I got really excited when I saw this poster at Lido while watchin "I'm Not There" earlier this year. This poster is so well crafted it directs all your attention to the Joker. The blown up version does it more justice.
I FINALLY caught The Dark Knight, after my plans were twarted on Friday when the tickets were sold out 2hours before the 8pm show I wanted to watch at The Cathay. This time, I was determined to catch it. I booked the tickets two days earlier, chose the superb Grand Cathay that has a huge screen, fantastic sound, ample leg space, and comfortable seats. Touting it as the most anticipated movie of 2008 was no exaggeration, with all the posthumous Oscar-or-not hype surrounding late Heath Ledger's performance. The entire marketing campaign was based on it. It delivered, and I must say the last time I was SO excited to see a performance, or a movie, was . . . Cate Blanchett in I'm Not There or Meryl in Devil Wears Prada. Or Ryan Gosling in Half Nelson.
At a whopping 153 minutes, I was amazed at how each and every single minute felt like a punch. Every scene played like the Joker's twisted and complicated mind, with action, laughs, cringes, complicated and smart crime acts, and intellect spewing at every turn. Christopher Nolan, of Momento fame, might have packed too much details and too many themes into the movie. It is the most psychologically twisted of the Batman series, with the deepest quest into the whole moral foreplay. Did the Joker spawn from the Dark Knight's crime fighting, insomuch as the clearing up leads to villains of another level? At one of the movie's climatic scene, two ships are loaded with explosives, one carrying the scums and criminals, one carrying the citizens. They have to choose between blowing the other ship up, or risk both ships exploding if neither party detonates the other ship in the given time. Is it right to kill to protect oneself? Are the criminals not humans as well?
The whole movie played with post-911 terrorist resonance, with the blowing up of the entire Gotham Hospital the final straw. It felt terrifyingly realistic with what was going on a few years back, and the evacuation of citizens felt apocalyptical, almost as if watching a horror movie with a virus ala 28 WEEKS LATER. This is the most grim and anarchist of the entire series, and a little heavy for a Summer blockbuster, but I'm glad Chris Nolan made no compromise. The script was full of punch. The cinematography was befitting with a grim dark-blue throughout. And of course the Bat Pod thingie, which was so much cooler than anything Iron Man had, on hindsight.
Christian Bale as Batman was the perfect choice, and he's carved out a career as diverse as Edward Norton's, and he's one of the best character actors around. Thou without as much screen time without the Bat suit as compared to Batman Begins, he still managed to do a rather decent job. Batman Begins was his breakout role to the world, in a way his first major blockbuster. The Dark Knight extends upon his talent, though I wished he had more screen time outside the suit.
I was glad to see Cillian Murphy return with a minor role as the Scarecrow. CM is so hugely underrated which puzzles me because he's had a diverse filmography and decent acting as well. And then there were Chin Han, and Edison's non-existent, less than 3sec shot. Heck the camera didnt even focus on him. Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman were scene-stealers with great lines, and Maggie Gyllenhael was stunning. I wished she was cast in the first movie instead of Katie Holmes. She added a little edge and exotic beauty to the role of Rachel Dawes.
Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent was good, but it didnt scream at me. Those who've seen Thank You For Smoking should remember his PR role in that movie, that in a way paved for this role. But that movie was line-dependent. To play a good-turn-bad role required more than good lines. I thought he could have been more menacing, and his voice could have been lower. Perhaps I watch too much of the cartoon.
And then there was Heath Ledger. The licking of lips. The low tone in his voice. That laughter. That slouch and tousled green hair. That white-red makeup and the ghastly black rings that accentuated his eyes. Heath is a Method actor, being compared to the great Marlon Brando. In Brokeback Mountain, he tightened his jaw throughout the entire shoot just to show Ennis' pent-up frustrations. In this movie, he got so into the role that rumours claim it was the cause of his drug overdose that led to his eventual demise. Like watching James Dean in any movies of his short-career, the Joker was Heath at his prime, with a performance that resonates even after I left the theatre. The sense of poignance at the loss of great potential is truely tragic. To say that he left at his prime is undermining what he could have done in the future. If he were still alive today, I am sure he will go on to give even more stunning performances. The Joker was the heart of the movie, as it should be, and Heath stole the movie. At times funny and scary, he created a Joker of his own. You can almost see the deep characterisation that went into this role. He has proven that to touch anything Jack Nicholson has done before might not be suicide after all. JN's Joker was a lighter villain with more Tim Burton fluff, but HL's was menacing and deeply troubled, yet not without any "jokes".
This goes down as one of my favourite movies of all time. CN has successfully brought Batman down from the unrealistic, it-could-only-happen-in-the-movies-or-comics realm into real life. While watching the movie I felt that someone like the Joker could truely exist. Perhaps it might not force out a crime-fighting caped crusader masked in a lathex suit moulded after a bat. But with all the signs pointing to an apocalyptic future, it is not hard to imagine the future with a maniac villain. We see it all in the news: Osama Bin Laden, Al Qaeda, perhaps even Bush. The Joker merely did it under the guise of makeup.
HEATH LEDGER
1979 - 22/01/2008
