Last year was, by modern standards, a pretty solid year for motion pictures. My pick for the best of them would be the Coen Bros.' No Country For Old Men, but I was also fond of There Will Be Blood, Away From Her, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Gone Baby Gone, The Counterfeiters, Into the Wild, Once, Persepolis, Michael Clayton, Rescue Dawn, Zodiac, Ratatouille, Juno, Enchanted, and several others. Unfortunately, 2008 has been a different story altogether.
Characters have once again taken a backseat to formulaic plots and unspectacular “spectacle”. High profile disappointments have flooded the big screen market; Cloverfield, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, The Incredible Hulk, The Happening, Hancock, and Journey to the Center of the Earth, just to name a few. Don't get me wrong, Iron Man was great fun and very well made, but it wouldn't have been near last year's Top 10. Quite frankly, up until about three weeks ago I thought HBO's fifth season of The Wire was going to finish out 2008 destroying everything at theaters.
That was when I saw WALL-E, the latest and arguably greatest film from Pixar (see the original post in this blog). Suddenly, the sun had risen again over the dreary cinematic landscape and things no longer looked quite so bleak. Reinvigorated, I took a look at Mongol and Hellboy II next. I appreciated the costumes and set decoration of Mongol, while the art direction and creature design in Hellboy II were simply stunning. Still, though both films were somewhat above average, it wasn't until July 20th that I became convinced WALL-E was no fluke. 2008 had more great films in store.
I was vacationing in San Antonio, TX at the time, taking in the Alamo, the Natural Bridge Caverns, the River Walk, and Sea World. Not another soul among my party professed interest in adding an IMAX theater, twenty-three miles from our hotel, to our busy itinerary (most of the show times were sold out anyway). Forced to take matters into my own hands, I ended up at a downtown San Antonio bus stop, with a homeless man, at 5:30 AM on Sunday morning. It was still pitch dark when I arrived at the Santikos Palladium theater about two minutes after the 6:15 start time, and it was so packed I had to sit in the third row.
Luckily, The Dark Knight is the kind of film that would have been good from any seat in the house. I found 2005's Batman Begins to be a solid superhero origin story that suffered from a weak third act, but with The Dark Knight, Christopher Nolan tops his first effort with relative ease. I have enjoyed all of Nolan's films since Memento in 2000, and this may very well be his finest film to date. It is, without reservation, the best superhero movie I have ever seen.
Luckily, The Dark Knight is the kind of film that would have been good from any seat in the house. I found 2005's Batman Begins to be a solid superhero origin story that suffered from a weak third act, but with The Dark Knight, Christopher Nolan tops his first effort with relative ease. I have enjoyed all of Nolan's films since Memento in 2000, and this may very well be his finest film to date. It is, without reservation, the best superhero movie I have ever seen.
Many have compared The Dark Knight to Michael Mann's 1995 film, Heat, and though Nolan has admitted the influence, they aren't much alike outside of the bank heist scenes and a similar exploration of the thin line between good and evil. Without a doubt, however, Nolan's film has more in common with great cinematic crime epics than with traditional comic book movies. In fact, those interested in a film for the whole family with a hero to cheer for, a villain to boo, a climactic showdown, and an upbeat ending, should stick with Iron Man. The Dark Knight is as “dark” as its name implies, and many may find it lacking in the kind of fun generally associated with superhero movies.In addition, this entry in the franchise is even more grounded in reality than the last. There is not a single “super power” to be accounted for, it's all technology and psychological manipulation. The Gotham of Batman Begins, with that identifiable Metropolis/Blade Runner influence in the art direction, has been replaced by a Gotham that looks exactly like what it is: Chicago, Illinois. Bruce Wayne is more human this time around as well; he tires of spending his nights as a masked vigilante and regrets the negative side effects of Batman on Gotham's populace. He seeks a new hero (“a hero with a face”) to take his place.
Therein lies the plot of the film. The new District Attorney, Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), is referred to as Gotham's “White Knight” due to his fierce determination in bringing down the mob and reducing crime. Though Bruce Wayne is originally abrasive toward him, as Dent is dating the woman he loves, Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal replacing Katie Holmes), he ultimately realizes that this is a man who could truly lead Gotham into a brighter future. Unfortunately, the mob is the least of Gotham's problems when a new chaotic figure appears in the form of the Joker (Heath Ledger).
To defeat his enemy in a non-lethal manner, as Batman's moral code demands, Bruce Wayne seeks to understand what is behind the Joker's actions. Michael Caine, returning as Alfred, Wayne's butler, has a great scene where he explains to Bruce that not every villain has a motive beyond “watching the world burn”. In his own sick, twisted way the Joker does have a motive, however. He seeks to prove that social order is an illusion, by bringing down the very figures that inspire hope among the people; namely Harvey Dent and Batman. He wants to destroy the foundation and watch the house fall. If the Joker has to die to get Batman to break his code, he still wins. That is the vile nature of what Batman, Dent, and all of Gotham are facing in The Dark Knight.
The film has such wonderful performances all around, it is almost a shame that all the credit seems to be going to Ledger. He is terrific, certainly, and in my view this performance was second only to his turn as Ennis Del Mar in Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain. His loss is extremely tragic; I considered him to be the finest of all 20-30 year old actors, long before he passed. However, I feel we should also acknowledge the superb job done here by Aaron Eckhart, Gary Oldman, Christian Bale (whose Batman voice doesn't bother me), Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, and Maggie Gyllenhaal. Needless to say, these actors all benefit from a terrific script penned by Christopher Nolan and his brother, Jonathan.
Though The Dark Knight has a few too many hokey one liners and tends to overstate its themes and message, neither issue takes away from its effectiveness. Furthermore, legitimate questions have been raised about scenes that leave the audience hanging. At one point, a large group of people in a penthouse are still in danger while Batman is in the street below, and Nolan simply cuts to the next day. In another example, the means of a certain “escape” aren't fully revealed (EDIT 8/04: On a subsequent viewing, I realized the Joker has a shard of glass, not a knife). Still, is it necessary that absolutely everything be spelled out for us? I would like to see how audiences that enjoy being spoon fed would react to, say, a Tarkovsky film. I can hear it now, “Why did that bird just land on the boy's head like that?!”
Though The Dark Knight has a few too many hokey one liners and tends to overstate its themes and message, neither issue takes away from its effectiveness. Furthermore, legitimate questions have been raised about scenes that leave the audience hanging. At one point, a large group of people in a penthouse are still in danger while Batman is in the street below, and Nolan simply cuts to the next day. In another example, the means of a certain “escape” aren't fully revealed (EDIT 8/04: On a subsequent viewing, I realized the Joker has a shard of glass, not a knife). Still, is it necessary that absolutely everything be spelled out for us? I would like to see how audiences that enjoy being spoon fed would react to, say, a Tarkovsky film. I can hear it now, “Why did that bird just land on the boy's head like that?!”
At 152 minutes, The Dark Knight is long, but never overstays its welcome. Several people have voiced the opinion that 30-40 minutes could have been shaved off the end and saved for the next film. I adamantly disagree. If the last forty minutes were cut, the film as a whole would lose all resonance. I dare say that the events which transpire in the final act of the The Dark Knight are the entire point of the film; the culmination of everything it had been building toward. At 112 minutes, we would have a lean, mean summer movie. At 152 minutes, we have the greatest superhero film ever made, and a film that may end up being the best of the year.By the way, if you haven't seen this film in an IMAX theater, then you haven't seen it at all. Period. While other 35mm movies shown on IMAX screens have been converted to the format, The Dark Knight is the first major theatrical film to actually have footage (over twenty minutes worth) shot with 15-perforation/70mm IMAX cameras. The immense scale and clarity of these images is a mind-blowing revelation for film fanatics, like myself. The action sequences benefit not only from better choreography than those in Batman Begins, they are also show pieces to be awed over now, thanks to the IMAX format and Wally Pfister's cinematography. Even with today's sophisticated home theaters, The Dark Knight in IMAX proves a vast separation remains between private and public venues. When The Dark Knight comes to Blu-ray, no matter how amazing it looks, it won't measure up to the IMAX theater experience.
See The Dark Knight. See it in IMAX.
ADDITIONAL NOTE:
I saw the French film, Tell No One, yesterday afternoon. Talk about a movie with a “hook”. In the beginning, a pediatrician (Francois Cluzet) and his wife (Marie Josee-Croze) go skinny dipping at night in an isolated lake, and the wife wanders off alone following an argument. The husband hears a loud noise and chases after her, guided by the sound of her screams, but is knocked out by an unseen assailant. Then, eight years after his wife's murder by a serial killer, the husband reads a newspaper story about two bodies being unearthed near the lake where she died. The case is reopened, and he is now a suspect. Making things even stranger, the husband receives an email from his dead wife.
Based on the American novel by Harlan Coben, and released in France in November 2006, Tell No One is a satisfying mystery/thriller/romance; certainly a “must see” for U.S. viewers this year. Though it was pretty convoluted, it was never difficult to follow. Unfortunately, the middle aged couple sitting behind me during the show might disagree with that sentiment. At one point, when a character was mentioned by name, I overheard the man ask, “Who the hell is that?”, to which the wife responded, “Don't ask me...” At least six times over the course of the film I heard the wife say, “This is thoroughly confusing.”
The film is not confusing in the slightest, and all of the clues add up. Do the characters always make the brightest decisions? No. Are there some elements of the mystery, once explained, that don't quite hold up under scrutiny? Probably so. Does it feel more like an American film than a French film? Without a doubt. Still, the performances are good, the script is solid, and for two hours most viewers will be thoroughly engaged, trying to solve the puzzle. I had a good time.
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