Michael LownThe Dark Knight: a ray of light
July 24th 2008 03:50
There has been a lot of adulation and hype surrounding the sequel to Batman Begins, so I am going to try and keep this under control. The Dark Knight is the best comic book movie that has been made so far. See what I did there? I qualified it. I left room for someone, someday to make a better super hero movie… one day. Quite rational really.
Let’s wrap up the key points here. Ledger absolutely owns every frame he is in. That’s not hype talking, that’s fact. This is an actor who was mythologized within days of his tragic death, his personality and real life story should overwhelm the character. It is a testament to his achievement that as the Joker, you completely forget you are looking at Heath Ledger. That’s not due to make-up friends, that’s due to performance.
The Joker kicks off this dark tale of the Dark Knight, and his grip on the film never weakens from the opening bank heist. He’s a new kind of criminal – crime isn’t about money for him, it’s about art. His duel with Batman through the length of the movie is harrowing, and utterly compelling. The casualties are unpredictable and moving.
Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine provide a nice reliable backing track, with a layer of Gary Oldman character work added for good measure. Aaron Eckhart is moving and convincing in the biggest personal arc of the story and Maggie Gyllenhaal is now the go-to word for ‘upgrade’, erasing all memory of the Katie Holmes blip from the first movie (Wow Katie, you passed on this for Mad Money… there aren’t enough words to sum up the ‘wow’… ‘ouch’ comes to mind).
Christian Bale has the thankless job of anchoring the whole thing, and doing most of that behind a mask. People seem to underestimate his performance because of that, but if he wasn’t credible as a man who spends his nights dressing up as a bat the whole thing would come crashing down.
Full props to Christopher Nolan for making this as dark and emotionally draining as he did. This is the Empire Strikes Back of our time. My only two quibbles were the length, but then I don’t know what you’d cut – everything built so relentlessly – and the ending which had some oddly rushed logic. Aside from that, I couldn’t recommend this enough for lovers of action.
Let’s wrap up the key points here. Ledger absolutely owns every frame he is in. That’s not hype talking, that’s fact. This is an actor who was mythologized within days of his tragic death, his personality and real life story should overwhelm the character. It is a testament to his achievement that as the Joker, you completely forget you are looking at Heath Ledger. That’s not due to make-up friends, that’s due to performance.
The Joker kicks off this dark tale of the Dark Knight, and his grip on the film never weakens from the opening bank heist. He’s a new kind of criminal – crime isn’t about money for him, it’s about art. His duel with Batman through the length of the movie is harrowing, and utterly compelling. The casualties are unpredictable and moving.
Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine provide a nice reliable backing track, with a layer of Gary Oldman character work added for good measure. Aaron Eckhart is moving and convincing in the biggest personal arc of the story and Maggie Gyllenhaal is now the go-to word for ‘upgrade’, erasing all memory of the Katie Holmes blip from the first movie (Wow Katie, you passed on this for Mad Money… there aren’t enough words to sum up the ‘wow’… ‘ouch’ comes to mind).
Christian Bale has the thankless job of anchoring the whole thing, and doing most of that behind a mask. People seem to underestimate his performance because of that, but if he wasn’t credible as a man who spends his nights dressing up as a bat the whole thing would come crashing down.
Full props to Christopher Nolan for making this as dark and emotionally draining as he did. This is the Empire Strikes Back of our time. My only two quibbles were the length, but then I don’t know what you’d cut – everything built so relentlessly – and the ending which had some oddly rushed logic. Aside from that, I couldn’t recommend this enough for lovers of action.
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