The Dark Knight

So, unless you've been living under a rock on Mars with your eyes screwed shut and your fingers jammed into your ears going "la la la la I can't heeeaaaarrr yoooouuuu" at the top of your lungs, you've heard about Nolan's The Dark Knight and just how mind-numbingly awesome it truly is. Chances are you've seen it at least once by now as well. None of you really need me to tell you how good it was.

I'm doing it for my own piece of mind, really. Spoilers languish yonder. Ye be warned.

The Dark Knight cannot be summed up in one word or a sentence. It's just too much for that. It really is. But if I had to, the word would be transcendent. Because that's what the entire experience and film itself is. It transcends mere boundaries of genré or cliché and becomes a being of perfection. I'm honestly not exaggerating. It shatters the idea of a "super hero movie" or an "action flick" or even "summer blockbuster". It goes beyond expectation and is truly a film. It has what so many other "films" these days are lacking: character-driven story-telling at its finest.

When I first heard the Oscar buzz generating around the film I took it as the Academy trying to cash in on Heath Ledger's tragically abrupt end. To sit in the theater and see that the buzz is not only earned, but quite frankly obvious is another story all together. To really demonstrate this, I'll have to move to the acting...

The truest standby that I have discovered for myself is that if you don't care about the characters everything else will fail. It doesn't matter how cool the plot is, how amazing a chase sequence becomes, or how well the director made the film. The characters on screen are absolutely key and no one seems to understand this better than Christopher Nolan. Watch any of his other films (Memento, The Prestige) and tell me that he doesn't follow this concept. I dare you. (Great storytelling comes with this concept, something Nolan also has in spades.) Nolan has a penchant for picking great character actors, something that we don't have nearly enough of in the crap Hollywood churns out these days.

Christian Bale is a character actor. Don't believe me? Seriously? He's Welsh for starters, and beyond the ability to bury his accent he's able to do Batman's hefty growl perfectly. There's more to becoming Batman than mastering the Caped Crusader's growl, but it's a damn good start and nothing that the previous film incarnations ever used. Bruce Wayne shouldn't sound like Batman and vice versa. Bruce is the mask while Batman is who he really is. And Batman walks a very fine line as to how batshit insane he is. The only thing Batman will not do is kill. That's it. Everything else is up for grabs. Christian plays this to a tee by refusing to back down in any situation and becoming a force to be reckoned with. Mr. Bale has done this before in one of my favorite films American Psycho as Patrick Bateman. (Bateman? Batman? I realize Bateman is a reference to Norman Bates, but still, think about it...) Batman in this film truly becomes the Dark Knight as he unflinchingly tosses gangsters off of ledges, through buildings into airplanes, and takes down an eighteen wheeler truck on his lonesome all in the name of dirty justice.

Bruce takes a backseat to newcomer (and Batman victim #167) Harvey Dent, also lovingly known as Two Face. Harvey is admirably brought to life by one of my favorite actors Aaron Eckhart (Thank You For Smoking). Aaron instills in our favorite DA the desperation to turn Gotham towards the light in a legitimate and legal way. He also makes him a bit intimidating as he cold cocks a known gangster in open court. My favorite scene of his is when he's about to become Two Face, lying in the oil and trying to reassure Rachel that everything will be all right even though he knows it won't be. I was in tears. Aaron skillfully played the range of emotions that Harvey as both Harvey and Two Face go through, which is the complete gambit. Idealistic, cold, frustrated, in love, you name Aaron did it perfectly. I was almost convinced that he loved Maggie Gyllenhaal. The Two Face effect was great--real burn victim and too realistic, actually. Loved it. Hurt to look at his face, it really did.

The Joker. Wow. What can I say that hasn't already been said about Heath Ledger's performance? In a word: brilliant. The showmanship, the casual insanity, the freedom he feels...it was electric. This movie demonstrated why it is that the Joker will always be Batman's arch-rival--they feed off of each other. It was perfect. My favorite moment (one of them, there really are too many) was when the Joker leaves his card. Heath nailed the character in that instant. Charming, serious, insane, light-hearted...definitely deserves an Oscar. It's so sad he'll never be able to reprise this role. Truly tragic that Heath is dead.

I have to get back to work. More review/rant later. Like how many Chicago landmarks they crammed in there. It was fantastic.

^_^