MOVIE REVIEW: THE DARK KNIGHT
Posted on | July 18, 2008
CHRISTIAN BALE - Bruce/Batman
MICHAEL CAINE - Alfred
HEATH LEDGER - The Joker
GARY OLDMAN- Lt. Gordon
AARON ECKHART- Harvey Dent/Two-Face
MAGGIE GYLLENHAL - Rachael
MORGAN FREEMAN - Lucius Fox
Created By:
Bob Kane
Screenplay by:
Jonathan Nolan &
Christopher Nolan
Directed by:
Christopher Nolan
It was inevitable.
The second 911 was called people were going to be saying that this was Heath Ledger’s swan song.
And it is.
It is, in short, breath-taking.
Heath Ledger as Jack Twist in “Brokeback Mountain” was mind numbing. As a gay man, a gay man who’s a romantic…his performance in that movie bled me dry.
At the end, him pulling the hangered clothes broke me dry. I hadn’t cried that much since “Schindler’s List” when you finally realize just why that one little girl was in colour and everything else harsh black and white.
I’m saying this, a former actor, jealous of real talent; this man can, NO! Could act.
What a waste, a shame, a blessed shame, whatever you want to say, his loss is palpable.
So, this is not an obituary. This is a movie review, so let’s cut to the chase, shall we?
I loved, LOVED, the Tim Burton’s original Batman. Creating the Joker as the man who created the Batman to begin with, who then in turn created the Joker….
Are you confused?
I’m not because Tim Burton’s visuals were so clear and stunning that there was no lingering doubt as to whom created whom.
The Joker in the Batman comics is so vague in historical documents that creating the idea of him is a feat in and of itself.
You can write and re-write that origin. Hell, a meteor falling from Venus could have infected a single celled organism and you could create the Joker.
More than any other villain in either the DC Universe or the Marvel Universe has the breadth and expanse of writing a history.
Lex Luthor’s origin1, Doc Oc2, Sinestro3: All have been explained so clearly.
The Joker? He is, was, and always will be pliable. To be able to play that as an actor? It will be Heath Ledger’s, Jack Nicholson and Cesar Romero’s Hamlet.
It’s almost biblical.
One begets the other.
Jack Nicholson’s Joker was exemplary. A performance that was, in my opinion, overlooked by Academy Voter’s.
Heath’s? It probably won’t. And it’s not JUST the performance but the sympathy as well.
Let’s be honest, there are a dozen brilliant performances obliterated every year. “Pass-overs” that aren’t invited to the Vanity Fair party on a yearly basis.
Heath will get nominated. He will. There’s no doubt about it. And it’s a marriage of the sympathy vote but also we’re not going to forget his performance.
It’s brilliant. It is. And it IS Oscar worthy.
OK, I’m still on the “obit” section aren’t I? Enough with that.
The movie.
You all know, if you’re a faithful reader, that I LOVE comic book movies. I always have and I probably always will.
They are, for the most part, opera. Extremes that face extremes. It is the closest you can get to “Don Giovanni ” in this day and age.
Man is born.
Man gets short end of the stick.
Man finds courage where he never knew had it.
This applies to so many of the “hero’s” we grew up with.
Now if you’re a Lesbian, turn man into Woman and think DIANA PRINCE.
Superman was born with his abilities. And thank God he used them for good, having good ol’ Pa Kent to guide the way.
Diana was born a Princess and an Amazon. Both were bred to their positions.
Hal Jordan, the Green Lantern, arguably my favourite superhero of all time….Grasped in the clutches of Abin Sur4 had no choice but to become the Guardian of sector 28145.
Batman was created by his surroundings. He was created by a time, place, situation that bred him to become who he is.
Christian Bale is undeniably marvelous as the Caped Crusader, finding a wonderful niche, a groove - if you will, that honours the duality of Bruce Wayne and the Batman.
In this movie, though, he has top billing but it’s those around Bale that really get to play.
Michael Cain and Morgan Freeman are still as reliable as ever, delivering bouts of wisdom as if they had been sent down from the mountain, stone tablets in hand, offering the word the God.
But you know when Cain and Freeman sign on to do a movie that they’re going to give solid performances.
It’s Aaron Eckhart who, marvelous in “Thank You For Smoking”, holds his own quite brilliantly beside Ledger. His turn as the ill-fated “Two-Face” is believable in every scene he’s in.
Maggie Gyllenhaal said in an interview about taking the role from Katie Holmes that Katie had “lobbed a tennis ball” and she (Maggie) was just sending it back.
No, that’s incorrect.
I certainly don’t want to get on the Katie bashing bandwagon6 but Maggie’s Rachael Dawes is far more fully realized than Holmes’ could ever hope to be. With all due respect to Mrs. Cruise, Gyllenhaal is just a finer actor.
I, for one, was thrilled Holmes turned it down to make the box office bomb “Mad Money”.
Before I get onto Ledger I want to give proper aplomb to one of the finest actor’s ever. Gary Oldman who has usually played the bad guy (his and William Hurt’s performance in “Lost In Space” were the only two things that saved it for me.)) brings to life the usually cardboard stoicism of Chief Commissioner Jim Gordon.
In the original series, he was bled into being the jockstrap of the Batman. The joke who would pick up the “red phone”.
Pat Hingle is a fine actor but even he couldn’t realize Gordon off the page. Oldman does it with an honesty that gives you the sense that this whole world; Gotham itself, is real.
But it’s Ledger’s movie.
Regardless of overdoses, mixed medications and the stabbing painful realization that he’ll never work again, Heath Ledger walks away with this film.
His joy in being beaten, loving it like the sadistic patient, played by Bill Murray, in “Little Shop Of Horrors ” and his constantly changing story about how he got his “scars”.
I haven’t been that creeped-out by a sinister performance since Anthony Hopkins in “Silence Of The Lambs.”
You know that sucking in air he does after he says to Clarice, “A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti.” That still brings the miniscule hairs on my arm stand on guard. Like something bad is going to happen.
Ledger has more than one of those moments. Many in fact. So many that I actually made noises of protest before anything really happened. Just the “thought” of it happening under Heath’s masterful performance made me squirm.
And the thing is Nolan didn’t placate it. He didn’t give you the end result that you thought you’d get and that’s what made it even more horrific.
Ledger’s voice, let’s talk about that. It seemed to come from a different place. Not the diaphragm, not the lungs, not even the throat but from what seemed his own, personal, surround sound.
I’m positive that there were no tricks added to his timbre. That, from what I can gather from the interviews, is his voice.
And his walk. So character specific. You know it’s the Joker even when he’s camouflaged. One of the tricks I learned in acting school was the “walk”.
It was the Joker’s walk. A petulant child’s walk.
The kind of walk that had just pulled the wings off a fly, walk.
You didn’t even need to see a face and you knew. The man is, no sorry Matilda, WAS, brilliant.
There is one moment that sent me into that place of - “I can’t believe how brilliant this is”.
I’ll wrap this up soon, I promise.
It’s between Gyllenhaal and The Joker when Rachael stands up and faces him. There is a drone of a note, a single note that at first you think is just background noise but then you realize it’s been there the entire time.
Pressing in on the ears and adding to the soundtrack in a way that makes us actually feel like we’re in the room.
The camera swirling around the two, which is an old trick but in the hands of Christopher Nolan becomes anything BUT cliché 
.
Nolan’s real talent is that he’s borrowed from not only the series (it’s hidden but it’s there), the Tim Burton masterpiece, the comics AND the standard-breaking Graphic Novel by Frank Miller.
You can see moments of Frank Miller’s “The Dark Knight Returns” scattered like shredded slips of paper throughout the film.
In fact, one of the things running around Warner Bros. studios in recharging the franchise, left bloodied and battered by Joel Schumacher, was that they would adapt Miller’s graphic novel with Clint Eastwood as the broken down Wayne.
Nolan saved us from that possibility, though, I have to say, I’d have been intrigued to see what would have come from that idea.
It’s the problem with Comic Book Movie Adaptations.
The fans think they know best.
It’s a very good piece of film. Not for the story but for the actor’s who gave us a sense of reality in an otherwise unrealistic world.
Now, if Nolan would only realize that I’m the ONLY person who could play The Riddler, we’d all be happy!
I paid 10 bucks for this film. I would have willingly paid $17.00
- possibly the greatest Villain of all time [↩]
- from Spiderman [↩]
- from the Green Lantern [↩]
- sounds almost like a Terrorist name but it’s not [↩]
- where Earth happens to be [↩]
- like shootin’ fish in a barrel [↩]
Comments
4 Responses to “MOVIE REVIEW: THE DARK KNIGHT”
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July 18th, 2008 @ 9:27 pm
“I certainly don’t want to get on the Katie bashing bandwagon6 but Maggie’s Rachael Dawes is far more fully realized than Holmes’ could ever hope to be. With all due respect to Mrs. Cruise, Gyllenhaal is just a finer actor.”
Why don’t you just be honest with yourself and admit to bashing Katie Holmes?
July 18th, 2008 @ 9:49 pm
Because I’m not actually bashing her. She is a mediocre actor with a limited range. She might grow into talent but right now, she just doesn’t have the same skill as Gyllenhaal. I could say the same that Gyllenhaal doesn’t have the same skill as Streep.
It’s impossible NOT to compare them, they’re playing the exact same role.
July 23rd, 2008 @ 1:41 pm
Gyllenhaal has that certain “something” that’s rare indeed.
Ledger will win the oscar. you read it right here. quote me next march. HE HAS IT!
-great review, btw and thanks for remembering Cesar Romero. Kids today would never ever EVER get him, but I’ll aways have a fond fear in my hear every time i think of him and his maniacal whoo hooohooohaaaa haaa haa laugh.
July 23rd, 2008 @ 1:58 pm
Thanks. How could one forget Ceaser Romero. Wasn’t he actually the very first Joker? I know there’s a silent/black and white Batman out there…