Joe's Movie Reviews

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Just What The World Has Been Waiting For

I can hear it now... "Look, everyone, there's a new post on JOE'S CORNER again! At last, the darkness has gone away and all is right with the world! Hallelujah!" No, wait, on second thought, I don't think that was exactly what I heard. In fact, you should be ashamed of yourselves! Just for that, I'm going to go ahead and write this entry anyhow!

ANOTHER thing that the world has certainly been waiting for is another reviews of a tiny little independent movie that very few people have seen, called "The Dark Knight". In spite of my almost always seeing films in second run discount houses these days, I made a rare exception yesterday and caught a matinee screening of this little-seen effort. I am very definitely glad that I did.

Three years ago, when I saw Christopher Nolan's "Batman Begins", I thought that the definitive Batman movie still had yet to be made, but that Nolan had come closer to that goal than anyone else yet had. Not only has he improved his aim this time around, he's hit the target dead center.

As virtually everyone knows by now, this was Heath Ledger's last completed film, and there is considerable talk about the possibility of his getting an Oscar nomination for his role as the Joker. I wouldn't be at all surprised if that happens. I'd be the last person to put down the highly talented Jack Nicholson, but Ledger is infinitely better in the role... Nicholson was fun, but Ledger gets spookily under the skin of all of the Joker's terrifying madness, making you forget every other role you've ever seen him in (you certainly won't recognize the Ledger from "Brokeback Mountain") and convincing you that you are watching an actual homicidal lunatic of frigtening power. This is evil personified. And in spite of Ledger's outstanding role, he doesn't overshadow the rest of the cast... Christian Bale, Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman are possibly even moure memorable here than they were in "Batman Begins", Maggie Gyllenhaal is a colossal improvement over Katie Holmes as Rachel Dawes, and Aaron Eckhart is brilliant as D.A. Harvey Dent, both before and after he morphs into the legendary villain Two-Face.

The plot? As if everyone doesn't know this by now, but just in case: Batman has improved the crime situation in Gotham City sufficiently that he's seriously considering retiring and leaving it all to dedicated new D.A. Harvey Dent... when along comes the Joker, determined to show how thin the veneer of civilization in Gotham really is, and how easily even the best of its citizens can be brought down to the level of animals willing to do anything they have to in order to survive, even at the expense of their friends and families. Obviously, Batman is determined to prevent this... and the fight is on.

Those who come to this movie just for the big action scenes will certainly not be disappointed. But there is so much more to this movie, a greater depth that you almost never seen in comic book adaptations. Would you expect a comic book movie to feature examinations of whether people are essentially good or evil, questions about the very nature of right and wrong, startlingly explicit parallels to some of today's major political and social questions (will George W. Bush love this movie? I somehow don't think so)? And all of this accompanied by explosions, car chases and heroic doings. And in spite of the dark, serious and somber nature of much of the film (it is an authentic Batman movie, after all) it is surprisingly hopeful in the end, showing us that we don't have to inevitably go down the dark path.

This is certainly the movie that Batman fans have been waiting for through the past many decades of the wretched 1960's TV series, the adequate but not QUITE right Tim Burton movies, the horrible Joel Schumacher films, and even Nolan's previous and highly admirable first Batman film. But it should also attract (it certainly seems to have done so, so far) audiences who couldn't care less about Batman but just want to see a commercial Hollywood studio movie with some substance to it. And, of course, some of the best performances of the year. It's probably inevitable that there will be another Batman movie after the success of this one. I can only hope that Warner Brothers will be able to talk Christopher Nolan into taking charge once again. At this point, I'm convinced that he's the only filmmaker who knows how to do it right.
**********************************************************************************

And while I'm here, these are some of the movies I've seen over the past couple of months that I think you should check out:

Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day
In Bruges
Reprise
The Forbidden Kingdom
Under The Same Moon
Mongol
Iron Man

And your life would not be poorer if you never saw these:

10,000 B.C.
Drillbit Taylor
21
88 Minutes
Baby Mama
Made Of Honor
Speed Racer


Expect a review of "Ghost Town", starring Ricky Gervais, Tea Leoni and Greg Kinnear, tomorrow or Saturday. I have a pass to a free sneak preview tonight. The movie isn't supposed to be released until September 19th. talk about sneak previews...

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home