The Dark Knight of Our Soul
Jul 23rd, 2008 | By Rick | Category: Reviews
I really can’t remember a film that has been so relentless in it’s marketing, or so successful, for that matter. You would think it was the second coming of Christ, there was so much anticipation. I half expected there to be groups of white-robed acolytes, heading up to some mountain top last Thursday afternoon, waiting for the Second Opening of a Christopher Nolan Batman movie . . . and then, after it opened, the vicious remarks left like little stink-bombs on the blogs of those who dared to dislike it (I quoted one of them in a post of a couple of days ago).
Heath Ledger
So I just want to say this: it’s ok to dislike The Dark Knight. Really. There won’t be hordes of crazed fanboys marching on your home, chanting “Heath Ledger for President.” You won’t come out of your house to be cornered by drooling bull mastiffs, maniacal laughter echoing in your ears. You won’t even be ostracized by the entire blogging community and they won’t turn on you hurt and angry, like betrayed lovers looking for revenge. At least I don’t think they will.
It’s ok to hate on The Dark Knight, but that being said, I also have to also say that it’s a good film. Not a masterpiece, or a life-changing event (unless it’s not much of a life), but a good one nevertheless. The second installment in Warner Brothers’ revival of the Batman franchise(the first was 2005’s Batmen Begins), it’s also the second one directed by Christopher Nolan. And that is the film’s greatest strength, but also it’s greatest weakness. Nolan is a master stylist, who is inspired at creating a look and mood for a film. Here, it’s all glass-walled steel and chrome, a departure from previous outings in the franchise. This time around, Gotham looks a lot like New York City, although much of it was shot on the streets of Chicago.
Christian Bale: Can you say "Identity Issues?"
Within that shiny, soulless look, Nolan has created an extraordinarily dark film. Batman himself (Christian Bale) lurks in the shadows, half-seen and brooding. Bale plays him very straight, with little humor, as a man on the edge, whose choices effect those around him in profound and unpredictable ways. He stands on rooftops, brooding over Gotham like a vulture; he is a scavenger of sorts, feeding off the city’s dead underbelly to fill the gaping hole in his being. For once the wooden Bale is well suited to his character: he’s an enigma, a cipher, an object. He’s a symbol of a point Nolan is trying to make, about the limits of vigilante justice and, indeed, of legitimate power overall.
Identity Issues, Part II
And that’s one of the downsides of Nolan as a director: he has points to make, themes to explore. And by God, he’s going to explore them, even if it kills us. He seems to want to beat us over the head with them, endlessly. The character of the Joker (Heath Ledger) is a prime example: he’s a symbol as well, a symbol of chaos — and such is Nolan’s brow-beating style that he tell us that, almost in so many words. And so is set up one of several oppositions in the film: Batman/Bruce Wayne represents order (note I didn’t say law and order) and the Joker chaos. [Note that this is an opposition straight out of the Christian Bible, where God represents order and various other symbols (such as the sea, or crowds) stand for chaos.] Without order, without predictability, without being able to know you can walk down the street safely, or find food at a given time of year, human society cannot survive.
But wait — there’s more! Nolan gives us another opposition, and its symbol is the person of Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart). As blond and charismatic as Batman is dark and stoic, he is a true good guy, full of courage and bonhomie. Once again, though, Nolan oversells his point, underlining it both in dialog, as Bruce Wayne and later Batman tell Dent how wonderful he is, and in action, as Dent faces Gotham’s scum in court, without a mask. Thus, while Batman represents lawless order, Dent symbolizes law and order. And in the Batman universe, guess which one survives? That Dent is corrupted in the end — and in much the same way as Bruce Wayne — makes a final, nihilistic point.
Maggie Gyllenhaal
The supporting cast is uniformly superb. As his sometime girlfriend Rachel Dawes, Maggie Gyllenhaal is a welcome upgrade from Batman Begins’ Katie Holmes. An intelligent actress, she makes us believe she’s a competent, up and coming prosecutor, something that Holmes couldn’t quite manage. With Heath Ledger’s Joker, Nolan resumes the tradition — abandoned in Batman Begins — of having a more flamboyant villain than superhero. Ledger goes at it with gusto, chewing the scenery and creating one of the creepier villains in film history. He is all licking lips, darting eyes, and mumbled lines. It is a surface performance, true, but one of surprising power, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he does snag a posthumous Oscar. They’ve been given for far worse performances.
The film has a gorgeous look to it, created by Nolan and his cinematographer Wally Pfister, who did such great work on Nolan’s The Prestige. It is a dark wonder, full of brooding haunted images. Batman himself watches over Gotham, hunched over like a vulture. He is a scavenger, of sorts, picking off the city’s dead underbelly to satisfy a gaping hole in his psyche, blasted there by the horrifying deaths of his parents right before his eyes.
Heath Legder again
The script, by the director and his brother Jonathan, is smart, with sharp dialog and interesting plot turns (when it isn’t being overly schematic, that is). But this is an action film, albeit one with art-film pretensions, and that’s where the rubber should meet the road. Unfortunately, Nolan’s biggest problem is that he can’t seem to stage action set pieces. It begins the first time we see Batman, in a sequence set in a parking garage, that is so confusing as to be almost indecipherable. We are not oriented in space at all; the relationships between the various parties — Batman, the two sets of gangsters and the Batman wannabes — are not clearly established.
The trend continues in the all the set pieces: the one in which Batman captures the moneyman Lau is all shattering glass and reverse angles, and we can’t tell who’s who or where until our hero ends up with Lau in his clutches. The chase through the streets of Gotham, with the Joker in pursuit of Harvey Dent, fares a little better It’s kinetic and exciting, if sometimes hard to follow, and the bat-cycle-thing is cool. But where it really falls apart is in the finale. Set in a glass building where innocent people are being held hostage, and where the Joker awaits Batman’s coming like a ragged scarecrow, we aren’t sure where the bad guys end and good guys begin. Doubtless this is meant to be — to mirror the Joker’s chaotic nature, get it? — but it is so poorly executed, so ineptly staged that it ends up being simply incomprehensible.
Some have compared Nolan’s style to that of Paul Greengrass in The Bourne Ultimatum. But no matter how shaky Greengrass’ camera gets, we always know where the actors are in relation to one another, and we can always follow the action, if sometimes in a fragmented way. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said of The Dark Knight.
Looking back on what I’ve said, it seems pretty negative, and it may be a reaction against all the idol worship floating around the blogosphereThe Dark Knight. So be it — as I said at the top, I nevertheless think it’s a good film. I enjoyed it for it’s entire two and a half hour length, primarily for Ledger’s great performance, Gary Oldman’s solid, surprisingly sneaky turn as Commissioner Gordon, and the warped, ironic humor. Is it a masterpiece, or even a great film? No way. Is it fun? Sure. I just have one request: please, Mr. Nolan, before the next one? Learn to direct action. Failing that, hire a good second-unit director and leave it up to him.
RSS 2.0
Glad to see someone else make a post like this one…
I’ve been spamming the obscene and threatening comments since Monday.
Andrew, not many of those folks read this rag, so I don’t think I have to worry about clearing a lot of spam.
I’m not sure I understand the mentality that can’t stand the thought of someone disagreeing with them. Are they that insecure? Or are their lives so baren that a summer movie can fill them up?
Anyway, thanks for the comment!
Acutally the fanboys can be pretty fierce - David Edelstein felt the need to respond to the avalanche of vicious comments he received for panning “The Dark Knight” on New York Magazine’s site. (read about it here: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/herocomplex/2008/07/daring-to-hate.html)
(The funniest thing about Edelstein’s review, to me, was that he identified the film’s setting as Manhattan, as did the New York Times reviewer. As someone who lives in the Chicago area, I can tell you that Gotham City is pretty easily recognizable as Chicagao - to the point where it was distracting to me.)
I’m at a disadvantage in that I’ve seen few of Nolan’s earlier films,and “Batman Begins” was among those I missed. So I’m sure I any references to the earlier Batman film went right past me. But I totally agree with you about the action sequences. They’re a mess.
Pat — Thanks for the pointer to the Edelstein fracas. Some of the responses to him and to Geoff Boucher of the LA Times are so over-the-top that one suspects that they are putting us on. But unfortunately, I don’t think so.
I really liked “Memento,” his first feature released here, and his remake of “Insomnia” was pretty good, but “The Prestige” left me cold, although I’ve seen it again on HBO and I liked it a little better.
I thought TDK was pretty incredible when I walked out of it, but the more I think about it, the less I like it. I don’t hate it now, in fact I still think its pretty brilliant, but part of the appeal of this movie is thats its such a complete rush of emotion in every direction while you’re in the theater. I kind of like Nolan’s self-aware superhero mantra style of screenwriting for this venue. It works and its kind of powerful from my vantage point.
I also had a problem with that first action scene. Talk about spatial anxiety! The thing with multiple Batmen almost gave me a headache … on the IMAX screen even more so.
I’m seeing it again tomorrow and am interested to see how it goes…
You know, I thought it was better when I walked out than do now, too. But as I started thinking about what I was going to write, I started remembering things about the film that were not so admirable.
I don’t mind the self-aware superhero thing, either, but I do the heavy-handed way Nolan pounded it in.
I’d like to see it on IMAX
If you can, do it. I think one of the main reasons some people are complaining about some of the action scenes is because they’re seeing chopped up versions of them in traditional theaters.
Seeing that tractor trailer flip in full IMAX glory is downright cathartic.
Some people like me, you mean … I can’t see how making them bigger would help, but I’m willing to give it a try. Now, if you can just get an IMAX to Tuscaloosa …
Excellent review. I mean, really. I know that phrase gets thrown around in the blogosphere a lot, but this time I mean it.
For me, this really solidified what I found so disappointing about the film. I was skeptical of all the hype at first, but by the time I walked into the theater, I was really buying it. And then…meh.
As you say, it wasn’t bad — it’s certainly better than 9/10 of all the comic book movies out there — but it just falls short of the masterpiece it’s been made out to be. I think you’re absolutely right about Nolan’s heavy-handedness: he may as well have jumped up and down screaming, “These are my themes!!!” This lack of subtlety didn’t help the film rise above its genre (as some have suggested) — in fact, it simply reinforced the genre’s more annoying conventions (such as villains who feel constantly compelled to set up moral dillemmas — sure, here it might have meant something, but do we really need to see it again?).
Really, it felt like Nolan was a high school freshman, sitting in the back of class, drawing a comic book and telling all his friends that it was going to TOTALY REVOLUTIONIZ TEH WORDL OF COMIX. It’s not. It might be a good comic book, but in the end, a good comic book is still a comic book.
It sounds like I have genre bias, I know…but there have been comic book flicks I’ve really loved. It’s just that this wasn’t one of them. Of all the things that make me dislike a film, delusions of importance is probably the biggest — and this one had it in spades.
Meh. Then again I’m wrong-wrong-wrong, since this is the BEST MOVIE EVAR. I’ll go do penance.
You should … you should do penance. Tell you what: say five “Hail Ledgers” and call me in the morning.
I don’t have a genre bias, either, but I don’t revere the comics, and I think it’s lazy and cynical to suppose that all you have to do is adapt a comic and the summer blockbuster bucks will flow.
In a previous post, I said I thought TDK was the best movie of the summer, but I’ve revised that opinion.
Speed Racer, Prince Caspian, and WALL-E all come to mind for me as better films…but I can’t imagine a lot of people agreeing with me on those (certainly not the first two).
…Hail Ledger, full of creepy clown-ness, the Nolan is with thee. Blessed art thou among creepy clowns, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Oscar. Holy Ledger, master of posthumous hype, pray for us fanboys, now and at the hour at which Joel Schumacher takes over the franchise. Amen.
Schumacher … now THERE’S a director. Maybe he’ll put the nipples back on the bat-suit, and the fins back on the bat-mobile. Actually, I kind of miss the fins.
I knew I would love TDK, and boy did I ever.
I agree Rick, those fins were awesome — although I have to admit that Nolan’s Bat-tank would probably be more useful for crimefighting in a postapocalyptic hell like Gotham City.
But seriously…I never got the big deal about nipples on the Batsuit — are they really that much worse than all the fake muscles that have always been on it in Batman’s various cinematic incarnations (except for Adam West’s hideous outfit…and let’s not get started on that)? If you start with fake huge pecs and chiseled abs, nipple seems like the logical conclusion…
Besides, anyone denying that Batman has always had serious homoerotic undertones is just kidding themselves.
As the king of an amoral universe, as a purveyor of unrestricted evil for fun, Ledger’s dastardly villain, attired as sort of a rotting Clarabell, has chosen his own damnation. He’s jumped into an abyss he has dug himself, and he wants to pull us along.
I m watched The Dark Knight Movies Here
http://www.80millionmoviesfree.com
Luke, I just thought they looked silly.
I think every superhero who runs around in tights — tight, if you get my drift — has homoerotic overtones. I just thought the nipples looked silly as a design choice.
degahse — great line, attired as a rotting clarabell. I wish I’d thought of that one.
i still wish Katie Holmes had stayed on board as Rachel Dawes for the Dark Knight; it was like the time spent getting familiar with her character in Batman Begins was wasted…
I’m not hating on Katie Holmes, I just think Gyllenhaal is better.
Thanks for the Comment.