The National Lottie

The Dark Knight

What can I say that has not already been said?

I dragged, Darren and Antny, mind you they followed willingly up to UGC Cineworld (old habits die hard)  after work yesterday to get tickets to the 7.30pm showing of The Knight.  We got in queue to discover that all three showings of the evening were fully booked up.

I was over come with RAGE so much so that I actually kicked Darren. Apologies for that. (Gentle patting motion). What can I say? I have the temper of a 3 year old when I don’t get what I want.

I immediately went into defeatist mode and wanted to go home and soak my miseries in the bottle of Turkish Raki which had been left over from the weekends shenanigans.   But Darren in his ever prevailing optimism suggested The Savoy.

“But I don’t like the Savoy ” I unjustifiably whinged in an effort to distract from my sulkiness, evidentially only highlighting what a massive pain in the arse I can be when things go pear shaped on me. So kicking and screaming and throwing all sorts of things out of the pram, I was pushed towards O’Connell Street and JOY they had tickets to the 7.55 show. We purchased our tickets, which were a lot cheaper than Cineworld and one pint of liquid gold later and we joined the long long outdoor queue for screen 1.

The Bat & I

I was a huge Batman fan from first Michael Keaton stepped into the leather suit in 1989. One of my earliest crushes was on a middle aged man in tight spandex and leather swinging around in a mask. What does that say about me?

Both Batman and Batman Returns are still in my top movies of all time list (there being about 50 in that list). The Third one has been banned in my reality and Batman & Robin is best forgotten even though this means ignoring the lovely Mr. Clooney.

From very early on in the hype I knew Batman Begins was going to be a revival of the crusader I loved and it didn’t disappoint. In fact I watched the damn thing twice in the last two weeks. I  probably need to get out more.

Now for the actual review.

Can I do it justice without seeing it again?  Is next week too late to blog about it?  Okay – here goes.

The gist of the story is that the Bat-team must fight against the forces of corruption as the Mob attempts to secure it’s deathly grip on the city of Gotham. The visual effects are flawless (bar the exploding helicopter that looks as it was drawn in), the camera work and stunts are likewise excellent.   Director Christopher Nolan doesn’t bow to Hollywood and the over all tone of the movie is dark and sorrowful. The movie is (as Darren put it) dialogue heavy. It is a well-wrought drama smothered in heart racing action scenes teasing ooh’s and ahh’s from the full capacity screening.

The true glory of the film however does not lie in it’s script, direction or cinematography but in it’s characters. The characters are interesting and well-developed and are faced with all kinds of obstacles while they’re grappling with inner demons.

Christian Bale is all bad and moody again as billionaire Bruce Wayne/The Caped Crusader.  There are a few role reprisals from Michael Caine (dry and very funny), Morgan Freeman (possibilities for the next bad guy?), Gary Oldman (this guy is such a good actor I forget it’s Big Mo’s brother) and Cillian Murphy(whatever).

Stepping into the limelight is Aaron Eckhart as Gotham’s whiter than white DA District Attorney Harvey Dent and Maggie Gyllenhaal bitch slaps Katie Holmes’ Rachel Dawes into a much finer character.

Heath Ledger attempts to take over the role of the Joker originally and magnificently portrayed by Jack Nicholson in 1989.

And did he do it?

Jack who?

Ledgers joker merely hinted at his former master. Other than that – it was all his. He was sadistic, frightening,  grotesque,  unpredictable and unnervingly funny. The character is a coarse dervish of cackling, lip-smacking, cheek-sucking, magic performing sin and he makes the  villain as scary as possible while teasing laughter from the audience, even if it is a laugh of sweaty unease to appease the character lest he leap from the screen in disapproval and practice his magic tricks on us. As Rolling Stone put it “Ledger’s work is so mesmerizing that he has us believing The Joker could indeed penetrate that fourth wall.“

While the good and the bad wrestle for power, the Joker doesn’t seem care which side he takes as long as he can execute total  destruction and devastation in his mission to unmask Batman.

His sheer brilliance makes his tragic death in January all the more…well tragic. Even before his passing it was evident that Ledgers Joker was going to be the talk of the town.  He didn’t disappoint.

Can I choose between Eckhart and Ledger for best performance.?  …….Okay Legder gets it due to his bed side manner(isms).

Although this is based on a comic-book legend, it’s not a film for little kids. It’s dark and often brutal and even gave me a restless night last night as I dreamed of Heath Ledger in a whole new way.

And in the end – goose pimples and a round of applause.  I give it 4.75 stars.  It looses .25 of a stars as no film can EVER live up to that much hype.

Now excuse me while I book round II and look forward to The X-Files next week.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 29th, 2008 at 8:48 pm and is filed under Blog, Movies, Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.