The Dark Knight - I’m A Believer

Aug

13

The Dark Knight - I’m A Believer

≡ Category: Action, Essential, Movie Reviews By Country, United States |
≅ Written by: Michael Kydonieus

Country: United States
Genre: Action
Director: Christopher Nolan
Year: 2008

Rating:

TRASH CINEMA ESSENTIAL MOVIE

After the debacle that was Batman Begins (see my post Batman Begins - The Hummer of Superhero Movies for more details), my wife had to drag me to see The Dark Knight. Oh, I suspected that Heath Ledger’s turn as the Joker would probably be worth watching, but the prospect of having to sit through 2 1/2 hours of specious pontificating, hideous set design, and tone deaf quips from Alfred the butler (Michael Caine) didn’t exactly fill me with joy.

All of which makes The Dark Knight the shocker of the year. It’s as terrific as Batman Begins was wretched. Let me count the ways:

Christian Bale is much looser this time around as Batman — he doesn’t come across as constipated even once, but rather grimly determined, as intended. Alfred the butler only has one dumbass quip this time around. The rest of the jokes are actually subtle and sly. Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) comes off as a more or less real person, rather than a moldy archetypal construct. Finally, assistant DA Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is played by a real actress instead of Katie Holmes.

The fight choreography is much more convincing this time around, although it’s purely functional rather than graceful or poetic, but that’s okay. Gotham City feels like an organic, lived-in place, rather than a bunch of mismatched sets left over from Uwe Boll movies like Postal and Bloodrayne.

The action setpieces are impressive, beautifully filmed, and plentiful. For a change, computer graphics are used with restraint and to augment the action, rather to replace it with meaningless spectacle. The editing, although fast paced, retains the spacial logic of the sequences so we can follow the action. We aren’t bombarded with frivolous cuts simply to pacify the attention span of video gamers.

In place of the ghastly, bombastic, cartoony score of Danny Elfman, who has to be the most overrated composer in Hollywood, we get the relatively subtle, evocative score of James Newton Howard and Hans Zimmer.

In place of the hoary, underbaked scenario of Batman Begins, we get an urgent and resonant narrative. Both Batman Begins and The Dark Knight are long movies, but whereas Batman Begins felt bloated and ponderous, The Dark Knight takes on the complex feel of a Tolstoy novel. It earns it’s length. And that’s the greatest improvement. The script.

You see, Batman’s crimefighting methods have brought the Joker (Heath Ledger) out of the woodwork. Bruce Wayne would love nothing better than to retire Batman and turn the duty of protecting Gotham City over to citizens like crusading District Attorney Harvey Dent (a terrific Aaron Eckhart), but the Joker’s dedication to anarchy is going to make that hard.

Scriptwriters Jonathan Nolan and Christopher Nolan have come up with numerous creative strategies for the Joker to accomplish his goal — to show the futility of attempting to dictate order in a random universe. Alfred the butler says that the Joker only wants to watch the world burn, but that trivializes his motive, which is essentially philosophic and quite profound. The Joker is a anarchist true believer and that is the reason he cannot be bargained with.

To director/writer Christopher Nolan’s credit, he makes an excellent case for the Joker’s worldview. In fact, he makes such a good case that a climactic plot development, which hinges on a more hopeful take on the human condition, doesn’t quite ring true.

Heath Ledger takes the character of the Joker, which is a bit of a philosophical conceit, and fleshes it out into a human being. Ledger manages to turn the Joker into a real person, and that’s scary. The Joker is the second and unfortunately, the last of Ledger’s great performances, worthy of being placed alongside his turn in Brokeback Mountain.

There is quite a bit of philosophy in The Dark Knight, but unlike Batman Begins, it is integrated into the story. The screenwriters slip a bit towards the home stretch, where the speechifying takes over a bit, but by that time, they’ve earned the right to a little pomposity.

Another small criticism — towards the end of The Dark Knight, the music score is too high in the mix and all but drowns out the dialogue. You have to strain to hear what the characters are saying.

But in the end, The Dark Knight is awesome entertainment. Every cent of the 160 million dollar budget is up there on the screen. The script isn’t dumbed down for the audience, but instead challenges it’s viewers philosophically and ethically. The characters and their dilemmas are involving through the entire 152 minute running time. There are no dead spots. In short, The Dark Knight is easily one of the best films of the year.