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- First reviewJuly 20, 2008
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Monadologist's Reviews
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A Murky and Incoherent Sequel
PostedJuly 20, 2008
Monadologist
from Washington, DC
In the many months since I've seen Christopher Nolan's The Prestige (which he also co-wrote with his brother), the details of the movie have been quick to fade, leaving only some of the central plot contrivances lingering in my memory. They are (and I will not name them for fear of spoiling surprises) so surprising and interesting that it's difficult to imagine a movie founded on them going awry. Yet the Nolans' script and Christopher Nolan's perplexingly inelegant visual storytelling coupled with his ability to wrest startlingly poor performances from good actors (Hugh Jackman, Scarlett Johansson) pulled off the impossible, turning The Prestige into a muddled, maddening destruction of a great idea.
My friend Katherine made similar observations about Batman Begins, a movie that I found flawed but very likable. I agreed, at the time, with her criticisms, but appreciated the merits of the approach too much to be very bothered. Sadly, even if there are grounds for defending Batman Begins, The Dark Knight is an exercise in exaggerating all the faults Katherine described.
Even Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker, already praised far in excess of its merits, remains simply potential. It is, in fact, immediately arresting. Ledger's mannerisms and voice scream that his character is nuanced, deceptive, perversely attractive. Yet his actual lines and development are so dead-ended, so incapable of developing into a whole, that there is nothing for his potential excellence to really grasp hold of. I'm tempted to say that he would have been by far the most interesting thing about this movie, had it been good. Instead, he is simply another perplexing piece of a movie with such a stuttering problem that it never says anything at all. One dialogue between him and Batman is particularly telling: the Joker is given some of his most archetypal lines in what should be an iconic play of dueling personalities and natures, yet the Batman has nothing: not an interesting thing to say, not an actor miraculous enough to make that not matter, not even a costume not-ugly enough not to constantly distract us from its preposterousness. The plodding, quick, inelegant cutting does nothing but exacerbate the problem. Was Ledger, in the midst of that mess, doing Oscar-worthy acting? Maybe. It's hard to know.
History will not be kind, I predict, to the current trend of shaky-camera action sequences. Somewhere, there is a sweet spot where this approach really works: it makes us feel viscerally impacted by events in a way that leaves us gripping our arm rests even as the necessary practical details of the story are made cyrstal clear. Sadly, current taste and Paul Greengrass mania have propelled us off the edge, where we understand so little of what is happening or why that we are forced simply to accept that things happen and, hopefully, be titillated by the audaciousness or horror of it. Certainly we are not expected to be thinking feverishly about the causes involved, straining to come to a conclusion just after we are suddenly shocked with the revelation, ala Hitchcock or Leone.
I remember how pleased I was when I heard, two years ago, that the new Batman costume was to be "more fabric, less plastic". Perfect! I thought. They really get it! Somehow, though, despite a clunky point in the plot where a costume change is actually written in, Batman is as armored as ever, and the eye-rolling stupidity of the Lamborghini joke of the preview is repeated in spirit throughout the film. Batman's motorcycle has physics invulnerability and Batman himself treats gadgets the same way James Bond does--as fancy toys he picks up from Q Lucius Fox that he does not and need not understand. Where is Batman the scientist? (I'm willing to grant the necessity of not making him Mr. Nobel prize in all sciences, ala Bob Kane, but to have him so blithely uncurious? ) The gadget focus of the plot advances by leaps and bounds to the most risible levels possible, ending in a device where Batman is granted sonar vision of the entire city by clever use of cellular networks. We are forced to watch him engage a maddeningly uninspired fist fight with the Joker while his omniscience-goggles flicker in and out.
His voice, too, is preposterous. Bale speaks in a laughably throaty growl which is magically amplified to be three times as loud as anyone else in the room, making it very difficult to take any conversation in which he is involved seriously. Kevin Conroy, who voices Batman in Bruce Timm's wonderful Batman: The Animated Series did Batman's voice perfectly. As Batman, it was deep and serious: it projected a man who was dangerous and humorless, too grieved to be more human. But as Bruce Wayne it was easy, friendly, and yet somehow still... private. Bale's approach does not begin to convey anything like this depth, leaving us in Tim Burton land again: the villains seem vastly more human than the hero.
It's hard not to be disappointed; I was really looking forward to this movie. I didn't think it would be perfect, but I didn't think it was going to suck so much. It's time to go gargle my brain with some Batman greatness. Happily, between the animated series and Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, there's plenty to choose from.
No, I do not recommend this movie.
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