Post by Fickle81 on Jul 18, 2008 18:49:26 GMT -5
Yep...I have just seen the best movie of the past 8 years of the new millennium. As true as it may technically be,saying this is the greatest comic book film adaptation ever made can be considered a disservice to the film. It's much more than that. This is a film that gets to have its cake and eat it too. Thrilling,moving,and thought provoking all at once...a total package of a film thats shows what the magic of cinema is all about. Christopher Nolan was already on my top 20 or possibly top 10 list of the greatest film makers of all time...but with this...his magnum opus...he has shot into the top 5 easily.
Everything about this film works on monumental levels...the acting/characters,the cinematography,the writting,the score,the directing,and the pacing...they all come together to define the well oiled and finely honed machine that is this movie in a way in which no one element outstages the other. Lets start with the acting...Bale IS the cinematic Batman and Bruce Wayne...he proved it in Batman Begins,and he proves it yet again here. Bale communicates his ongoing personal peril brought on by the massive escalation very well. This is a man who becomes gradually overwhelmed to the point of resorting to desperate measures to keep the city's order in tact. Like Bale said,his character was so strongly established in Batman Begins that he's not afraid to compete for the spotlight as it will only work for the betterment of the movie,and he was right.
Now,we move onto Ledger...when he was first announced as the actor chosen to play The Joker,I along with many others were disappointed because not only was he NOT who I was pulling for (I wanted it to be Crispin Glover in the worst way),but he was the LAST person I would have ever thought to be capable of pulling off such a role...well now that I've seen what he's done,I can safely say that I'm glad nobody else,including Glover,was chosen...Ledger's Joker was an absolute force of freak nature...a destruction device solely created to cause mass devastation...his mere presence creates a dark cloud that seemingly swallows up the entire city. Surprisingly,he wasn't in the film as much as I thought he would be,which turned out to be for the best. He's in it just enough to leave a balanced impression of just how sick and twisted his character truly is...and that is why I don't totally agree with all the reviewers that say he stole the show...as fantastic as he was,he was not bigger than anybody else...he simply worked as a crucial element in TDK system just like all the other crucial parts. Be that as it may,Ledger's showing still raises the bar of shape shifting performances quite higher than it already was.
But probably the most surprising performance of all for me personally was Aaron Eckhart's Harvey Dent...all I can say is that it's a damn good thing that he never became as big of a marketing device as The Joker,because his character and arc in the film is truly a marvel to behold. Heres this great guy who you get the impression that he'd give you the cloths off his back during a severe blizzard if he felt you needed them more than him...and to see the hidden darkside within him slowly start to come out and to the point where he finally does snap is,quite simply,heartbreaking. Like Bruce Wayne,you can really feel the sense of desperation in the character to keep things under control and be able to make a difference in his home town...but unfortunatly for him,unlike Bruce Wayne,the city drives him mad. His downfall truly shows how ugly and unforgiving the world can truly be.
Everybody else brught their A game to the table as well. While I didn't have a problem with Katie Holmes like most others did,I definatly agree that Maggie Gyllenhaal was much better. Gary Oldman did a lot more here,and in the process really showed off more depth. Morgan Freeman basically played Morgan Freeman playing Lucius Fox again...and it worked...again. Even the low key actors like Eric Roberts and Anthony Micheal Hall came through. All in all,it's an ensemble show to be reckoned with.
The cinematography here,like in Batman Begins,is truly exquisite...by making the city look normal here unlike the noir-ish pseudo cyberpunk wasteland in Batman Begins,you really get a sense that Batman's presence has changed things for the better and that The Joker and the rest of the mob are fighting tooth and nail to return the city back to its look in Begins. The film score is just right...it's restrained when it needs to be and it goes buck wild when it needs to,kinda like Ledger's Joker. Theres one particular moment close to the film's end where the one note that lingers on,combined with the storyline moment in question,creates almost near unbearable tension.
And then theres the true engine behind this beast of a machine...the writting. Quite simply,this is one of the most intelligent screenplays written in years. It's filled to the brim with powerful and potent philisophical themes that compliment the rest of the elements of the movie like a perfectly fitting glove...if the line between hero and vigilante was firmly established in Batman Begins,this movie blurs it to the point where it's nearly unrecogniseable. Joker's actions throughout the film,by his own designs,raise the question of whether or not the safety and security of the world is really worth fighting for when it can be taken away so easily. I'm merely scratching at the surface of all the thought provoking elements found in the film,but trust me,theres much more to discover. Bang up job Nolans...bang up job.
Combine all this with a dark moody atmosphere and feel,a brutally mean spirited natures that pushes its PG-13 rating to its breaking point,a 2 and a half hour runtime that only feels like about half that,and a powerful cliffhanger ending that will hit you like a freight train,and you get not only my pick for best film of the year (and I can say that confidently dispite the fact that I haven't seen a lot of this year's movies and that theres still more to come),but also for me the best film of the new millennium. Any flaws in this movie are miniscule,nit picky,and a lot of them can be easily justified or rationalised.
As great as Batman Begins was and still is,it was merely a warm up for this...the calm before the REAL storm that is this movie so to speak. Both films elevate the source material far beyond mere comic books,with Batman Begins being an intriguing character study and this being an epic and tragic crime opera,to the point where not only has the bar for comic book films been raised so high that it may be unreachable by others. The expectations I had for this movie was powerful enough to move mountains,and dispite the fact that critical level high expectations like that could have easily been a recipe for deep disappointment,the movie STILL managed to surpass my towering expectations. It's so good that I'm confident 50-100 years from now,this movie will still be analysed and treasured by critics,film makers,and movie goers. Anybody that doesn't like this (I'm looking in YOUR general direction David Denby of The New Yorker) has no business even WATCHING movies,let alone reviewing them. If this doesn't get nominated for many Oscars,it will prove once and for all that the academy is pretensious and worthless.
Trust me on this,it lives up to its hype and then some. If you don't see this film,you're truly missing something special that may not come around again in the foreseeable future. The need to see this should be equvelent to the need to breathe. I dub thee...an instant classic.
5/5