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I skipped Batman Begins in the theater, but did catch it on DVD and enjoyed it muchly. I admit The Dark Knight won a small part of my soul just on the ostentatious nature of the title -- how are people going to know it's about Batman? I heard the boardroom suits say. But I had reason to hope given the caliber of the new performers and the style of Christopher Nolan's first shot at the genre. And then 2008 rolled around, Heath Ledger dies, and I expect the typical pity-vote heart-tug for an actor who certainly had more Oscar-worthy days ahead of him, but I didn't think it possible based on a (sniff) comic book film.
And then came this priceless gem in an early review of TDK:
Nolan dispenses with the stylized Gothic sets we're accustomed to in the series: he makes no attempt to hide the fact that Gotham City is modern Chicago. Gone, too, is the antic sense of humor that Tim Burton brought to the show. There's not a touch of lightness in Bale's taut, angst-ridden superhero, and as the two-and-a-half-hour movie enters its second half, the unvarying intensity and the sometimes confusing action sequences take a toll. You may emerge more exhausted than elated. Nolan wants to prove that a superhero movie needn't be disposable, effects-ridden junk food, and you have to admire his ambition. But this is Batman, not "Hamlet." Call me shallow, but I wish it were a little more fun.
Oh for fuck's sake, David Ansen. Why not clamor and whine for Adam West while you're at it?
It's one strong flavor of dumb to lament the passing of a style of film that was gone in the film's antecedent a few years ago. It's entirely another equally robust tang to decry a film for what it's not and not attempting to be. We might as well harangue Iron Man for not having enough song and dance numbers or The Piano for not enough stagecoach chases. And then there's the added dimension of just being wrong. I can't call you shallow, Dave. Maybe you would rather watch The Love Guru? I am to understand there are many jokes about small people, and how they are not tall.
There are enough reviewers capable of studying and evaluating a film's merits based on its aspirations and its content. Ansen apparently wants to see a different movie.
And yet -- despite the massive amount of fail in that review for criticizing (let me pause for effect here) a Christopher Nolan film for not being as wacky as a Tim Burton film (*shakes head slowly*) -- I still wasn't prepared to get excited for TDK. I know early impressions from insiders have been positively glowing, and it's the cinematic event of the summer, but we've seen these stars burn out before their time (remember 1999? Wild Wild West? Of course you do; we went to see South Park instead and I thank God for that every single night of my life), anticipation to be so incandescent that the real event is somewhat less attractive. I was sure the genuine snooty guardians of genuine culture that toil for our corporate media overlords would be sure to eviscerate the film when it....
Oh, no.
The London Daily Mirror claimed today (Tuesday) that it was publishing the first major newspaper review of the upcoming Batman movie, The Dark Knight. It's a rave. Critic David Edwards remarks that Heath Ledger is "a dead cert" to win the Oscar for his portrayal of The Joker. Edwards says that the late actor "is the brilliant heart of a superhero movie that's like nothing you've ever seen before. ... the finest superhero movie in years." In the U.S., Time Inc.'s Entertainment Weekly is out with a review by Owen Gleiberman that also extols Ledger's performance. "In this, the last performance he completed before his death, Ledger had a maniacal gusto inspired enough to suggest that he might have lived to be as audacious an actor as Marlon Brando, and maybe as great," he writes. Likewise Richard Corliss in Time magazine calls Ledger's performance "magnificent." His Joker, says Corliss, "is simply one of the most twisted and mesmerizing creeps in movie history." In his review for the Associated Press, Christy Lemire writes that The Dark Knight is "an epic that will leave you staggering from the theater, stunned by its scope and complexity." And Peter Travers concludes in Rolling Stone: "The haunting and visionary Dark Knight soars on the wings of untamed imagination."
Okay, but I'm not going opening night. You can't make me.
And then came this priceless gem in an early review of TDK:
Nolan dispenses with the stylized Gothic sets we're accustomed to in the series: he makes no attempt to hide the fact that Gotham City is modern Chicago. Gone, too, is the antic sense of humor that Tim Burton brought to the show. There's not a touch of lightness in Bale's taut, angst-ridden superhero, and as the two-and-a-half-hour movie enters its second half, the unvarying intensity and the sometimes confusing action sequences take a toll. You may emerge more exhausted than elated. Nolan wants to prove that a superhero movie needn't be disposable, effects-ridden junk food, and you have to admire his ambition. But this is Batman, not "Hamlet." Call me shallow, but I wish it were a little more fun.
Oh for fuck's sake, David Ansen. Why not clamor and whine for Adam West while you're at it?
It's one strong flavor of dumb to lament the passing of a style of film that was gone in the film's antecedent a few years ago. It's entirely another equally robust tang to decry a film for what it's not and not attempting to be. We might as well harangue Iron Man for not having enough song and dance numbers or The Piano for not enough stagecoach chases. And then there's the added dimension of just being wrong. I can't call you shallow, Dave. Maybe you would rather watch The Love Guru? I am to understand there are many jokes about small people, and how they are not tall.
There are enough reviewers capable of studying and evaluating a film's merits based on its aspirations and its content. Ansen apparently wants to see a different movie.
And yet -- despite the massive amount of fail in that review for criticizing (let me pause for effect here) a Christopher Nolan film for not being as wacky as a Tim Burton film (*shakes head slowly*) -- I still wasn't prepared to get excited for TDK. I know early impressions from insiders have been positively glowing, and it's the cinematic event of the summer, but we've seen these stars burn out before their time (remember 1999? Wild Wild West? Of course you do; we went to see South Park instead and I thank God for that every single night of my life), anticipation to be so incandescent that the real event is somewhat less attractive. I was sure the genuine snooty guardians of genuine culture that toil for our corporate media overlords would be sure to eviscerate the film when it....
Oh, no.
The London Daily Mirror claimed today (Tuesday) that it was publishing the first major newspaper review of the upcoming Batman movie, The Dark Knight. It's a rave. Critic David Edwards remarks that Heath Ledger is "a dead cert" to win the Oscar for his portrayal of The Joker. Edwards says that the late actor "is the brilliant heart of a superhero movie that's like nothing you've ever seen before. ... the finest superhero movie in years." In the U.S., Time Inc.'s Entertainment Weekly is out with a review by Owen Gleiberman that also extols Ledger's performance. "In this, the last performance he completed before his death, Ledger had a maniacal gusto inspired enough to suggest that he might have lived to be as audacious an actor as Marlon Brando, and maybe as great," he writes. Likewise Richard Corliss in Time magazine calls Ledger's performance "magnificent." His Joker, says Corliss, "is simply one of the most twisted and mesmerizing creeps in movie history." In his review for the Associated Press, Christy Lemire writes that The Dark Knight is "an epic that will leave you staggering from the theater, stunned by its scope and complexity." And Peter Travers concludes in Rolling Stone: "The haunting and visionary Dark Knight soars on the wings of untamed imagination."
Okay, but I'm not going opening night. You can't make me.