Two-Faced Review of "The Dark Knight"

[snurri]

Did I enjoy this film? Yes. Does it have problems? Many.

Heath Ledger = Good. Amazing, actually. Also sad.

Batman's Voice = Bad. Maybe it would be bad if he sounded like Bruce Wayne, but I kept waiting for Gordon to offer him a lozenge.

Maggie Gyllenhall = Wasted, and in a girlfriend-in-the-refrigerator sort of way. On top of Dr. Horrible I find this very tiring and frustrating.

The Ferry Dilemma = An unaccountably optimistic note in an unrelentingly dark film. Also, is it not usual for, I don't know, ANYONE from the crew to inspect the engine room before launch?

Morgan Freeman = Apparently because he played god in those Almighty movies we are to be reassured that he can play god with universal surveillance. Am still scratching my head over the "Wow this is extremely problematic"/"Yup it is let's go ahead with it" meta-commentary the filmmakers left in.

Beating Up Dogs = Uncool, Chris Sims notwithstanding.

Gary Oldman = Was acting for a different and slightly better film than this one. Best Commissioner Gordon ever.

Car/Van/Motorcycle/Semi Chases = Eh. I did like the convoy delivering Harvey to County lockup, and the mysterious driver -- Is it the Joker? No, it must be Bruce. No . . . oh, I get it.

Aaron Eckhart = Balances Ledger's performance in a very quiet and easy-to-overlook way. Also:

Two-Face Makeup = Incredibly perfect, and creepy, and wrong.

Michael Caine = In some ways he feels like the emotional center of this film, which is saying something. But:

Alfred = Makes less and less sense the more that comics and film writers develop his backstory -- why the hell is this guy serving drinks at cocktail parties?

The Trip to Hong Kong = Probably what tipped the story over into slightly-bloated territory, because it distracted from:

The Joker's Attempts to Turn Gotham's Citizens On Each Other, the City Government, the Cops, the D.A., and Batman = Could have been brilliant, and had some nice moments. But as mentioned above, the ferry bit contradicted it in a rather unbelievable messy and not-that-interesting way, and in the end the film allows Batman and Gordon to embrace:

The Idea That In Order to Protect the Citizenry, We Must Present Attractive Lies To Distract From the Fact That Said Protection Comes At the Expense of Their Civil Liberties = Appalling. Granted that this is Batman all over, but the film endorses it on both overt and symbolic levels (see: Alfred burning Rachel's letter) while only making the most cursory of nods towards the idea that just maybe this is notsogood. Really, ick.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

David, I'm actually writing a bloggasm article about the Batman/dog thing, currently trying to get hold of someone at PETA for an interview. Given you've written a book about superheros and you've done a number of film reviews, I was wondering if you'd be willing to be interviewed for my article. Please shoot me an email at simon.bloggasm@gmail.com if you're interested.

[nomissnewo.livejournal.com]

whoops that was me.

[snurri.livejournal.com]

Hey Simon, I got your email and I just sent a response (actually two). Hope you got it already.

[haddayr.livejournal.com]

Dave, you are one picky bastard.

And now that you and Jan have already seen it, who am I going to see this with?

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

[snurri.livejournal.com]

Thankyewveddymuch.

I am not wholly averse to seeing it again, despite the problems I have with it. We will talk.

Dark Knight

[kellyshaw.livejournal.com]

Thank you for writing an even-handed, honest review. I enjoyed this movie quite a bit and agree with most of your assessments. However, all the heavy-handed praise ("this movie's ... awesome, amazing, the best of the year, etc., etc.") is making me turn on it. More folks need to write reviews like this. It helps release us form the hype.

Re: Dark Knight

[snurri.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm not too keyed into the "Greatest Movie Ever" stuff. But then I am allergic to hype and contrary by nature. Still, I did like the film; it's just that once you start thinking about it it becomes much creepier.

[stephl.livejournal.com]

I pretty much agree with you on everything you said. I'm not as over-the-moon as some are about Ledger's performance, but I think that would have been impossible, given what a big cynic I am. The trailers were loaded with the best of the Joker's one-liners, out of context (of course), so that when I heard them in the movie, I was jerked out of the story.

The Joker scene I loved the most was right after Rachel was blown up, when the Joker was leaning out the window of the police cruiser and there was no dialogue, no ambient chaotic background noise of Gotham, just the orchestral soundtrack (not orchestral like Beethoven, but, you know, like the soundtrack for a different movie -- a movie about a boy and his dog, let's say), and he looked *blissful.* That small moment was outstanding.

Batman's Voice = Bad. Maybe it would be bad if he sounded like Bruce Wayne, but I kept waiting for Gordon to offer him a lozenge.

Not to mention the obvious lisp (we sat in the third row -- not on purpose; just a case of bad timing -- and it was distracting actually seeing him press his tongue against his teeth for the Bat-lisp).

The Ferry Dilemma = An unaccountably optimistic note in an unrelentingly dark film.

I was truly waiting for the reveal that each ferry had its own detonator all along. Once the convict tossed his ferry's detonator out the window, if angry!conflicted!guy on the other ferry turned his detonator's key and we cut to the convicts looking on in horror as the other ferry exploded -- well, that kind of reverse mind-fuck is exactly what I expected out of the Joker. (And it's what he did with Rachel and Harvey anyway.)

Beating Up Dogs = Uncool, Chris Sims notwithstanding.

Seriously. I did a double-take (no pun intended) at that.

Gary Oldman = Was acting for a different and slightly better film than this one. Best Commissioner Gordon ever.

As with Batman Begins, I am just astonished at how fantastic Oldman is as Gordon. Way back, when casting was announced for Batman Begins, I was appalled at the casting of Oldman (and Bale, actually), and I happily eat my words on that (on both actors, in point of fact).

Aaron Eckhart = Balances Ledger's performance in a very quiet and easy-to-overlook way.

Eckhart's performance MADE the film for me. I said once that, inasmuch as Batman Begins is really a character study, it's as much about Gordon (perhaps more so) than Bruce Wayne. Well, in that vein, The Dark Knight was so, SO much Harvey Dent's movie, rather than Batman's.

Which is why his injury (uh, yeah, "injury" = "Getting Blowed Up REAL Good") and subsequent flipping out was so heartbreaking to me.

Alfred = Makes less and less sense the more that comics and film writers develop his backstory -- why the hell is this guy serving drinks at cocktail parties?

Right? I was wondering the same thing! Plus, when did he have the time to go chase bad guys in the jungles of Where-in-the-Hell if he was busy working for the Waynes? (Alternatively, when did he have time to work for the Waynes if he was so busy chasing bad guys down in the jungles of Where-in-the-Hell?)

[snurri.livejournal.com]

What I liked about Ledger was that he was both funny and scary; funny in the way that makes you feel bad for laughing, and also in the way that you laugh when you worry that you may be in trouble. Too often lately, in the comics, the Joker is either scary but not funny or (more often) neither.

I too was waiting to find out that the detonators on the ferries had been switched. And yet I also didn't care all that much, because the movie was beginning to drag by that point.

Alfred is, I think, the part of the Batman mythos that grates on folks who have any sort of class awareness, and hence there's been a rash of rationalization for his role in Bruce's life. It's kind of out of control at this point.

[ide-cyan.livejournal.com]

kind of reverse mind-fuck is exactly what I expected out of the Joker.

Ditto. And after all he'd been up to, I thought that the police were really dumb in the scene with the skyscraper under construction. I mean, sheesh. And, hello, Batman, maybe you could take 30 seconds out of beating the crap out of cops to, you know, telephone Gordon and tell him about the reversal. Or did you forget to include a cellphone in your nifty hi-tech accessories?

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

Presumably Alfred fought with the British Army in Asia as a young man just after the Second World War. This gives him plenty of time to become the Waynes' faithful retainer. I'm pretty sure he wasn't born into service!

I don't think the cocktails thing is particular odd either. This is a persona in the same way the public Bruce Wayne is a persona.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

while only making the most cursory of nods towards the idea that just maybe this is notsogood. Really, ick.

See, I thought the nod in that direction was fairly strong -- e.g. the press conference in which Dent is saying "we don't want the Batman to turn himself in because of the joker!" and everyone else is saying "actually yes, yes we do!"

[snurri.livejournal.com]

I didn't read that as a comment on the civil liberties question so much as an attempt to show us how the Joker's plan had begun to work, turning the populace against their heroes temporarily, until his threat was nullified. The thematic equivalent of Gordon not telling his family about the faked death but being quickly forgiven.

[bondgwendabond.livejournal.com]

YES. And I think I even had problems you didn't have (Batman's response to Rachel's death -- brood harder!). If Christian Bale ever had to act in one of these movies, I'd fall over. Seriously, he has nothing to do, and it was painfully clear when contrasted by Ledger as Joker.

I would have actually been okay with the boat ending (assuming any of the several hundred logical issues with how it played out were fixed), had it been the ending, and, again, been executed more logically and with less smug sureness on Batman's part that he knows the outcome in advance. I don't think we really needed anything with Harvey Dent post hospital scene, and the whole second ending completely undercuts the boat stuff because suddenly the people of Gotham can't be trusted, because they can't survive the news that a politician (essentially) went evil? PLEASE.

[snurri.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I felt bad for Bale when I started thinking about this film, because he can act, but he had even less to do in this film than in the first. Too many characters and too much time in costume.

I guess the thing about your boat ending idea is that it points out that there were several different approaches they could have taken to streamlining the film, and they didn't go with any of them. They could have dropped the gangsters and the crooked cops and focused on the Joker's manipulation of the populace. They could have forgotten about the HK extradition crap. But yeah, as you say, first they'd have to get their arguments right, and the people of Gotham don't get to be both venal and noble at the exact same time.