[Movie Saturday] The Dark Knight

I watched it yesterday.

It's as good as people would have you think. It's exactly what I expected from the movie after the ending of Batman Begins and that wonderful scene with Gordon's speech about escalation and the introduction of the Joker card.

Believe the hype, especially about Ledger.

Watch. This. Movie.

TL;DR version:

There's so many things I want to say about this movie, but I'm not sure where to start. I'll give it a try anyway.

(SPOILERS AHEAD)

It really is different to every movie based on a comic book that came before it. Even Batman Begins. The Dark Knight feels like more like a serious cop drama starring a guy in a bat suit, rather than a spandex action flick. It's the perfect rendition of those dark, serious, gritty Batman graphic novels, rather than the average "villain of the week" Detective comics issue written by some random hack, which is what the Schumacher Batman films felt like, by the way.

I understand some people, and especially critics, did not like the movie exactly for that reason, that it tries to be something more than an action film with superheroes. Well, fuck me. There's just no pleasing some people, is there?

Personally, I absolutely loved the direction they took with this movie. It felt true to the source material, the graphic novels as I mentioned above, and it made for a more realistic, genuinely interesting movie. Not exactly a more "fun" movie, but Bruce Wayne was never about the fun to begin with.

Performances as a whole were amazing. People seem to hate Bale's Batman voice, but I didn't mind it. Hell, if somebody just kicked your ass and then talks to you like that, you will be intimidated. Caine and Freeman were outstanding in their roles, and their characters are excellent foils to Bruce Wayne, while Gyllenhaal did an excellent work with Rachel, even though her screen time is pretty limited. The actor who really surprised me, however, was Aaron Eckhart's portrayal of Harvey Dent and Two-Face (I told ya about those spoilers!) From being the White Knight of Gotham to the psycho killer with the gruesome face injury, Exkhart did a tremendous job. While the story of Dent's fall itself could perhaps do with a little more (just a bit) development, his performance more than makes up for it.

I loved the story of Dent's fall in The Long Halloween, but the version offered in this movie makes perfect sense in the confines of the movie itself. Two-Face wasn't set up to be a major villain, but more of a character to illustrate a point. Or perhaps two points, those being the Joker's point that everyone can be corrupted, and Alfred's warning about not knowing when and where to stop. But that is another story altogether.

I purposely didn't mention Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker so far, as I was expecting that he'd be great. I've already confessed to being a fan of his, and the trailers alone made his performance really seem like something special. Only the trailers said part of the story, and the actual performance was better than I expected. I honestly had to remind myself that this was Ledger, an actor playing a role, and not a real lunatic sociopath. He makes the role seem so natural, it's downright absurd. We're talking about a guy with a face full of makeup, wearing a purple tax, this seriously shouldn't look realistic!

And yet he pulled it off. From the way he delivered his lines ("Hiiiii!") to his body language, to his humor, to his worldview and the way he conducts things... If he doesn't get a place in the pantheon of greatest, most iconic, movie villains of all time (fuck the Oscars), alongside Hannibal Lecter, Norman Bates and HAL 9000, it'll be a great injustice. His death was a terrible loss, especially after such a role which fully illustrates what an amazing talent he had. Damnit, Heath.

Seven paragraphs in, and I haven't even talked about the story. And I could easily spend more than seven paragraphs talking about it, but since it's kinda late I'll keep it to two. Much like Eckhart's performance, I wasn't really expecting the story to be so deep, so engaging. I was expecting it to have a strong story, but nothing spectacular, much like Batman Begins. Boy, was I wrong. There's so much there, so many themes, allusions, symbolism, social commentary, Hell the Joker's rants alone strike eerily, if not uncomfortably, close to home when it comes to human nature. And the best thing about all these elements is the fact that none are heavy-handed, or presented in a preachy manner.

I'll speak about my favorite examples of such storytelling techniques in a later post since I want to digest them fully before I do so, but if I were to mention one that comes to mind right now, it would be the Jokers speech on rules, plans, people's obsession with them and how that's illustrated perfectly with Harvey Dent. It was part of a plan that made Dent lie about being the man behind the Batman mask, a plan that was supposed to help them capture the Joker and ultimately lead the good guys to win. And it would have worked, had two corrupted cops decided to not play by Dent's rules, and instead betray him, ultimately leading to the death of his fianceé and his own horrible mal/transformation. Yet still, even after Dent lost half his face and his soul, he had to cling to a set of rules. He wouldn't kill the woman who betrayed his trust, because his own (new) rules prohibited him from doing so. In a way, even in insanity, Dent stubbornly based his only hope for sense in the world in his morality code, even if it were as arbitrary as the flip of a coin. And there's another point to be made about luck here, but I won't get into that right now.

Was there something I didn't like? Well, that whole cell-phone based sonar felt a bit tacky and didn't quite fit with the rest of the movie, although it did help paint a very amoralistic image of Batman. Which, incidentally, is one of my favorite parts of the story, and which I really want to get to in a future post.

(Goes to show how much I liked the movie when I mention positive things in the paragraph about the things I didn't like, doesn't it?)

Another thing would be the lack of music during some of the action scenes, I've been spoiled by the wonderful theme and would really like to hear it more often. In a similar note, I felt like we didn't hear the Joker's laugh enough times, but then again we'll probably sleep more easily this way. Lastly, the cynic in me believes that had the two ferries incident taken place in real life, at least one of the boats would have ended up exploding, and that they kind of dropped the ball with that one. Then again, I'll be the first to admit that I may be a bit too cynical, not to mention that I've been completely conditioned by the Song of Ice and Fire series, where people are dying left and right. Plus, I'm not sure that agreeing with the Joker on the nature of human beings is a good thing to do.

Did I ever mention that most, if not all, things and situations remind me of a joke? Because they do.