The Dark Knight: The Decision ’08 Review
With the Dark Knight potentially having the best opening weekend ever (it already has the best Friday, at $60 million), and with me being the complete geek that I am, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out how I spent MY Friday night. The theater I saw it at was showing it on 4 of 10 screens (it had the widest release over, with over 4,600 screens). The 7 o’clock show was NOT sold out, but it was pretty full – and judging from the crowds as I was leaving, that’s probably going to be the case on most of those screens – big crowd, but not every show a sellout.
Of course, it goes without saying that I saw it on a Digital DLP projector (what do you take me for, a neophyte?). So, that about wraps it up, so thanks for…oh, wait. Yeah, the movie.
Well, it’s getting rock-solid reviews, and it’s a rock-solid movie. I can highly recommend it, but I can’t give it four stars. There is a four-star movie hiding in plain sight here, but like most modern blockbusters, it’s at least 20 minutes too long, and for a movie with a very smart script (with the Nolans behind the camera and the typewriter, that’s no surprise), there are a couple of real clunker moments. One is probably not fair game, since I decided I would not include any spoilers, but the other I can safely discuss.
The Joker, at pivotal moments when he is about to do what he loves best (killing – there is a VERY high body count in this movie), tells two different stories of how he got scarred up. The implication is that he changes the story to suit the victim, and that neither is true…but there’s no payoff – no hint of the real story, no scene where he is confronted with his lies. It’s a small gripe, perhaps, but the sort of thing that keeps a movie from that four-star territory (after all, we should always assume, at least in a good film, that lines and scenes made the cut for a reason).
Still, the movie is at times quite stunning in its visuals – the action is flawlessly executed, the special effects pretty much seamless – though I’m sure such a huge production made use of CG, a lot of the action sequences have at least the appearance of being actually performed the old-fashioned way, with stuntmen, wrecked cars and buildings, and pyrotechnics galore. The story, as mentioned, is more than serviceable, and the movie only loses momentum a tiny bit, though its length will leave many weary.
Oh, and the Joker…well, it’s Heath Ledger’s last role, and he will definitely get a posthumous Oscar nod, and maybe the statue itself. After so much buildup, I was disappointed in Ledger’s performance at first. I guess I expected a more sinister, shadowy introduction to the character…but the malevolence begins to grow, and the performance grows in stature, as well. This Joker makes Jack Nicholson’s look, well, positively harmless. Make no mistake, Ledger’s Joker is a sadistic, murdering madman, and the movie is perhaps a bit much for young kids, though several were in this audience and they didn’t seem to mind too much (guess we lose our innocence early these days). I wish Christopher Nolan made more use of the shadows to frame Ledger’s smeared clown paint – because the few times that he does, the image is very much on the creepy side.
So it’s a good 3 1/2 stars; not a classic, but pretty damn good…and not a bad way to spend a Saturday night, if you’ve got nothing going tomorrow…
Great Movie-not a classic-but somehow lived up to the unbelievable hype. A must see.
My primary complaint was that the plot was fairly incoherent. Rather than a single all-encompassing plot by the villain, as in Batman Begins — shipping a fear-inducing toxin into the city so that it can be released into the air, to which all of the villain’s other actions were related — there didn’t seem to be any single goal, other than to create chaos.
I suppose that’s more a consequence of who the villain is than anything else, though.
Yeah, there was a lot of business, but to little end…but as you say, the Joker was dead set against making any kind of sense…there is already a lot of talk about whether we’ll see the Joker again in this era of Batman movies, given how completely Ledger is now associated with the role, a mere one day after release!…
Ledger was beyond superb. Christian Bale is easily my favorite Batman, which doesn’t really take much considering the former line-up. The really dark/deep voice sounded concocted a few times, but whatever.
The score was perfect. Built the perfect amount of tension when the Joker was talking, right before something crazy was about to happen. I really enjoy getting that feeling. The nurse scene was worth the price of admission.
I’d take small issue with the gripe about a lack of origin story for the Joker. I think it would have detracted from his character to give even a little bit of an explanation for why he was the way he was. To make us feel any sympathy for him. As it was, I thought it was brilliant. His stories were clearly parodies of sympathetic explanations, but with the second one, it became obvious that neither was true. At that point, the sympathy from either (my daddy never loved me/I was just trying to make my wife feel better) was jettisoned, and we were made even more pissed/frightened of him that he’d mess with us that way.
Fargus is right, I think. The concocted and contradictory origin stories are meant to demonstrate that the Joker is just a personification of madness/chaos. We’re not supposed to understand his behavior as some kind of rational response to events in his life.
I also think the movie was considerably too short. Fleshing out the transformation of Harvey Dent should have added another 30 minutes or so.
Yup. We expect to see the inherent good in someone. What Ledger’s Joker does is take that expectation and use it against us. That was the point.
Hey, don’t get me wrong, Ledger’s Joker was brilliant and the best part of the movie BY FAR…I didn’t expect him to be rational, as clearly, he was the living rejection of rationality…just I thought a payoff for the setup would have been nice. I strongly disagree that the movie was too short, though…a better idea would have been to drop Dent altogether, and save him for #3…that would have meant more screen time for the Joker, AND a shorter movie. These guys weren’t adapting original material, like Peter Jackson with the Lord of the Rings, where tons of stuff was thrown out just to REACH three hours apiece…but I quibble. Mostly, I agree with you…
And to be fair, maybe Alfred gave Joker’s original story, when he related the tale of people who were mean just for the sake of being mean…I don’t think any event warped the Joker, so much as he was just warped…so, like the Iraqi Prime Minister, I’ll walk back my comments a little…
BTW, it’s not Heath Ledger’s last role.
That would be The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.
Mark, I agree with you that it was a little long, but not by much, and while I originally expected (and hoped) that the Harvey Dent stuff would’ve been in a future movie, I disagree with you that it would’ve made it better.
I think that would’ve hurt this movie a bit because you’d out on the whole Joker/Two Face/Batman triangle, and putting part of it in another film would’ve lost the mood of the moment. Also, I’m not sure that Dent deserved a movie of his own.
I have one gripe that deals with a spoiler too, so I won’t say so here, but I do have one oddball thing I’d like to point out.
Batman Begins had the Scarecrow using a chemical attack on Gotham. Chemical attacks are what the Joker is known for.
The Dark Knight had two instances of the Joker forcing the “good guys” to make a choice between two situations he’d set up. This is exactly what Two Face typically does.
Why do the script writers keep tinkering with the modus operandi? Particularly in such a coincidental fashion?
Regardless, best Batman movie ever. Frankly, I hope they never make another one (although I know that’s an unrealistic hope, given how much money this one has made/will make).
Interesting to compare Ledger to Nicholson. There’s no doubt that Nicholson stole the show as the Joker in his performance.
Ledger didn’t steal the show, but I would say that his performance was far better, and agree with your comparison that Nicholson’s looks harmless in comparison.
Ledger didn’t steal the show, he defined the show, as a good antagonist should.