More Dark Knight
Okay, there are things I didn’t like about The Dark Knight. I thought it ran a little long. I thought Harvey Dent’s CG disfigured face looked ridiculous. Christopher Nolan’s Gotham is very real, there’s not a hint of fantasy, it’s a look and feel that separates his Batman from the rest. It’s a style that is entirely consistent until Harvey Dent wakes up in the hospital. His disfigurement is rendered in CGI that just doesn’t fit within the context of the world Nolan so painstakingly built. Lastly, Christian Bale’s “Bat Rasp,” the voice he uses as Batman, is incredibly stupid. It ruins all of his dialogue, which is particularly unfortunate since he has far more dialogue in The Dark Knight than in Batman Begins.
However, the entire movie is absolutely worth seeing solely because of Heath Ledger. His Joker is entirely worth nine dollars and two and a half hours. The character is brilliantly acted and written. He’s so cold, so dark, but so driven. He truly enjoys mayhem and destruction. His entire purpose in life is to prove that chaos is the only true constant. The only thing that’s reliable is the fact that nothing is reliable. He’ll do anything to prove his point, even die. He’d gladly die for his cause. One scene in particular gave me the chills…
Batman’s moral code won’t allow him to kill, the Joker wants to prove that this code will break like anything. After an extended chase through Gotham, the Joker stands in the middle of the street with Batman quickly bearing down on him atop the Bat-cycle. He stands, not moving, not planning on moving. Being run down in cold blood would serve his purpose. He says, “come on, hit me…” over and over. In that moment, he’s ready to die, he wants to die, if it means completely destroying the part of Batman that is most precious. It’s my favorite scene in the entire movie, it’s why I’ll go again.
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I just don’t know
So, I’m back from the midnight screening of The Dark Knight, and honestly, I don’t know how I feel about it. I know that whenever Heath Ledger was on-screen doing his Joker thing I was entirely entertained. His Joker is entirely different from Jack Nicholson’s Joker. Ledger’s Joker takes absolutely no pleasure in anything but chaos. He doesn’t care about money, or power, or controlling Gotham’s crime syndicate, or even his own life. He burns things just to watch them burn. He also has no definitive backstory. No name. No previous criminal record. He doesn’t exist until he becomes The Joker. He tells different stories about his disfigurement, but they’re all probably lies. Ledger played the role perfectly. I could have easily watched two hours of the Joker being crazy and talking about chaos, but sadly, I suppose, they had to have other characters and such. Though, I was really happy to see Cillian Murphy back as the Scarecrow for a few minutes.
Maybe I have to see the movie again, under less hyped up circumstances. I know I should be raving about it, but something just felt off.
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