Okay, saw The Dark Knight on Sunday, and you know I have to throw in my two cents, or else I'll explode much like Marlena in Cloverfield. Firstly, I mostly agree with Eric, who totally beat me in talking about this movie. So...I'll talk about other things.
Spoilers be here, so I'll do the fancy thing and change the color of the text, so you'd have to highlight them to read the spoilers. Cause I need to talk the twists and turns and gut-wrenching moments. Now, Heath Ledger really makes the movie. His Joker was pretty perfect. And I really love the message that the movie was trying to make, and the fact that the Joker was pretty secondary to the plot. Although he was set up as the primary villain, and had the most screen time (which was always awesome), he was mostly a plot device to get the real story rolling (which is mostly why the movie took so long to get going--it was like 2 movies squished together). Harvey Dent becoming Two-Face is the real focus of the story and it was pretty spectacular; mostly because we could completely understand his murderous rage because of his own disfigurement and being party to the traumatic death of the woman he (and Batman!) loved. The Joker pulled a number on him, and we feel truly bad for Dent. He was a real person, unlike the caricature that Tommy Lee Jones portrayed. And the makeup was truly, uh, icky, for lack of a better word. What were those, 5th degree burns? On one level, the Joker won. And, that's pretty cool. But on another, he lost spectacularly, and I think that was even cooler.
I'm referring to the scene with the river boats. The moment that the hardened criminal threw the detonator out of the window, so that the boatload of innocent people could be spared was pretty damn amazing to me. But, maybe I'm a sucker for moments when you realize humanity isn't as crappy as everyone thinks. It just gets me. For a movie that had so many unnecessary scenes, the emotional payoff of all the filmmakers' setup is pretty good.
Now, I'm concerned about the inevitable next movie. How can they not make a third part now with all the money being thrown at them right now? But, who can possibly top Heath Ledger as the Joker? What villain could possibly come close to that? The story as it is now is really interesting, and they set up a great plotline for the next movie, where Batman is concerned. Batman was always towing the line between good guy and bad guy, so it was nice to see a movie where Batman made too many wrong turns, and got much darker than normal--to set up the fact that he's taking the fall for a good man, whom Gotham needs as a symbol more than Batman. The next movie should be interesting. What villain could be brought in, though? Maybe they'll surprise me, but I don't see how they could possibly top that Joker, who is not only Batman's greatest foe, but was also played to perfection. I hope they do surprise me, though, because this interpretation of a comic book is pretty awesome, and I don't want to see it go out with a whimper.
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2 comments:
Ok, so SPOILERS. Though if you haven't seen the movie, would you really explore the comments to this post?
Anyway.
I have to say, I was a bit disappointed with how they handled the whole Two-Face thing. and by that I mean, HOLY SHIT i was SO EXCITED the first time they showed him in the hospital and I was all, "OH MY GOD, THEY BURNED HIS FACE, HE'S GOING TO BE TWO-FACE! THEY'RE GOING TO MAKE HIM TWO-FACE! THAT IS SO GOOD!" (Though I should note that Mike knew all along -- Dent's coin flipping gave him away. I wasn't familiar enough with the character to catch that one.) And so I immediately was ready to giddily count the days until the third movie will come out, when Two-Face would wreak havoc on Gotham in retaliation for the cruel fates that took his woman from him and ruined his boyish good looks.
but then, they decided instead to play out his whole plot very frantically, and then he was dead, and now it's over. I was all, "whaa?" I mena, Joker WAS great, you are correct -- and I especially liked how they had him telling like 5 different stories about how he got his scars, just to confirm that there is really no story, or at least no point to any story, he's just a crazy person. Though, I do think you're going a bit overboard in your adoration, and think it's premature to say that no one can ever do better. There ARE some good actors left in Hollywood, I think, and if these writers and all could make TWO pretty good batman movies in a row, maybe the third will not suck? Also, PENGUIN?!?!?! I AM READY. But I digress...
My point: Joker was great, and there was really no reason to make the movie as long as two movies and kill two interestingly intertwined, YET SEPARATE plot lines all in one shot. They should have left Dent in the hospital with the gun in his hand, and caught up with him in Part III.
Also, I'm calling it now: CAT WOMAN. Also also, before I realized harvey was going to be Two-Face, I totally thought he was going to be Robin instead. Ha!
AAAAND, all I have to say is that Maggie Gyllenhal better stay dead.
Because I can't leave well enough alone: Perhaps I was too harsh about the next actors to be villains. I'm sure the performaces will be spectacular, and I have total faith in their finding a good actor to play an awesomely menacing villain. But, it'll still be hard to find a villain (as a character), who could top what the Joker did both to Gotham and Batman, not to mention Harvey Dent. On a personal level, he ripped the city and our hero(es) apart. I am holding out hope, and would love to see Catwoman (they made an oblique reference to her in the movie, which was cool). It's just the scope of the other villains will have to top that of the Joker, and that's no easy task. Especially since most of the other villains aren't as interesting as the Joker, in the first place. I honestly think Two-Face could've been a really awesome villain for the next movie, as we got to know him personally in this one, and we would see how far he had been pushed. I was also surprised that they killed him off so quickly.
Maybe Harvey Dent didn't actually die?
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