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DokBrowne [ 9.5 ]
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Damn, I forgot to review this at the time, so my diminished memory has nothing to add. It was brilliant in all the ways everyone said. My only real nitpicks are:
1) still too many one-liners. For all its grandeur, intensity, and nuance, the movie still fucking succumbs to that syndrome, so prevalent throughout the "Batman" saga (even in Nolan's "Begins"). There are a lot of winky asides throughout the entire film - not that I can begrudge a sense of humor, and pardon my pretentiousness, but these concessions to the popcorn-blockbuster mentality feel especially cringe-worthy and out-of-place in a movie as artfully dramatic as this
2) the hyperbolic closing minutes. Yes, the movie builds up to Gordon's final message, and there's no problem with the writing, but it felt like a thousand bricks smashed into my face. A bit bombastic, that is.
Otherwise, wow wow wow
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jeff_v [ 8.0 ]
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This is the first Batman movie I've ever really liked, and I hope (vainly, I'm sure) that it's the last Batman movie --it really seems like the last word on the guy. I'll join the chorus of praise for Heath Ledger, and pipe up for Aaron Eckhart and Gary Oldman as well. Bale still sounds silly with his mean football coach voice, and he is overshadowed by the supporting cast. I am intrigued by the reading that this film depicts a justification for the illegal activities of the Bush administration. One doesn't have to conclude that because it was messy and painful and resulted in everyone hating him, that it wasn't the right thing to do.
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Dancing_P [ 9.0 ]
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I was kind of ready to hate this. Even as a big fan of Batman Begins, I doubted comparison to the Godfather Part II and anguished screams of hall-of-fame awesomeness. For once, the masses aren't exactly on crack. It's not quite the mindblowing film it's touted as; few films could be. It nonetheless transcends genre in the way the best genre gilms do, creating a mini-epic packed with moral ambiguities and memorable setpieces. It's true that screaming 'best comic book adaptation yet' happens every time a new one comes out but this time it might stay like that for a while.
Gotham City is once again overrun by crime, a slew of Batman wannabes having taken it upon themselves to fight crime on their own terms. The real Batman (Christian Bale) is struggling with his personal life as his One True Love (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is getting married to his good friend Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart). He gets back to his old habits, however, when a myserious and maniacal terrorist known as the Joker (Heath Ledger) assaults Gotham.
It's hard to know where to start; it's a rich, multi-pronged story that organically grows into a film than a bunch of intertwined instances of fan service. Moreso than any other comic book movie, The Dark Knight distances itself from its origins. Things happen because they should happen, not because that's the way it happened in the comics. Its operatic heights can come off as a little unwarranted in spots; it seems to be trying a little too hard to be serious and dark and tormented but if it means we're spared the handful of dumb one-liners that were chucked into the first film, I'll deal.
It's dark, broody and consistently surprising in the way it eschews cliches of big budget action films - like the best films, it transcends genre. There's of course much to be said about Ledger's chop-licking, scenery chewing performance. It's just as good as you'd expect, a no-holds-barred OTT Method-fest that ranks with the greatest of the broadest. Just because it's more grounded than Nicholson's borderline-vaudevillian take doesn't make it anything more than a full-throttle bit of scenery chewing. This is, after all, a movie about a crazy dude who dresses up like a bat to fight crime, no matter how hard Nolan tries to make us forget it.
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chapter11 [ 10.0 ]
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Holy shit, what a phenomenal movie. One of a surprising host of movies this year that have managed to transcend their genre-y roots to deliver real, deep, dramatic goods, there's a huge poss that "Dark Knight" may be the best - not of the genre pictures or the comic-book flicks, but the best film of the year, period.
Sounds hyperbolic, true. And I promptly made sure I saw it twice to get my stance on it straight, and allowed myself a lot of stewing. But consider how a film character previously mined for popcorn-y results - a comic book character of startling psychological depth and dramatic possibility reduced to the fetishized, cartoonish Batman of Joel Schumacher's "Batman & Robin" - has, in the capable hands of Chris Nolan and his dramatic team, come to deliver the dramatic goods, in perhaps the only popcorn movie this millenium to even approach these levels of operatic Shakespearean tragedy. It even dwarfs the wholly welcome reimagining "Batman Begins" by comparison.
Some stuff:
- Heath Ledger. I mean, Jesus Christ, dude. I was worried that I'd get too caught up in the death-rattle laugh, start self-consciously reminding myself that i'm watching a dead guy's swan song, but no - his Joker is so full of both death AND life that he, originless, paradoxically remains the most alive thing in this movie. He is fascinating in both his reason and his lack thereof, and Ledger plays him to the hilt, tempering the inevitable camp factor of his diabolical cackle with genuine, frightening psychosis.
- Christian Bale is essentially a supporting character in his own movie. An ensemble piece, it's perfectly played by the Caped Crusader, but he's shown up by the smaller roles. Gary Oldman's quiet nobility - so on display in "Begins" - makes him the moral epicenter of this picture, and he's actually a lot more riveting to watch than one would expect a subdued Oldman (remember, this is the bad guy from "The Professional", one of the hammiest, most vile villains ever) to be. And Aaron Eckhart is pitch-perfect from go, steely and square-jawed, an incredibly interesting character -- my only complaint with the movie, in fact, is that his inevitable (heartbreaking) character arc seems slightly rushed. I almost wish that another half-hour could have existed to explore it, thus making "Dark Knight" one of the only movies that my notoriously ADD mind actually wants to be LONGER.
- This film just contains scene after scene of potential classic all-time film moments: the opening heist recalls Mann's "Heat", the relentless mid-film interrogation scene the stuff of absolute fucking cinematic genius, and the Joker's "pencil trick" the most instantly classic moment to ever come from a Batman flick. And that's to say nothing about the transformed Harvey Dent's reveal, the intriguing moral conundrum that arises from two ferries full of people wired to blow, or the haunting scene in which two doomed lovers comfort each other before the storm, a scene pregnant with dread and absolute, gut-churning heartache.
- I could talk about this movie for fucking days. I believe I could watch it for days. I should stop before I go too far, but yeah... there's no excuse for missing this. At the very least, it's the greatest big-budget blockbuster flick of the millenium thus far.
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| Weighted Rating | : 7.9 |
| No. Ratings | : 15 | |
| No. Reviews | : 7 | |
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