Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by tunenut (A) on July 20, 2008 at 13:29:07

In Reply to: RE: The Dark Knight... posted by mkuller on July 20, 2008 at 11:02:33

I had to see it. Forgetting all the hype, I thought Batman Begins was absolutely tremendous. I have liked Christian Bale since I saw his total commitment in The Machinist. Batman Begins was close to a film noir, dark as can be.

Now we get the sequel, hyped to the skies and with the unfortunate but effective marketing hook that the star died young and this is his legacy.

In the light of all the hype and my own expectations, I was a tiny bit disappointed.

Nevertheless, on its own terms, I am totally impressed that this is the very unusual summer action flick that actually seems to be mostly about big philosophical questions. The Joker cares not about money (this is beaten into the audience's head before it is emphasized by his setting fire to a pile of cash). His motivation, as much as can be guessed, seems to be hatred of any rule and a destruction of all society's rules.

And so he sees the Batman as a kindred spirit, a man who doesn't pay attention to society's arbitrary rules, and pretends to uphold the law by breaking the law.

None of this is subtle in any way. It is hard to care about any people in the movie, as none of them have any real human characteristics. Christian Bale is given very little to do. The CGI action scenes are not very exciting to me- I found a chase on foot in Tell No One to be more exciting than all these fake cartoon chases.

So it had flaws. Heath Ledger hammed it up, but that was perfect for the role. A complete nihilist is an unusual thing in a movie- I cannot off the top of my head think of another.

Flawed yes, but a lot more meat than one could reasonably expect from a summer blockbuster.