I am very upset with Hanson's review.

Anyone who has heard me ramble on and on about how well the movie maneuvers through all the interesting facets of one of the greatest comic heroes ever knows that I loved The Dark Knight. However! What is most frustrating about Mr. Le's scathing write up for the current movie of the year is that I now have to counterpoint the review instead of just going on with assuming that everyone loves the movie and being able to talk about it's tie ins to The Killing Joke and The Man Who Laughs. I was so excited to go back and reread these comics and see if even they can hold their own against this milestone epic, but alas, it is not to be as I must once again postpone more exciting endeavors to instead revisit old battlegrounds and set right this egregious error made by my roommate.

Let's start off with an easy one.

"Entire combat sequences are suffocated by series of jarring cuts, split-second angle changes and extreme, claustrophobic close-ups to the action. This tactic is usually deployed in order to mask the lack of actual hand-to-hand combat experience of actors and stuntmen, and to simulate the presence of choreography."

I will admit that if I was forced to pick out my favorite action movies ever based solely on the fightscenes, there are several others that would beat out The Dark Knight but it is hardly what I would consider second-rate. The fighting I felt improved drastically over the first movie, finally I felt that Batman was moving and fighting in the way that he would actually have to, as opposed to what he was doing the first movie, dropping down on some sort of rope and pulley system to sneak up on goons and knocking out the lights to save Nolan the hassle of shooting actual footage. Nolan's movie is rooted very heavily in realism and the first movie sometimes had him moving and fighting in ways that seemed more hassle than it would be worth. I did feel that the S.W.A.T. team scene was a bit awkward, but it was more due to the needless cuts back and forth from SONAR vision. I think if I saw that scene again and knew what to look for I would not be nearly as disoriented, and while a movie shouldn't have to be watched twice to enjoy, I never thought it was unenjoyable to begin with, merely a mediocre scene in the middle of several spectacular ones. (Note: I did indeed watch the movie again last night and the fights weren't as jarring, however, the S.W.A.T. team rope trick is still a bit out of nowhere.)

Additionally, there is a word that Hanson uses to criticize the fighting style of this movie that I find a bit interesting. He laments the movie for not properly conveying what has always been seen a bit of a "mythical" fighting style in the comic books. I think that what he forgets is how deeply rooted in realism that this movie is supposed to be. Sure they pull out some crazy plot devices like the SONAR and the fact that people supposedly wouldn't blow up each other's boats (I mean seriously, you're gonna die for some criminals? Here give me the damn remote) but beyond that the Nolan's seem pretty determined to make Batman something that could exist. They do not entirely disregard the mythical sense of the character though, they just make it something that only exists in the wild imagination of criminals and civilians alike.

MOVING ON!

"My first gripe has to do with the condensed focus on both Christian Bale’s Batman and Bruce Wayne."

This complaint is a bit odd I think mostly because Hanson spent the last few paragraphs before this statement raving, rightfully so, about the amazing performances given by both Aaron Eckhart and Heath Ledger. While I do understand the idea that the titular character in the movie should be heavily focused on and sympathized with, I feel like I do not need Christian Bale on the screen the entire time for this to occur. If someone came into this movie without having seen Batman Begins they may not be able to enjoy it as much, but as someone who has seen the first movie a few times I feel that I know Bruce Wayne well enough that I don't need to see the pain and torment he is going through first hand, I know how he will react and how he will feel without having Batman on screen telling me how sad he is. Nolan obviously took a bit of a risk by taking the limelight off of Wayne for this movie but the performances that were turned in by the other stars made the gamble pay off several times over. I should also note that before I used to think Gary Oldman was always out of place and awkward as Jim Gordan, however, after watching the movie a second time appreciated the new side he has brought to this character, he seems more vulnerable and yet somehow more resilient than ever. His monologue at the end initially comes off as a bit out of place at first, but that can be excused for the way that it ties the entire movie together so beautifully. Tell me you didn't have a "oh shit" moment when you finally pieced together the title and what it really meant.

"The biggest qualm I have with Nolan’s intentions in making a brainy (albeit ham-fisted) summer spectacle comes at the end of the film, where Batman has apparently pegged every last possible nuance of masked heroism and vigilantism in the span of four villains. Here, Batman speaks with an unrealistic amount of foresight (something which took scribes decades to flesh out and his comic book alter ego an equal amount of time to realize), and the soul of an entire mythology is breathlessly compressed into a few lines of forced dialogue."

I automatically win this argument because obviously Hanson was even paying attention to this scene well enough to notice that it was Gordon talking, not Batman, and as I said earlier, I love this monologue. His complaint about how quickly Gordon has surmised what took writers and characters decades to get to is not fair at all considering the first few decades of Batman stories had him traveling to other solar systems to meet alternate reality Batmans and time traveling to joust with the Joker. His mythos grew more in the mind of the readers at this time and was never fully explored until more ambitious writers came on board to work out what really makes the character work. I agree that Nolan did force Gordon to lay it out just a little bit too pretty for the average viewer, but I don't think that is a bad thing for a summer blockbuster where the average viewer probably wouldn't spend two seconds trying to piece together the themes unless someone gives them a little push in the right direction. Nolan has to balance keeping the average viewer informed with the ideas he is presenting while still not giving you the cliff-notes to the movie, it's a tricky thing to make a movie that people of all different types can enjoy and there has to be concessions made somewhere.

While Hanson feels that this movie layers too much on top of itself to be the best comic movie ever, I feel that if that were true, it would not be having the type of runaway success that it has been enjoying for the last two weeks. If the average summer blockbuster fan can get through such a dense and thoughtful film, then in my estimation there is not too much going on. The balance throughout the film is amazing to me, it moves organically and contains one of the longest climaxes I've ever enjoyed without ever making me feel like I was having to work for it.

All in all, it's still better than X-2. Sorry Hanson  :(

Film Review: The Dark Knight

After having spent the last 24 hours sporadically sifting through my jumble of impressions of the biggest movie of the year to date, there is one nagging conclusion that I’m constantly having to come back around to: although it’s a mostly decent and intermittently great summer event, The Dark Knight is colossally overrated.

First things first in this (mostly) spoiler-free take, though – let’s get the high points out of the way. In a sensitive, concerted effort to not beat the dead horse, the late Heath Ledger positively astonishes in his role as the Joker. Director Christopher Nolan and his brother (and co-screenwriter) Jonathan ultimately settled on a significantly more sinister take of the character; a convincingly deranged and cheerlessly brutal psychopath with an unnerving penchant for knife-inflicted torment. Although Ledger’s Joker does his best to sell you his self-proclaimed responsibilities as an ambassador of chaos, his performance throughout the movie betrays something much more meticulously crafted at play. All aspects of the performance were unquestionably products of fastidious design – everything from his cobbled swagger, his deliberately slurred enunciation, and the paralyzing dread that materializes every time that crimson, razor-blade sneer blossoms from scar tissue to scar tissue – and they all go to incredible lengths to create a compellingly threatening presence.

Likewise, Aaron Eckhart is also onboard to turn in a similarly provocative depiction as Gotham City’s new hotshot District Attorney, Harvey Dent. The show-stopping honors may very well be in Ledger’s name, but audiences would be hard-pressed not to find anything as equally engaging about Dent’s candor and winsome sense of righteousness. Even as his lopsided resolve regarding justice and heroism progressively traipses closer and closer to naïveté, it’s still difficult to not get swept away by the sheer enormity of Dent’s earnestness and seemingly unwavering conviction. Simply put, Eckhart’s Harvey Dent is as close as the script could possibly get to the archetypal “white knight” without drowning itself in a deluge of camp – and in a bleak tale that practically hinges on the classical dualities of good and evil, that is truly a sight to behold.

Unfortunately, that’s where most of the consistently decent qualities about The Dark Knight end.

Although there isn’t any singular component that is outright detrimental to the movie as a whole, it’s the minutiae of minor issues and obstacles that the film accumulates over a sometimes glacial, other times excruciating 3-hour running time that keeps it from being the masterpiece many are claiming it to be. My first gripe has to do with the condensed focus on both Christian Bale’s Batman and Bruce Wayne. It was easy to predict this outcome based on the unbridled anticipation for the Ledger’s interpretation of the Joker, but it became increasingly problematic to even sympathize with his character as emphasis on his internal struggles were sidelined in favor of developing other, more prominent subplots. In Batman Begins, Bale was able to articulate a huge array of emotions through his stoic silence, selective speech, and expressive body language; unsurprisingly, Bruce Wayne’s more meditative moments in The Dark Knight is where he is in his finest form. Regrettably, the majority of Bale’s scenes are in costume where he seems even stiffer and more lumbering than before. Stripped of Bale’s facial expression assets, one of the most sympathetic characters in comic book history is reduced to nothing more than an anonymous figure in a cape and cowl, complete with a distracting gravelly rasp.

Elsewhere, Batman’s mythical dominance in combat comes off as muted throughout much of the movie, as Nolan unwittingly carries on Hollywood’s tradition of perpetuating the worst brand of fight cinematography on the face of the planet. Entire combat sequences are suffocated by series of jarring cuts, split-second angle changes and extreme, claustrophobic close-ups to the action. This tactic is usually deployed in order to mask the lack of actual hand-to-hand combat experience of actors and stuntmen, and to simulate the presence of choreography. This style worked to Batman’s favor in Batman Begins, as his approach for most of the movie depended upon swiftness and stealth; all the quick edits worked well in creating an illusion of Batman’s silent, deadly omnipresence. Conversely, very little of that element is seen in The Dark Knight, as what we’re offered instead is Batman nonchalantly dive-bombing through at least two different windows and brutishly tackling packs of goons head-on. If we’re going to be treated to an out-in-the-open rumble with one of fiction’s greatest martial artists systematically devastating hordes of faceless henchmen, someone with a wide-angle lens and an eye for panoramic poetry needs to be filming it.

The most taxing aspect about this editing style is that the logic of stretches of scenes feels like they’re lost in the shuffle. This is most evident in the fight scene preceding Batman’s final encounter with the Joker, where a jumble of dark, schizophrenic images inexplicably lead to the defeat of Joker’s henchmen, the freeing of the hostages, and an entire SWAT team dangling from the side of a building – all courtesy of our favorite masked vigilante in a matter of mere, incomprehensible seconds.

The Dark Knight’s most glaring shortcomings become palpable when things get thematically convoluted. On paper, the juxtaposition of Harvey Dent with both Batman and the Joker as a series of events moves him from one end of the moral spectrum to the other is easily the most fascinating arc simmering beneath the surface of the story. Theoretically, even the most principled, upstanding citizens of society can succumb to the pitfalls of evil. However, it is in the execution where this concept stalls out: the motivating factors which ultimately clinch Dent’s transformation into the murderous Two-Face as well as his subsequent descent into illogical madness simply aren’t very believable. Even worse is the contrived moral dilemma that tech specialist Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman) confronts Bruce Wayne with when he’s faced with the decision of invading the privacy of 30 million Gotham citizens in order to pinpoint the location of the Joker. This impasse could have been effective if the entire scene didn’t feel as if it were completely glossed over – there just weren’t any real consequences to justify the needlessly high drama of this scene.

The biggest qualm I have with Nolan’s intentions in making a brainy (albeit ham-fisted) summer spectacle comes at the end of the film, where Batman has apparently pegged every last possible nuance of masked heroism and vigilantism in the span of four villains. Here, Batman speaks with an unrealistic amount of foresight (something which took scribes decades to flesh out and his comic book alter ego an equal amount of time to realize), and the soul of an entire mythology is breathlessly compressed into a few lines of forced dialogue. The fear and anxiety that has supposedly gripped the public as a result of Batman’s presence is something that’s referenced, but sans the pathetically scant press conference scene it’s never once fully conveyed. This is the primary oversight that further sabotages the emotional impact of Batman’s greatest decision: to take the fall for crimes he didn’t commit in order to protect the heroic reputation of another. It’s a noble but ultimately hollow conceit.

As a film endeavor that straddles the line between summer blockbuster and intellectual art-house fodder, The Dark Knight indubitably draws enough from both schools of thought to satisfy a slew of happy customers. At the end of the day, though, the combined salvo of Christopher Nolan's bloated psychoanalytical character examinations and thematic identity crises is clearly indicative of an ambitious director trying to messily cram way too many layers into a grueling 3-hour test of cerebral endurance. There are too many missteps and botched opportunities for this to be the best movie of the year, or even the best comic book adaptation ever. Fortunately, you don’t always have to be the best to be entertaining, and that’s at least something this flick has in spades.

Get on those counterpoints, Ryan!

Introductions

Hi, I'm Hanson and I'm a struggling, dirt-poor college student who loves to write.

Ryan here, one of my three roommates, has recently developed an interest in writing reviews and approached me a couple of weeks ago with the idea of a collaborative blog. It’s an entertaining notion for a number of reasons – the most prevalent would have to be that out of everyone I’ve ever lived with at college, Ryan superficially seems like he resembles me the least in terms of personality and lifestyle. Regardless, I’ve had the opportunity to spend these last 5 years to really approximate the depth of the overlap of our interests and tastes (especially with music and comic books), and the results have been pretty astonishing. That’s not to imply that we necessarily like all the same things. On the contrary – it seems like we butt heads more often than not when we start dissecting the minutiae of certain segments of the arts. What’s important, though, is that we both tend to approach art criticism with a similar, analytical (although some of our friends might accuse of being overly so) frame of reference.

Currently, we have chosen to tentatively title the blog "Best of Both Worlds" for our first few trial entries. It’s an inside joke referencing a particularly terrible superstar collaboration between Jay-Z and R. Kelly from a few years ago, but we’re hoping to cultivate some sort of readership by playing off any inherent difference in opinion we might have. I suspect Ryan and I will be dealing with film, music and comic books primarily; I don’t dedicate blocs of my spare time toward non-fiction like I used to, so Ryan will probably take up the bulk of any existing book commentary. We’ll see how this plays out in the coming months.

This blog opportunity also doubles as an outlet to get my writing out to more people. Until I see exactly what this new revamp of Last.FM spells for the future of journal connectivity between users, spending on average 3-5 hours on an entry only to have 2 or 3 people read it just isn’t cutting it for me anymore. Plus, I’ve discovered that dedicating this space to free-associating with various other things knockin’ around in my head goes a long way with keeping my fluctuating interest in music invigorated – even if no one here is particularly interested in what I have to say about politics or the latest box-office powerhouses.

My roommates and I finally had the opportunity to catch a 7:00 PM showing of The Dark Knight last night, so I'll be posting my first official review on here posted in the next couple of hours or so.