1960s TV show and comics. Thirty years later, the trend toward a more serious Batman in the comics has resulted in a Batman film that is SO serious in tone that it actually begins to reek of pretension. My own feeling is that the Batman comics and films have gone too far in the direction of a false seriousness and would benefit significantly by lightening the angst of the lead character and the nihilism of the villains. (And no, I'm not suggesting going back to the tone of the 60s TV series, fascinating as it is in its own right.)

3) One thing I did like about The Dark Knight but forgot to mention is how the film addresses the problem of Batman being as much a part of the problem as its solution. In the absence of Bruce Wayne donning the Batman costume and becoming such a larger-than-life figure, would marginal personalities like The Joker and Dr. Jonathan Crane (a.k.a. The Scarecrow) turn to crime in such an extravagant manner? Or would they remain psychotic figures on the fringes of society?? In other words, does the theatricality of the Bat costume (which, after all, is supposed to strike fear in the hearts of criminals) have the unintended side effect of provoking fringe personalities into adopting theatrical personas of their own and committing ever more spectacular crimes??? (The 60s TV show also touched on this issue with Frank Gorshin's spectacular performance as The Riddler, who turned to crime precisely to outwit Batman.)

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(And no, I'm not suggesting going back to the tone of the 60s TV series, fascinating as it is in its own right.)

Oh, why not? I loved that show!

You may well be right in your other points about the movie, miliosr. Maybe I will get to it next weekend, but then I said that about Mamma Mia! last time.

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Dislikes:

1) I don't like the Methody mumble Christian Bale uses when he's Batman. It makes perfect sense that Bruce Wayne would employ different voices as Bruce and Batman but the voice Bale uses as Batman is so mumbled that half the time I couldn't even understand what Batman was saying.

I completely agree! I've seen the movie four times now, and I still can't get over the 'batman voice!' I also don't like the aesthetic of his mouth when he's talking. All of a sudden, he looks like he is developing a severe underbite while chewing on a bite of food that is too big for his mouth. I also agree that it is difficult to hear what he is saying. I was on a bit of a batman kick, and went back and watched Batman Begins, and it is the same thing there too.

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