Well its here and according to a whole bunch of people it's the best film ever made. Yes, it is The Dark Knight. And those people are wrong.
Don't get me wrong we're not saying it's terrible or anything, just that it isn't that good. It's solid, it's fine, in fleeting patches it is very good. It just simply not the best film ever.
For one thing it's a little overweight, like the former glamour queen who's married the sports start and let things go a little bit. Safe in the knowledge that Batman Begins was a big success the filmmakers do seem to have been allowed to be a little self indulgent ; the film really did need a more vocal editor (much like J.K. Rowling needed an editor that actually edited). The thing could stand to lose at least twenty minutes and I suspect you could probably get rid of at least half and hour of the running time without actually losing that much. Tighter and tauter is the way forward as any drummer will testify (the could have been a much ruder phrasing!)
Heath Ledger's Joker unbalances the film. That is to say when he's on screen all is good with the world. His twitchy performance of chaotic madness brings so much life to the film that all the scenes he's not in feel like they are suffering from narcolepsy. You can't accuse him of stealing the film because he is the film.
Once more the title character is by the least interesting person around as even this time he can't rely on his moral drama and sense of decency lift up above the villainy around him. This is because this time Harvey Dent has all the moral outrage at the world and the fight to stay on the right side of pre-eruptive vigilante justice. (And then even his story relies a great deal and the strangely subdued Rachael of our Maggie)
The nihilism doesn't go for the jugular the way it could and the climatic standoffs are basically just the wrong way round leaving the one that really should have been something special cheated out of, well, being something special.
The fact the film now resides at the top of the IMDB top 250 just means people are easily impressed, (or I guess that I'm hard to please) still if you ask me if I'd want to take this or The Godfather as a desert island style film choice (presumably an island with a TV and at least a video player) then I'd have to choose the family every time.
Sorry Bats, but it's the truth.
1 comment:
It is however still a better film than the first one, in the time-honoured manner of superhero sequels. I agree it is unbalanced as a result of the Joker; ironically, this is probably the effect that Ledger's character would delight in, sowing chaos in the structure of the film after the comparatively straightforward plotline of Begins.
I definitely think this is a film that will reward rewatching far more than its predecessor, as I'm absolutely sure I missed a fair few plot points and nuances.
I think you're being a little unfair to Bale's Batman, at least his presence from the previous film, as I did find his evolution towards his vigilante mindset very interesting. However, you're probably right about him in the majority of this film; despite this though the ending is a very satisfying thematic twist which was entirely initiated by Batman, and keeps me interested for part three.
I don't know what the hell they're going to do about the Joker in the future though. I'm not sure they'd be able to recast him successfully.
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