ON FILM : Dark Knight: I’ll believe it when I see it
Posted on Friday, July 18, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/MovieStyle/231683/
I usually don’t read other critics ’ reviews of a movie until I’ve written my own — or, if I don’t plan on writing one, until after I’ve seen the film. I imagine most people who regularly review films do the same — it’s too easy to swipe (subconsciously or otherwise ) someone else’s sweet turn of phrase or penetrating insight.
But I knew I wouldn’t be able to write a timely review of The Dark Knight — we asked Warner Bros. for an advance screening but the one they scheduled was too late for our deadlines — and I’m interested in the Batman mythos in general and this movie in particular. Like everybody else, I’m curious about Heath Ledger’s performance, which sounds startling and sad.
So I browsed around. As I’m writing this column on Monday morning, the Rotten Tomatoes Web site (www. rottentoma toes. com ) has recorded 15 reviews of the film, all positive.
David Ansen of Newsweek, Richard Corliss of Time, Justin Chang of Variety and Peter Travers of Rolling Stone all endorsed the film. Even the fanboy sites seem on board.
There were two dissenting voices that, when I checked, had not been captured by the Rotten Tomatoes site. Neither David Edelstein, writing in New York magazine, nor David Denby, writing in The New Yorker, were dazzled. Both seemed disappointed by director Christopher Nolan’s inability to choreograph an action sequence.
Edelstein charges that Nolan “appears to have no clue how to stage or show action” while Denby lodges the more serious complaint: “Warner Bros. has continued to drain the poetry, fantasy, and comedy out of Tim Burton’s original conception for Batman [1989 ], completing the job of coarsening the material into hyperviolent summer action spectacle.”
If Denby’s right, that’s a bad thing — the most interesting things about the Batman story have to do with Bruce Wayne and his substantially damaged, bifurcated mind. Christian Bale may be the best actor to ever play the part, and for a while in Batman Begins (2005 ), Nolan’s low-camp, almost naturalistic vision of the character teases us with the vision of a Batman as a plausible human being. (Batman is an athlete with deep pockets, not a genuine superhero. )
Where Batman Begins ultimately fails is in its eventual capitulation to conventional action movie wisdom. It turns out Batman isn’t a detective so much as a studly hunk wearing body armor and driving a modified Humvee. Nolan wanted to redeem the Batman, to restore him as a mean, malevolent, masculine icon after Joel Schumacher’s red velvet treatment in Batman & Robin.
I hope The Dark Knight is as great as some of the more effusive reviews have it. But I won’t be surprised if the reality of Hollywood economics has produced another hedged bet. How will the Caped Crusader fare ? To find out, tune in next week. Same bat time, same bat channel.
MIDYEAR REPORT Several people have suggested that it has been an unusually lousy first half of the year for movies. I’m not sure I agree, although studios tend to save anything they think of as awards-quality (which isn’t necessarily the same thing as a good movie ) until mid-September or later — something to do with the short memories of Academy Awards (and other ) voters. Still, it’s not difficult to compile a reasonable Top 10 of films so far released in 2008. While the only real utility for lists like these is to remind us of movies we might want to add to our DVD queue, here’s a list of the best so far, in no particular order: 1. The Visitor — Todd McCarthy’s humane and literate followup to The Station Agent features a tremendous performance by character actor Richard Jenkins.
2. Wall-E — Cute and dystopian, with a message that would seem to nip at the cankles of Disney Nation.
3. Iron Man — Probably won’t make the final cut, but great breezy fun.
4. The Counterfeiters — Released in 2007, this winner of an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film didn’t show up on U. S. screens until this year.
5. Snow Angels — David Gordon Green’s most conventional film so far, but probably not the one that’s going to make him a player. That’ll be Pineapple Express, slated for release later this month.
6. Taxi to the Dark Side — Brutal, and all the more effective for its lack of hysteria.
7. The Band’s Visit — A 2007 release, but again didn’t make it to the United States until this year.
8. Son of Rambow
9. In Bruges
10. Reprise and Roman de Gare — Two tricky and intriguing foreign (Norwegian and French, respectively ) films about the writing life.
Looking back at my halfway list in 2007 — which featured Zodiac, Shotgun Stories, Ratatouille and Away From Her — 2008 does feel a little like a down year, at least for Hollywood movies. But there’s a lot of time left.
E-mail:
pmartin@arkansasonline. com