And oh yes: Dark Knight

[annathepiper]

Lest I forget to mention: solarbird, spazzkat, and I went to go see The Dark Knight this past Friday. Picoreview: dark dark darkity dark, with a heaping helping of dark on top, and would you like some dark with that?


As expected, Heath Ledger pretty much owns the movie. Of the incarnations of the Joker with which I am familiar (read: Cesar Romero, Jack Nicholson, Mark Hamill's excellent animated Joker, and now this one), I think this one creeps me out the most. Sure, the Joker in general is a psychopath, but Mark Hamill's Joker in general seems to have a bit more of the Funny going on, whereas Ledger's has way more emphasis going on the Creepy. I particularly liked how he changed the story of how he got his scars each time he told it. And that constant licking his lips... brr. Coming out of the hospital in the nurse's outfit and whacking his detonator remote to trigger off that one last explosion... also brr!

Aaron Eckhart is excellent as Harvey Dent, and in his way is almost as creepy as the Joker as he spirals down into becoming Two-Face. He was particularly effective when Batman busts in to rescue him in that warehouse and he's screaming in anguish about why he's there to rescue him instead of going to Rachel.

Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, and Morgan Freeman are all solid. Maggie Gyllenhaal did a decent job though she didn't actually make much of a dent in my awareness. I had a bit of a hard time buying Bruce and Rachel still having any chemistry--though I suppose that was really part of the point, neh? One of the subtler bits I really liked was Bruce, with a dull ache in his voice, telling Alfred that Rachel had been going to come back to him--and Alfred, who has of course already read Rachel's "Dear Bruce" dump note, takes it back before Bruce can see it.

drglam has pointed out that the guy who played the Mayor of Gotham is actually the same actor who played Batmanuel in the live-action version of The Tick. Which amuses me greatly. Dara and I both thought that he looked vaguely familiar, but we couldn't place him at the time!

I quite liked that Gordon got promoted up to Commissioner in this movie, though the Joker's assassinations bringing that about was pretty grim.

I loved the subplot with the little weaselly guy figuring out who Batman is, and coming to Lucius to deliver his blackmail threat. Lucius' response is pure gold: "Let me get this straight. You think that your employer, one of the wealthiest, most powerful men in the world, is spending his nights running around the city beating criminals to a pulp with his bare hands. And your plan is to blackmail this person? Good luck."

And the followup to this, when Bruce deliberately crashes his Lamborghini to save Weaselly Guy's life--and Weaselly Guy KNOWS what just happened there--beautiful.

The bit with the cellphones bothered me. As it should have. I was at least pleased that Lucius put his foot down at Bruce about the system existing. And that the machine self-destructed at the end after Lucius typed in that last password.

The standoff with the ferries... also very effective and one of the few things counteracting the almost unremitting darkity dark of the movie. I was totally expecting one or the other of the ferries to go up.

And that last standoff between Batman and the Joker... yow. "I think you and I are destined to do this forever," indeed. I was intrigued to note that the Joker is not in fact killed off... and, for that matter, that it's ambiguous about whether Two-Face dies. I read this morning that Aaron Eckhart said he'd totally return to the role if called upon to do so, which would suggest that they didn't really kill him off.

And man, the bit at the end where Batman is clearly about to keel over from exhaustion, and yet he pulls it together enough to tell Gordon to set Harvey Dent up as a hero and to accuse him of the five deaths... and then to run like hell.

Yow.

Very solid movie all around. I think I slightly prefer the first one just because of a little less overwhelming darkity dark, yet I can't think of anywhere in this plot where you could cut back a bit on said dark and have it be as effective a plot.

It'll be real interesting to see what they do with a third film. Because there will be one. $300 mil in ten days pretty much guarantees it. ;)

Comments

Some spoilers here if anyone cares

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

I liked DK. I thought it was a good, solid action film with a damn good cast of solid actors. Yes, Heath Ledger stole it, but the rest were hardly slackers.

It is, however, a comic book-based action flick. It is not the Second Coming of Citizen Kane (not that I personally think Citizen Kane is all that Citizen Kane either), and some of the praise heaped upon it has been just a tad OTT. There were some really irritating plot idiocies, times when you have to wonder why one or two characters didn't just make a phone call, except that making a phone call would have rendered unnecessary a good action scene.

My first thought about the ferries (and as it turned out, at least one other person I saw the film with thought the same) was why the hell were these people trusting the word of a psychopath who kills people for entertainment? Who knows what would happen if you press that button? Maybe it wouldn't blow up what you expect. Maybe it would blow up yourself....

The film was entertaining enough to hold my attention for 2.5 hours without it feeling too long, entertaining enough that I can ignore the plot defects for a fun time and not mind. Film of the year? Hardly! But, yeah, I liked the set-up for a follow-on, with a Batman alone.

Re: Some spoilers here if anyone cares

[annathepiper]

Dara thought the same thing you did in the ferry sequence, yeah: to wit, why the hell are these people trusting the word of the JOKER?

As for this film not being the Second Coming of Citizen Kane, *snicker*, yeah well. I think this film's getting extra praise because of Heath Ledger more than anything else. But then, dude did turn in a very chilling performance, and he's passed away and such, so I'm willing to cut people slack for effusive gushing at this flick.

Me, I'm way more prone to effusively gushing over the LOTR flicks, or Master and Commander. ;)

Spoiler-y response.

[akadriver.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed the movie quite a lot, and was tickled pink when I recognized Nestor Carbonell. My husband was having a hard time placing him as well, so don't feel bad. I also had a Northern Exposure geek moment when I recognized the business man (Don Ballard) who was going to press the trigger as being Ron. :) That one took me a bit longer, as the lack of hair threw me.

I think Heath Ledger's performance was absolutely amazing. Can you imagine what he would have been doing at 40? I really think he would have become something truly phenomenal if he had lived.

I wish they would actually end the movies here, because I think anything after this is going to be a huge letdown. However, I think $300 mil in ten days means there pretty much will be a sequel.

Re: Spoiler-y response.

[annathepiper]

Ah, I never watched much of Northern Exposure, so I didn't place the businessman at all.

And yeah, everybody's commented already about what a tragedy Ledger's loss is... but damn. The man turned into a chilling performance. And this was when he was still pretty young, indeed; just the thought of what he might have become with more seasoning on him just really makes it that much more tragic.

It'll be hard to follow this movie up well, yeah. Though I'm absolutely certain there will be an attempt. I'm just hoping that it doesn't succumb to the third movie curse for a franchise, and that whatever third movie we get is as good as the first two. And that if we get Catwoman or the Penguin or the Riddler showing up, that they are done in a suitably gritty manner.

[annathepiper]

I did indeed catch the names of the ferries. :)

One does hope that Two-Face remains dead, yeah; since they're playing this version of the Batman universe pretty straight, it would strain credulity were he to have survived that fall. We'll see!

We didn't bother with IMAX; we saw it at the Woodinville theater which was perfectly acceptable.

[hubbit.livejournal.com]

Being a Chicagoan, I had an added perspective on the movie, because most outdoor Gotham shots were done near where I work. Anywhere else in the country, people are gripping the edges of their seats as the action flies by them; HERE, people are shouting out "Oh, look, the Chicago Board of Trade!" "Hey, that's City Hall!" "Wow, Wayne Penthouse is across the street from Marina Towers!" "BINNY'S LIQUORS!!!"

Most of us recognized the Gotham Bank as Chicago's Old Post Office, although Northern Trust Bank stood in for itself in one outdoor shot. The hospital that the Joker blew up was, in fact, the old Brach's candy factory, which had been slated for demolition. (BTW, there is a local joke during the hospital evac scene...most of the patients are in school buses, but one bus is a Chicago Transit Authority bus whose logo had been modified from "cta" to "gta".)

You got to see the Chicago River with a couple of its bridges during one outdoor panic scene in which traffic was at a standstill; the ferries, however, were not shot here. No one ferries across Lake Michigan, it's too wide.

Also: Gary Oldman as Commissioner Gordon....why so Sirius?

[annathepiper]

Hee, that's got to be pretty neat, watching a major blockbuster movie set in the city you live in. Very cool.

"Sirius"... *snerk* I fear I'm missing a joke here. :)

[hubbit.livejournal.com]

Gary Oldman plays Sirius Black in the Harry Potter movies.

[annathepiper]

Oh right, duh. Hee! :)

[llachglin.livejournal.com]

I love dark, so this one wins out over the last one. I need to see it again when I'm not so exhausted, because through no fault of the movie I was fighting to stay awake during most of the final act and missed a lot, including the resolution aboard the prisoner ferry. Well, OK, this might be a slight fault of the movie--it was probably one act too long, but on the other hand I'm not sure what if anything I would cut to make it shorter.

In summary, I would have liked it more without as much action, and keeping all the darkness and character bits. Maybe cut the ferry bit and the silly cell phone radar technology and just go straight to the resolution.

Edit: It also occurs to me that they could probably have cut the Hong Kong scene to make the movie just a bit shorter, though it was one of the few light moments so I can see why they kept it.

[annathepiper]

Oh, I don't have anything against dark per se, it's just that this movie in particular was a bit... much. At least, it was Friday night when we saw it. I may feel differently next time I see it!

I think they could have easily ditched the cell phone radar thing, yeah.

[bloody-keri.livejournal.com]

I really didn't care for the movie overall, but I LOVED Heath Ledger and he was its saving grace for me. He was, in a word, awesome.

"WHY....SO.....SERIOUS???" (shudder)

[annathepiper]

*nodnodnod* Creeped me RIGHT OUT. I think he pulls ahead of Mark Hamill's Joker for me--Hamill does do a fabulous Joker, and don't get me wrong, he's pretty psycho as Hamill voices him. But that version of the Joker doesn't creep me out so much as Ledger's does!