Nic Jones (![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} nicwrites) wrote,@ 2008-07-20 20:43:00 |
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The Dark Knight
Good but not great.
Things I liked:
No product placement. The movie echoed a Bond movie in its fantasy violence and it was nice not to constanly see Sony Ericcson mobile phones everywhere.
Lots of explosions. Big ones and little ones. And gadgets. Yay for batgadgets.
There's some depth to the plot beyond the explosions. So much so that I'd find it very difficult to write a synopsis of the movie. There's a lot going on and a lot that links with other parts. The concept of Batman, Dent and Gordon as three forces of nature was interesting. Obviously Batman has a relationship with the city and its needs - that's not something at all new. Dent really exists as backstory to Two-Face and the contrast between him and Batman was thoughtfully explored. I hadn't ever thought of Gordon in the same terms though and I really liked the interplay of the three. It's this sort of depth an thought that a franchise like Batman deserves and I was very glad to see it.
Michael Caine as Alfred. This was a performance I really liked. Far from being a secondary character, Alfred felt more realistic to me than Bruce Wayne did.
The batmobile. Even if it does look like a lawnmower, it's damn cool. It's also believable in the way it moves on screen. Batmobiles of earlier movies were just caricatures that looked like they'd get stuck going around a tight corner or over a speedbump. This one is serious business.
Maggie Gyllenhaal as Rachel. Though a somewhat limited in scope (she's a damsel in distress and not much more) the character felt fleshed out and human.
The comedy, where employed (almost exclusively by Ledger's Joker) worked quite well.
Things I wasn't impressed by:
Heath Ledger's performance. In this case my disappointment probably reflects expectations not being met. People were talking about giving him a posthumous Oscar for it. It's a watchable performance but I don't believe it's an outstanding one. I don't believe he brought anything unexpected or interesting to the character and his dialogue didn't seem to have the gravity it could have had in the long speeches. I just didn't believe he was threatening. He was just a guy who was a bit deranged.
Christian Bale's Bruce Wayne. His Batman was fun, but his Wayne seemed to lack squareness of the shoulders. I felt that the idea of him as a thoughtful business man who falls asleep in meetings was too divorced from his alter ego. I'd have preferred to see a stronger industrialist, facing the upper echelons of Gotham society in his own way. Wayne and Batman aren't Jekyll and Hyde. Batman is enabled by Wayne's business. Wayne needed a ruthless edge to reflect the ruthlessness of Gotham. Instead we're treated to a Wayne that sits in quiet little restaurants meditating on Dent's analysis of good and evil. A Wayne that sits in a funk after Rachel dies instead of having it fuel his vengeance. I just felt that it was a bit namby-pamby.
The cinematography. Okay, it's a dark movie. I get it. But after the second hour of squinting and not being able to distinguish where people's faces ended and the background began I got physically tired of it. You can do dark without simply making it hard to see anything: the Batman animated series is an obvious example of this. I also felt that there were too many close-up shots of actors talking. Some of this was an obvious attempt to make the audience feel claustrophobically close to he Joker but I think more could have been said by pulling back a little.
The plot is good overall but has problems. It's 3 hours of long, convoluted stuff jammed together with a number of pointless excursions. Morgan Freeman is a joy to watch, but I could have happily done without Lucius Fox's concerns about civil liberty. I also didn't see the point of adding what'shisname trying to reveal Batman's identity on TV. The movie felt both rushed and too long, suffering from the middle movie in a trilogy syndrome.
Gotham General Hospital was clearly a multi-story parking garage they blew up.
The movie seemed to exhibit a squeamishness about what was shown: more than once the camera cut away just before showing something (usually an act of violence, like the Joker cutting someone's face with his knife.) Gotham is an important character in the movie and its violence is key to the plot. There was a lack of reality or consequence to the crime in Gotham, though. People got shot but the consequence of it was never more than that they shuddered a bit and fell over. Things blew up but people were never harmed by explosions except where the plot made it unavoidable. This kid-gloves approach harmed the movie quite a bit making themes of vigilantism, chaos, violence, loss and consequence all just a little hollow and comic. The producers clearly decided that the importance of making a blockbuster that wouldn't be rated higher than M was more important than the artistic integrity of the film.
I was a little bothered by technology crossing the fine line between "plausable" and "just silly". The idea of a modified mobile phone that fires an ultrasonic pulse and can make a map of the structure around it from the reflection is plausible. It'd take some impressive processing and you couldn't get the resolution shown, but it's believable. Magically adding ultrasonic transmitters, receivers and sufficient acoustical processing circuitry to every phone in Gotham is tinfoil hat territory. The abilities of the batmobile were plausible and this made it cool. The batcycle, on the other hand, seemed more ninja than Jacky Chan, driving up a wall to do a perfect Immelmann turn.
As much as I liked Maggie Glengahal's performance, her wardrobe irked me - the high waists were entirely unflattering. It was like that Superman movie over again. It seemed the movie couldn't decide whether it was set in a 1950s Gotham of corrupt cops, mobsters and black-tie parties or a present-day one of mobile phones, mass media talk shows and post-September 11th community togetherness. (Did anyone else get that vibe from the thing with the ferries? I did.)
The audience was reasonably well behaved. Not great, but okay. No mobile phones ringing but a bit of crinkling plastic. A bit thick - there were gasps of surprise when plot devices were revealed that were obvious to me scenes before. The bomb in the guy's stomach, for example came as a complete surprise to many people sitting around Jen and me. They also left the theatre a pigsty.
13 NAULS.
Good but not great.
Things I liked:
No product placement. The movie echoed a Bond movie in its fantasy violence and it was nice not to constanly see Sony Ericcson mobile phones everywhere.
Lots of explosions. Big ones and little ones. And gadgets. Yay for batgadgets.
There's some depth to the plot beyond the explosions. So much so that I'd find it very difficult to write a synopsis of the movie. There's a lot going on and a lot that links with other parts. The concept of Batman, Dent and Gordon as three forces of nature was interesting. Obviously Batman has a relationship with the city and its needs - that's not something at all new. Dent really exists as backstory to Two-Face and the contrast between him and Batman was thoughtfully explored. I hadn't ever thought of Gordon in the same terms though and I really liked the interplay of the three. It's this sort of depth an thought that a franchise like Batman deserves and I was very glad to see it.
Michael Caine as Alfred. This was a performance I really liked. Far from being a secondary character, Alfred felt more realistic to me than Bruce Wayne did.
The batmobile. Even if it does look like a lawnmower, it's damn cool. It's also believable in the way it moves on screen. Batmobiles of earlier movies were just caricatures that looked like they'd get stuck going around a tight corner or over a speedbump. This one is serious business.
Maggie Gyllenhaal as Rachel. Though a somewhat limited in scope (she's a damsel in distress and not much more) the character felt fleshed out and human.
The comedy, where employed (almost exclusively by Ledger's Joker) worked quite well.
Things I wasn't impressed by:
Heath Ledger's performance. In this case my disappointment probably reflects expectations not being met. People were talking about giving him a posthumous Oscar for it. It's a watchable performance but I don't believe it's an outstanding one. I don't believe he brought anything unexpected or interesting to the character and his dialogue didn't seem to have the gravity it could have had in the long speeches. I just didn't believe he was threatening. He was just a guy who was a bit deranged.
Christian Bale's Bruce Wayne. His Batman was fun, but his Wayne seemed to lack squareness of the shoulders. I felt that the idea of him as a thoughtful business man who falls asleep in meetings was too divorced from his alter ego. I'd have preferred to see a stronger industrialist, facing the upper echelons of Gotham society in his own way. Wayne and Batman aren't Jekyll and Hyde. Batman is enabled by Wayne's business. Wayne needed a ruthless edge to reflect the ruthlessness of Gotham. Instead we're treated to a Wayne that sits in quiet little restaurants meditating on Dent's analysis of good and evil. A Wayne that sits in a funk after Rachel dies instead of having it fuel his vengeance. I just felt that it was a bit namby-pamby.
The cinematography. Okay, it's a dark movie. I get it. But after the second hour of squinting and not being able to distinguish where people's faces ended and the background began I got physically tired of it. You can do dark without simply making it hard to see anything: the Batman animated series is an obvious example of this. I also felt that there were too many close-up shots of actors talking. Some of this was an obvious attempt to make the audience feel claustrophobically close to he Joker but I think more could have been said by pulling back a little.
The plot is good overall but has problems. It's 3 hours of long, convoluted stuff jammed together with a number of pointless excursions. Morgan Freeman is a joy to watch, but I could have happily done without Lucius Fox's concerns about civil liberty. I also didn't see the point of adding what'shisname trying to reveal Batman's identity on TV. The movie felt both rushed and too long, suffering from the middle movie in a trilogy syndrome.
Gotham General Hospital was clearly a multi-story parking garage they blew up.
The movie seemed to exhibit a squeamishness about what was shown: more than once the camera cut away just before showing something (usually an act of violence, like the Joker cutting someone's face with his knife.) Gotham is an important character in the movie and its violence is key to the plot. There was a lack of reality or consequence to the crime in Gotham, though. People got shot but the consequence of it was never more than that they shuddered a bit and fell over. Things blew up but people were never harmed by explosions except where the plot made it unavoidable. This kid-gloves approach harmed the movie quite a bit making themes of vigilantism, chaos, violence, loss and consequence all just a little hollow and comic. The producers clearly decided that the importance of making a blockbuster that wouldn't be rated higher than M was more important than the artistic integrity of the film.
I was a little bothered by technology crossing the fine line between "plausable" and "just silly". The idea of a modified mobile phone that fires an ultrasonic pulse and can make a map of the structure around it from the reflection is plausible. It'd take some impressive processing and you couldn't get the resolution shown, but it's believable. Magically adding ultrasonic transmitters, receivers and sufficient acoustical processing circuitry to every phone in Gotham is tinfoil hat territory. The abilities of the batmobile were plausible and this made it cool. The batcycle, on the other hand, seemed more ninja than Jacky Chan, driving up a wall to do a perfect Immelmann turn.
As much as I liked Maggie Glengahal's performance, her wardrobe irked me - the high waists were entirely unflattering. It was like that Superman movie over again. It seemed the movie couldn't decide whether it was set in a 1950s Gotham of corrupt cops, mobsters and black-tie parties or a present-day one of mobile phones, mass media talk shows and post-September 11th community togetherness. (Did anyone else get that vibe from the thing with the ferries? I did.)
The audience was reasonably well behaved. Not great, but okay. No mobile phones ringing but a bit of crinkling plastic. A bit thick - there were gasps of surprise when plot devices were revealed that were obvious to me scenes before. The bomb in the guy's stomach, for example came as a complete surprise to many people sitting around Jen and me. They also left the theatre a pigsty.
13 NAULS.