SuperSearnold - Comic Book Reviews

Hullo Hullo - my name is Searnold [Shár- Nŭhld] - wecome to my blog.

Today I am going to give a review of The Dark Knight without giving away any spoilers.  Hooray!

Really - all you need to know is “Go see it!”  Overall it was an incredible movie.  It was a great thrill ride that also had serious drama and very real character moments.  I know I’m biased because it’s a comic book movie, but I loved it.  You should absolutely see it.

Now some nitty gritty.

Heath Ledger’s performance was incredible.  I never once thought about him as an actor while watching the movie.  The actor disappeared behind the make-up and WAS the joker.  He was a psychopath and you believe that he IS a psychopath.  Obviously the make-up and music and cinematography and directing all help to bring his performance to life - but the performance itself was also SPOT ON.  So, you ask, how would you compare it to the “original” Joker played by the incredible Mr. Jack Nicholson himself?  That’s hard to do.  They were different characters.  Heath’s Joker was more psychotic and lives in a much darker world.  The world around him really helped me feel and believe his character as a dark psychopath - and I really like the Joker as a dark psychopath.  But does that mean is PERFORMANCE was better than Jack’s?  Certainly comparable.  But may I suggest that if you haven’t seen Batman in the past year that you go back and watch it again before you make up your mind on this comparison.  Jack is Jack my friends.  And his performance was killer.  So your next question is, “Does Heath deserve an Oscar?”  Well I can’t say because I haven’t seen all the other performances of the year.  But SO FAR from the movies I have seen, YES.  Not because he’s dead - and I hope that when the time comes that has no bearing on the decision - but his performance is the best I have seen all year.  We’ll have to wait and see how the rest of the year goes.  I HOPE that another performance is as good as his was - not just to give him some competition - but because I want to see another INCREDIBLE performance.

So what didn’t I like about the movie?  There’s always something - right?  Unfortunately, yes.  Towards the end, I did feel that the movie dragged on a bit longer than it should have.  Remember Lord of the Rings: Return of the King?  Remember how it had a great ending… but then kept going… and had another great spot to wrap things up… but decided to add just one more scene… followed by another… and then 45 minutes later, NOW the movie is over.  I’ve done some extensive film studying along with my comic book studying so I can tell you what this problem is.  Once the climax is over, it’s time to get out and end the movie.  The audience feels that the story is over so it’s time to quickly wrap up the loose ends and get out - so that the leaving audience still has that sense of “everything is right with the world” satisfaction that they get at the end of the climax.  But when you drag on AFTER the climax, you get this feeling of dragging.  Return of the King - a great movie - did it.  So did The Dark Knight.

There were a few techno gizmos that I didn’t really buy and one of the fight scenes I thought was pretty lame.  I also hoped that the movie would have been a bit darker than it was - revealing more of the dark side of human nature.  But alas - PG-13.  Don’t get me wrong - it’s a plenty dark movie.  I’m just slightly psychotic and intrigued by humanties capability for evil -  so I would have enjoyed something EVEN darker.  Finally, the last bad thing I have to say - Christian Bale.  Great actor.  I love him.  He’s going to be in the new Terminator movie and I think he’ll be great in it.  And he’s a perfect Bruce Wayne.  But his deep Batman voice is terrible.  And everytime he talks in it, all I want him to do is shut up.  It was jarring and made me remember that he is an actor PLAYING Batman - which takes away from the rest of the movie that otherwise drags you into its world so that you forget you’re even watching a movie (which - in my opinion - is the best compliment you can give a movie.)

I want to mention one other great thing.  There are twists.  I’m sure you’ve all seen the preview so you have a basic idea what the movie’s about.  But then there are twists that even I - the most cynical of all persons - didn’t see coming and thought were great.  This movie really took me for a ride.  Despite it’s minor flaws (and Christian Bale’s terribly-cheezy-way-too-deep Batman voice) I LOVED the movie and HIGHLY recommend it.