Jul
18
“The Dark Knight” Review
Filed Under Blockbusters, Comics, Movies
The following review is spoiler-free.
Before the movie even started last night, I was already thinking about my review. How would I make it different from all the other reactions to this, clearly the most talked-about movie of the year? Unless I wound up hating it, I began to fear that I’d just sound like every other overly effusive web-critic. I absolutely wanted my experience seeing the film to be different in some way.
Then, about 30 minutes into the movie, some joker at the ArcLight Hollywood pulled the fire alarm. The screen went dark. Lights began flashing. A klaxon whooped. I cupped my hands over my mouth in horror, like those women in 1950s science-fiction movies about giant insects or aliens with exposed brains. Yeah, I thought, my review’s going to be different — different in that I’ll be talking about just the first act.
Pissed-off Bat-fans began filing out of the auditorium, not to escape a firey death, but to scream at some poor usher who makes $7.50/hour. We were going to watch the remaining two hours of this movie even if the theater burned down around us. Word quickly filtered back into the auditorium that it had been a false alarm, and the movie would start back up again where we’d left off; I believe Morgan Freeman had been in the middle of saying something.
I wasn’t infuriated by what had happened. Some movie-goers take opportunities such as these to play the part of the unhappy customer. But I’ve been an usher during a crisis (once the audio was out-of-synch with the picture during a showing of “Entrapment” at my theater way back when), so I can empathize with all those schmucks in nametags and crappy uniforms, facing down an angry mob with torches, pitchforks and JuJu Bees.
It took about 15 minutes, but the movie started back up again. I guess I should quit hemming and hawing now and review the monster already. So, as the Joker says in the flick, “Here…we…go!”
The movie is set a year after the events of “Batman Begins.” The arrest of mobster Carmine Falcone in movie one has left a power vacuum in Gotham City. Crime bosses are at their wit’s end. A masked vigilante called The Batman (Bruce Wayne) is inspiring honest cops like Lt. Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman) and the new D.A. Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) to put the squeeze on organized criminals, hitting them where it hurts — in their wallets. But there’s this other character on the streets of Gotham — a purple-suited lunatic with crumbling ghost-white facepaint, dark rings around his eyes and a permanent grin carved into his face. He calls himself The Joker. And wait until you see his pencil trick.
Heath Ledger’s Joker warrants a paragraph of his own, I think. Constantly smacking his lips as though he can taste the menace he exudes, and rattling off a different origin story to each of his victims, Ledger reinvents the role completely. His bizarre speech cadence seems specifically designed to keep you off-kilter. The genius of his crimes, particularly the bank heist at the top of the film, suggests a method to his madness and that’s to drive others even madder. What I like most about this take on the Joker is that he’s not about to use some doomsday weapon, like that goofy microwave emitter in “Batman Begins,” on the city. No, the Joker’s carefully constructed plan to bring the city to its knees involves kidnappings, bombings and presenting the film’s heroes — Batman, Gordon and Dent — with some good, old-fashioned comic book moral dilemmas.
If I had one criticism of the film, it’s that “The Dark Knight” is a bit overwhelming. There’s just so much going on. You can’t process it all with a single viewing. It goes so many places superhero movies have avoided. This being the first sequel, of course the titular hero wants to quit, but that’s about the one and only genre convention the script hadn’t massaged out.
Director and co-writer Chrispher Nolan is more confident this time around. His “Batman Begins” feels like a smallish character study when stacked against this film. Here, he brings a larger degree of IMAX-friendly scope, but an even stronger attention to character than the first movie. This film is less about Batman than its predecessor, something I imagine will be a concern among some fans, but the attention is shifted to Harvey Dent. His thread in the film is the most shattering. When he’s ultimately disfigured and transformed into Two-Face, the horror of his predicament externalizes the destruction of the man within. Eckhart’s performance in the film has been undeservedly overlooked as everyone’s busy trying to will a posthumous Oscar nod into existence for Ledger. But Eckhart does some of the best work of his career in this film as well.
All that being said, is “The Dark Knight” worthy of the Oscar buzz? Well, I’m not the world’s biggest fan of awards shows, and a pile of Oscars won’t bring back Heath Ledger. We’re so much the poorer for his passing. This film is a testament to his talents as an actor. It honors him just as any golden statuette would.
“The Dark Knight” sets a new standard for the superhero genre, coming at the tail end of a summer loaded with game-changing movies about masked men. It’s satisfying, it’s unsettling, it’s a movie you’ll be talking about long after you leave the theater. To paraphrase the Joker (he’s got all the best lines), it’ll put a smile on that face.
-Brad Lohan
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