A Bit of My Life » Dark Knight a Little Too Light in the Story Dept.

Dark Knight a Little Too Light in the Story Dept.

There are a lot of people who are going to be upset with me for this but… I didn’t particularly enjoy the Dark Knight. Before you start pelting your monitor with rotten fruit and veg, let me explain a little.

First and foremost, I am a writer. I have a writer’s mind and this means that the movies that I like have good stories. The first Batman in Nolan’s series (for I seriously hope this isn’t his last) was immensely story-driven, to a point that was almost orgasmic in quality to people like me who live for the story. I believe it is what made the movie so completely mind-blowing.

Dark Knight had very little in the way of story. It had lots of shoot-bang-drop dead awesome stunts, but mostly it had promising lines that alluded to simply awesome things to come and it never quite cashed in on the promises.

You are really not going to like this, but I wasn’t overly impressed with Heath Ledger’s Joker. I thought that Nolan was going for something Arkham Asylum-y for the character interpretation, which had me holding my breath in anticipation. The Joker was going to be the darker shadow of an already dark Batman. Oh huzzah. In the end, the Joker just ended up being the facilitator for a string of chaotic events that were marked in their deliberateness rather than chaos, which for me was a serious departure from the madman of the comics, who was basically just doing it for the lols. While Ledger had a hint of this (the money burning scene was a choice e.g.) he just never followed it through, or rather the story didn’t. That being said, I believe the fault was that of the scriptwriters choosing big bad booms over subtle nuances, rather than Ledger, who beat the shit out of Nicholson’s Joker and did a far better job than the Prince-loving cartoon of the first Batman movie series. He did awesome work with what he had, which was not that much. Oscar-worthy? Um, no. Brokeback Mountain was Oscar-worthy - this was most definitely not Oscar material.

I was also sad to see Rachel Dawes character make an exit, although I was much sadder to see her go with Maggie G. cutting her fine acting chops on the character as opposed to Katie Holmes, in which case I probably would have given her death a standing ovation. If I could have cut her out of every single scene in Batman Begins and replaced her with a stick figure, it would have done the same job of acting.

I may need another go round for the movie to grow on me, but what I loved about Begins was that I needed another viewing to get all the layers in the story. Usually that is something you only find in books. I have a feeling that I am not going to “get” anything further in the movie, except maybe WTF happened to Scarecrow and what exactly was going on in the close to opening scene.

I comforted myself with the fact that this movie was probably necessary, in the same way that the Two Towers was necessary in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. They had to introduce the Joker, whom I believe they can replace (sorry Heath, RIP) with another actor, and actually must if they want to continue the storyline properly. I am holding out for more script in the next movie as opposed to explosions - given all of Nolan’s efforts up until now, I’m sure it won’t disappoint.

Oh and Christian Bale in the new Terminator movie? Choice. Can’t wait!