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Caught the newest Batman installment in a matinee. Why don't I walk the block and a half to the theatre more often to see movies as they are intended to be seen? (Mostly because whenever I think to go see a movie, I find the next start time is more than 90 minutes away and my gnat-sized attention span takes me elsewhere before showtime.)
I guess I'm a sucker for hype; this movie has gotten a lot. That tends to mean one of:
- it's a great movie, or
- the producers are desperate to get butts in seats
I think the first, but jeeze, what hath Bob Kane wrought? While the caped crusader was never a particularly happy-go-lucky kinda guy, I hardly think, in the original 1930s late-night inkfests when he was created, that anything this dark and complex ever crossed anyone's mind.
OK, the big hype was around Heath Ledger, playing the Joker in his last role. Well, what actor in his right mind follows Nicholson? I have to say the actor's craft is somewhat oblique to me. To me, a good actor is one in whom you don't notice "acting," and beyond that, it's really hard for me to say, of a characterization I enjoy, how much was good acting and how much was good writing/ direction/ production/ costumery/ popcorn/ mood-on-my-part, but this Joker was really pretty damn captivating, without the scenery-mastication that tends to typify the role, and it was definitely—-definitely--an entirely different person from the Brokeback Mountain character. (Actually, I don't recall being that impressed with Nicholson's Joker, which, after all, was mostly just a painted Nicholson... I'll have to see that one again now.) Based on that, I think the hype around Ledger here was well-justified.
Why does Maggie Gyllenhaal give me the creeps?
Christian Bale has turned out to be perhaps the best Batman yet. This is a seriously twisted person, almost as much in his way (as an endless line of critics have noted) as the Joker himself. But then, what sane actor would NOT follow Adam West?
Modern America doesn't have a lot of mythology going for it, so characters like Batman (when not played in camp form) provide an interesting glimpse into the collective psyche. When we can invent a persona and a physical presence, what do we choose? Among others, a millionaire vigilante with a chip on his shoulder the size of Utah. Hey, that almost sounds like... George W. Bush! (W. plays it a little more campy, though.)
As for the rest, I like how the accoutrements were mostly underplayed. Sure, he has the newest-model Batmobile, hang-glider cape, etc., but for the most part, that stuff is incidental to the story.
The typical Batman scenery is full-on Art Deco, as if Gotham were inhabited almost entirely by unhinged wealthy gay collectors. That, too, seems muted here--though the backgrounds are so dark it's hard to tell--when you see a wide shot of the city, it's early 21st century all the way.
I was forewarned that this movie was unrelentingly dark, with almost no humor. Actually, there were several places where the entire audience laughed (and one where only I did--FYI, that was where the judge's destination was revealed to her).
OK, seriously, I have a hard time thinking of stuff to write about movies. This is a long, dark, beautiful movie; it's worth seeing in a theatre. I give it all five stars.
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