Blandman Begins: A late review of the Dark Knight

09.08.08

The irony of this review is that I saw this movie 26 hours after it opened, and yet I am only writing this now. I blame my newfound employment.

I know that everybody drank the Kool Aid on this one and is running around gushing about how great it was (Yes, this means you. And you.) and how amazing Heath Ledger's performance was, but the fact of the matter is that this movie sucked sweaty Bat Balls. This must be the Summer of the Crappy Sequel (see also Indiana Jones and the Debacle of the Crystal Numbskulls.)

In what was the worst bat flick since Schumaker's homoerotic franchise-raping Taco Bell blockbusters in the late 90s, we witness the least imaginative portrayal of Gotham City ever. (Please read the previous sentence in a Jack Nicholson voice.)

Allow me to elaborate. Gotham City is a cornerstone of modern American mythology, the city that never was, the biggest, baddest, darkest metropolis of the 20th century. Past depictions of this city have been sprawling, ominous, both medieval and futuristic, awe inspiring. And yet in this film, the once magnificent and maleficent Gotham City has been reduced to downtown Chicago. On a sunny day. Without a cloud in the sky. In June. In the suburbs.

Which is, as far as I'm concerned, sacrilege.

Take, for example, my favorite scene in the movie. Heath Ledger as the Joker, in drag, dressed as a nurse, visits the newly-spawned Two Face in the hospital. A heated dialogue ensues.

However, this occurs on a bright and sunny day in a suburban neighborhood. Imagine how much better this scene would've been on a rainy, stormy night, on a black street in a dark and brooding city.

And this is the rule of the film, not the exception: not since the cheesy 60s TV show has a Batman story been framed so extensively in broad daylight. Bats (and Batmen) are supposed to be NOCTURNAL!

It's like they forgot what Batman WAS. At least in the Bob Kane, Tim Burton, Frank Miller, Bruce Timm sense. Bats are active by night. Ergo, the majority of Batman's narrative, the movement of himself and his antagonists, should take place at night. In this, the Nolan brothers have failed.

They got it right with Batman Begins. There, we had a well-done and original Gotham that still maintained the requisite darkness. They also had a decent screenplay and a compelling narrative. It wasn't a perfect movie. But it was good.

The Dark Knight, though easily the best titled Batman movie, nonetheless doesn't live up to the thematic richness its title implies. The White Knight / Harvey Dent theme is played up a couple times, but the Dark Knight theme remains undeveloped. The film could have furthered the development of Batman's code of ethics and role as a modern defender of the downtrodden, a shadowy, futuristic knight of the Round Table, as is seemingly suggested by the title. Instead, we find a feeble, half-witted message that will be examined further later on.

The character development and clever, heartfelt performances of Batman Begins are not to be found in this sequel. Katie Holmes, whose Plain Jane, whoops, I mean Rachel Dawes, character was a rather feeble addition to the Batman mythos to begin with, has been inexplicably replaced with Maggie Gyllenhaal. The chemistry between Rachel Dawes and Bruce Wayne is nonexistent, and not believable in the slightest.

Additionally, brilliant actors who shone in Batman Begins, namely Morgan Freeman and Michael Kaine, are now apparently relegated to less than 20 minutes of screen time each. Let me be the first to say that Freeman and Kaine are masters of their craft, and were wasted on this movie. Also, the absences of Rutger Hauer, Cillian Murphy, and, to a lesser extent, Tom Wilkinson and Liam Neeson, leave a void of personality in the film.

The movie suffers deeply as a result, even more so because huge portions of the plot are advanced by nameless, throwaway characters portrayed by talentless extras. Mind you, the credits of a movie always have entries such as "Cop #2, Inmate #5, Woman on Street, Man in Car," etc. But never before have characters as unimportant as these hogged so much screen time as they do in the Dark Knight. It's ridiculous, and it makes for a poorly acted movie and negligible emotional attachment to any of the myriad characters.

And why the hell is the mayor of Gotham City wearing eyeliner? Dude was a worthless character to boot, robotic like the rest of them. Even Gary Oldman can't save scenes with these nobodies.

Speaking of bad acting, I can't review this without mentioning Christian Bale's atrocious Bat Voice. It worked in moderation in Batman begins, but in this flick every time Batman said something I couldn't help but laugh at how ludicrous he sounded. How anyone can take this movie seriously is beyond me.

This is the part where you say "But what about Heath Ledger? His performance was so classic!" Yeah yeah yeah. I know it's natural to canonize the deceased, and I certainly don't want to slight the recently departed, but let's face it: there is no way a pretty boy actor like Heath Ledger will ever fill a veteran like Jack Nicholson's shoes. Heath did a good job, and the Joker's makeup and costuming were well conceived and executed. But did he top Nicholson's performance as the Joker in Tim Burton's 1989 Batman? Not even close.

Every line of dialogue uttered by Jack Nicholson as the Joker was impeccably written and brilliantly performed. You can take any snippet from any point of his performance in the 1989 Batman, and you'll have an immensely entertaining sound bite. Such is not the case with Heath Ledger in the Dark Knight. Furthermore, the Joker's character development is virtually nonexistent.

Which brings me to my next point: the feeble and idiotic moral of the story (or at least one of them.) The stupid theme they keep beating about your head in this movie is that the Joker is crazy because he doesn't care about money, that what is truly frightening about him is that he is not motivated by profit or material gain. As Alfred says, "Some men just want to watch the world burn." This is quite possibly the most idiotic and shallow idea ever promoted in a film of this magnitude.

If anything, the Joker's lack of interest in capital gain makes him a more noble character, not a more reprehensible one. It almost feels like the Nolan brothers are trying to justify the fact that they sold out, cashed in, and made a crappy big budget blockbuster.

In Batman Begins, the message of the film was one of social responsibility and public utility. In the Dark Knight, all they could come up with for a theme was a sense of horror over someone who is not motivated by greed. It's as if the Batman films are a microcosm of our culture: we used to care about having a just and respectable civilization, and now all we care about is money. It's disgusting.

Also, where the hell was the Batcave? They talked about it for the entirety of Batman Begins, and yet it is nowhere to be found in this film. And Bruce Wayne operating out of a condo? How boring can Batman get?

Despite the frantic pacing of this movie, it nonetheless manages to seem dull and about an hour too long. I, for one, was completely bored for the vast majority of this film. It is, without a doubt, the least creative and aesthetically pleasing portrayal of Batman I've seen, rivaled only in crappiness by Schumaker's Bat trash. But Schumaker seemed to know that he was making garbage, and didn't care. Christopher Nolan, however, is still maintaining a semblance of pretense. This film suffers in that it clearly takes itself seriously, and yet is completely devoid of meaningful content.

I could go on and on about why this movie was a steaming pile of bat guano, but I think you get the picture.

Overall Grade: C-