After watching The Dark Knight, I'd say a few things about the movie. I am not in love with The Joker. Two, I loved Bale's performance. Three, fight sequences should be underplayed for such a script.
Fourth, people loved The Joker as Batman's nemesis.
With due respect to Ledger, I think his performance had its own moments. But, I had reasons to believe Bale was the reason I was watching this movie. The fact that the movie itself rests on some incredible dialogues, was a reason enough already.
However, I wish Nolan would have taken greater care with Bale's character. In fact, BBC Web site has said this performance would be the year's most underrated, and I agree. A role that demanded a niche, only ended up restoring the balance in the script. An essential clothing to a role are those moments of choices, a "hero" makes in crises. Sadly, Nolan's Joker overshadows all of that.
I have seen the movie twice. The first time, the audience loved the part when Batman overturns Joker's truck. There was a big, and I should say rather surprising, applause. It reminded me of the good vs evil pschye--stark, and scary. I guess people were not inclined to get drawn into the grey areas of "misplaced sense of self-righteouness".
Besides, I sat in the corner, enjoying the thrills offered by the movie, and looking out for Bale.
4 comments:
a superhero flick with a soul....MY FOOT! bale with a bad case of laryngitis as batman. tho the batman theme always has an inherent darkness which creates the possibility of creating something with depth, i havent seen any of the batman movies exploit that possibility. (one example of a fantasy movie which had darkness with depth, or at least an impression of it was edward scissorhands)the batman comics do a better job of creating an atmosphere of darkness, depth and moral uncertainity.
Well, have you seen the movie since on the small screen? I loved it in the theatres, and a rewatch on TV certainly made me wish that your point #3 there were the reverse - more action scenes and less pretentious mumbo-jumbo.
Let me start off by saying I'm flattered someone's read an old post! But, er, um, let me also not get swayed by the whole aura of the movie. In fact, I have seen it quite a few times after watching it in the theatre. I would say that if a director attempts at something larger than life, then one begins to have more expectations from him. In this case, C. Nolan, has not refrained from unleashing the out and out savage Joker, offering the best of screenplay for such a character. It's certainly a more rambunctious (did I get that spelling right?) way of portraying a villain who's got his wits right. Normally, a villain withtout a masterful wit is just a goon. My case in point is this: a better job would have been to simply remove the love angle, and give some moral ambiguity to the Batman. I like action too, and the previous Batman movies have been doing that. I think Pankaj has a point to make with the comic strips.
Well, you do have a nice blog - so there is an incentive for people to read the older posts. :)
I enjoyed watching Ledger's Joker (my favourite villain ever remains Hopkins' Dr Lecter, though). Have no complaints there. It's just the overall tone of the movie that I dislike. And yes, I agree with you that had Batman behaved a little less like an applicant for sainthood, I might've enjoyed the movie a great deal more!
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