So, QB and I just went and saw The Dark Knight. I actually liked it a lot better than he did, it must be said. We both really enjoyed Batman Begins, but while I just regarded it as an exceptionally well-made superhero/action movie, he elevated in his head as OMG THE BEST MOVIE OF ALL TIME, and was subsequently disappointed by the follow-up.
I actually think there is a truly great movie in The Dark Knight, but some judicious editing was needed to elevate it to that status. It's biggest problem is that it was overambitious, and that's a first-world complaint, I know. It's such a rarity to find a movie like this whose biggest problem is that it's tackling too much. So I have respect for its fundamental flaw.
Maybe I am just too tied down into traditional storytelling, but I felt like there was too much conflict, too many denouements. I like the build of a movie, and then the resolution. This one had too much rise and fall. There were at least three instances where I felt like the movie was wrapping up, but then something else would happen, and we were off to the races again, some more. Honestly, The Joker was enough of a villain to sustain the movie. We didn't need quite so much of our introduction to Two-Face. If they had cut the movie off with Harvey Dent in the hospital, still bandaged, and sobbing, it would have still been a powerful indicator that we were not done with his story. The next film in the franchise could have started with the delineation of his two sides, and the battle for his soul; we didn't need to get all the build-up in this film. We had enough of a hint of his dark side when he abducted the schizophrenic guy and was fixing to torture him before Batman showed up. It will just need to be reinforced in the next one before he begins his inexorable slide into full-on evil, and so it already felt repetitive here.
I do understand that the thesis for this film was about the duality of man; how the people we think are good, often aren't, and the people we blame for evil are often trying their best. I also get that The Joker was beyond that struggle. He's certainly an anarchic villain, and in a way, it was exciting to see him exposing that duality to view. Heath Ledger certainly pushed the envelope with the character, though I can't say I agree with the Oscar buzz. I think if he hadn't died tragically young, we wouldn't be talking awards. One of the highest compliments I can pay about his performance, though, is that I didn't spend all his screen-time remembering his off-screen death, which is a feat in the face of all that media coverage.
I found myself unexpectedly moved by the plight of the people on the two boats, each with a detonator, but I think an opportunity was missed. While I loved the fact that the criminal threw the detonator off the boat, and all these hardened villains spent their potential last moments praying together, I think the filmmakers could have really pushed the envelope farther. I would have loved if those democratic upstanding citizens had pushed the button. And I would have loved it if they would have blown themselves up when they did so. It would have been utterly shocking for the audience. It would have really underlined the whole duality of man premise the film was based on. And it would have been a deliciously fucked-up thing for The Joker to do; give people a detonator, claim it's going to blow the other ship up, but really give them the one that blows up their own ship. (I realize that by positing this scenario, I am officially more of a douchebag than The Joker).
The two characters I feel got the shortest shrift were Rachel and Bruce Wayne. We maybe got a grand total of five minutes of Bruce Wayne screentime, which is a real shame. I like this Bruce Wayne; he's FUNNY, which is something other incarnations have never quite achieved for me. I loved the scene where he saves the day in his Lamborghini, and has to play the dumb dilettante with Commissioner Gordon, like he has no clue what's going on. The look he exchanges with the guy who was about to rat him out is deliciously ironic. I want to see deleted scenes with him gallvanting around with his three dates, or with the entire Moscow Ballet Company (side note: no WAY was the actress who played the prima ballerina built like a ballerina - it's not like Hollywood isn't crawling with tall skinny flatchested broads they could have cast). I mean, it's not like he can say, "Hey ladies. I'm a brooding undercover superhero, and I'm hung up on my childhood sweetheart. Why don't you show up to this event and be my arm candy, and then we'll never speak again, okay?" I mean, you know he has to be charming them (and banging them) or the charade doesn't work. More playboy Bruce Wayne, please!
(And let's not even get me started on how underwritten the female love interest roles are in superhero movies, or I shall have to write a separate manifesto. But I will say that Maggie Gyllenhaal breathed life into an underwritten role. I believed she had feelings for both men, and I never felt like she was a jerk, or like she was stringing them both along. I believed that she was smart, and ambitious, and that she laughed, and that she had a life when she wasn't onscreen. She never faded in comparison to the two strong men she was paired with. Even her death scene was woefully underwritten, and she still played it with compassion and dignity and tenacity. I mean, her dying words got interrupted, for chrissake!)
Essentially, I guess what I'm saying, is that I get that the movie was about the thin line between good and evil. I just think that's something that could have been developed in the next film in the franchise. By getting into so much of the birth of Two Face, the premise of this movie ended up kind of beating me in the head, instead of subtly unfurling in front of me. And unfortunately, the sheer chaos of The Joker got lost in the telling, and caused the character to lose impact for me. I think the movie could have been a good 40 minutes shorter, and it would have made the emotional impact that much more solid, and it still would have adequately set up the continuation of the story.
Wow. That was longer than I expected. Well, heck, even with my many problems with it, it clearly moved me and made me think, which is all you can really hope for. I give it a solid B for effort.