Retro Review (Part Two): The Dark Knight

 As I was preparing to put this retrospective of way back four years ago, I went digging to see what I wrote about The Dark Knight in 2008. The Blogorium existed in a proto-form at the time, mostly as a byproduct of a Myspace page I no longer update, so I knew I must have said something about the film. 2008 was the summer of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, The Happening, Hellboy II: The Golden Army, and The X-Files: I Want to Believe, all of which had accompanying reviews. But for some reason my write up for The Dark Knight never made the transition, so I thought I'd share it with you now:


The Joker Begins...

You have a bad day at the movies. Something you hoped to really enjoy doesn't go that way, and you feel bummed. You start doubting the ability of a movie to actually deliver what everyone says it does. Especially when the same people who loved that movie you didn't start ranting and raving about the second coming, arriving at a theatre near you this Friday. But you already have a ticket, because you hoped. Maybe you still have hope that one bad apple didn't spoil the whole basket. But you're still worried that you're being set up for disappointment again.

And then you watch The Dark Knight.

Folks, I'm not going to sit here and hype this movie up any more than you've already heard. By now you've fallen into one of two camps: 1) the die hards who will be seeing this no matter what, or 2) the casual viewer, curious about the Heath Ledger connection who will make up most of the matinee audiences.

The point is that both of you are already going to see it, so I don't need to tell you that of the four sold out auditoriums at the Grande tonight, I didn't hear one bad word about The Dark Knight. Not even lukewarm. I can tell you that The Dark Knight is exactly what you were hoping it would be but not in any of the ways you were expecting. Truthfully.

Yes, a BIG chunk of that comes from Heath Ledger's Joker. Neil has been saying for a few months now that the reason you see so many of the same clips over and over again in the ads is because they can't show you anything else. He's right, but not totally. While it's true that The Joker is an agent of chaos and does some truly heinous things on-camera, what Ledger and Christopher Nolan did with the character doesn't translate in "bite sized" clips. If you could hear one of his monologues about "where I got the scars", you'd understand. Or, will understand.

Or the magic trick. Jesus, the magic trick.

What may surprise many of you is how much of the film focuses on other elements, particularly leading up to why the Mob(s) hand control over to The Joker. The less I tell you about Two Face, the better, but let me say that Harvey Dent's arc in the film is possibly more interesting than Batman's, Gordon's, or even The Joker.

I know, I know; I promised no hysterics, or hyperbole. Once you've seen the movie you'll understand the "Oscar" push for Ledger, and I'm not exaggerating when I say he'd deserve it. No one's made this comparison to my knowledge, but it might help if you think of The Joker like Anton Chigurgh. The only difference is that he talks more and might be more terrifying for it.

There are so many things I'd love to tell you about The Dark Knight, but I think it's better you see it for yourself. Know that it's exceptional filmmaking, and while I couldn't possibly imagine calling it The Godfather Part II or The Empire Strikes Back, The Dark Knight is miles beyond Spider-Man 2.

A warning: Please don't take your children to see this movie. In fact, even though The Dark Knight is rated PG-13, this is in no way a movie for impressionable youngsters. The title is VERY appropriate, and the film is at times relentlessly bleak. The ending, while wholly fitting with the film, is not one of hope, and it doesn't give you the kind of thrill to see the next film (or really give you any idea who Nolan wants Batman up against). It's the ending that a film called The Dark Knight should have, but the middle and end have more than enough thematic material to traumatize the youngin's. Not to mention the Two Face makeup. Just a heads up.

So yeah, my batteries are recharged. I really want to see it again, and to figure out if The Scarecrow was doing what I think he was doing, or if Lucius Fox really did hint at Catwoman...

---

Okay, back to the future, and let's take a look at some reflections four years later, in anticipation of The Dark Knight Rises.

 Let's start with the last paragraph, because yes, there is a throw-away joke during the scene where Bruce Wayne is talking to Lucius Fox about the new armor, and Wayne asks about dogs. Fox says something to the effect of "Are we talking about Rottweilers or Chihuahuas?" before offering "It should work against cats," which if you want can be taken as knowing foreshadowing of Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway)'s presence in The Dark Knight Rises, although every review is making a point of saying no one ever calls her Catwoman.

 The other part, the one about the Scarecrow, came from misunderstanding what Jonathan Crane said after Batman ties him up with the Russian mobsters and imitation Batmen. Instead of taking his line about Batman's mental state not being "my diagnosis," as a snarky comment, I mistakenly believed that Crane was somehow behind the fake Batmen who show up before the Tumbler arrives. By the second time I'd seen The Dark Knight (which was about a week later), it made sense, but when I wrote that initial review there was some confusion about Cillian Murphy's cameo.

  Very quickly, while I couldn't possibly know that Heath Ledger was going to die when he did and the way he did, this initial review leans heavily on the "Joker" side of things. I was very impressed by Ledger, an actor I hadn't really paid attention to beyond Brokeback Mountain, and the execution of the Joker's "plan" was so much more interesting than Ra's al Ghul's in Batman Begins that I fixated on it. That, and the "magic trick," which comes out of the blue the first time you see it but I realize now was sort of the "Order 66*" of The Dark Knight: bloggers used it as way of proving they'd seen the movie.

 I want to clarify the The Dark Knight to Spider-Man 2 comparisons, because I think I know what I meant to say, but it didn't come out clearly at all. Spider-Man 2 is a great comic book movie, like X2 or Iron Man or even The Avengers. This is not diminishing those film in any capacity, but The Dark Knight surpasses great comic book movies and stands among great movies. It deserved its Academy Award nomination, even if there was no chance it was going to win (quick, who can name the Best Picture for 2008?)

 One of the reasons that I'm continually impressed by The Dark Knight, including this past weekend, is how well it works beyond being adapted from a comic book. Later reviews, particularly ones that arrived after the backlash began (one you can see being played out in early reviews for The Dark Knight Rises, but also Inception) pointed out that The Dark Knight is a lot like Heat or other Michael Mann ensemble pieces. It's more of a police procedural that happens to feature a guy dressed like a bat, a dude who wears "war paint" and self-inflicted scars (I think), and eventually a dude with a half-exposed skinless face.

 That's not to say it downplays the comic book component, but there's something about The Dark Knight that feels like Gotham City is a real place, with actual neighborhoods and city blocks and that functions without Batman. We spend a lot of the film with the police, Gordon's crime unit, the District Attorney's office, the Mayor (Nestor Carbonell of The Tick and Lost fame), and on the flip side, with the various criminal enterprises, headed up by the likes of Eric Roberts, Chin Han, and Michael Jai "Black Dynamite" White. There's even a Gotham City talk show hosted by Anthony Michael Hall (not actually Hall, but "Mike Engel") that figures into the second half of the film in a not-so-trivial way. Two ways, in fact.

 Compared to Batman Begins, the Joker's ultimate scheme feels miniscule but is no less important to the film. After all, he's already done the damage he planned for Batman - he killed Rachel Dawes and corrupted Harvey Dent - so what if a demonstration of human nature at its worst backfires? I like that it seems like something a guy who chooses to have limited means could pull off, and that his smaller acts of terror have more impact that Ra's al Ghul's sweeping attempt to level Gotham City ever did in Batman Begins. It helps to ground The Dark Knight in a reality that makes the crime more visceral, more potent. You don't need the splash of Jack Nicholson announcing that "This town needs an enema!"

 Oh, can I pick a nit quickly? It's something that sticks with me every time I see The Dark Knight, because while it doesn't need to be explained, necessarily, it might have helped to have a passing line between Gordon and Batman after he arrests the Joker to explain that someone knew Jim Gordon wasn't dead. It's fair to assume Batman knew, because why would he put himself in the position where the Joker had him dead to rights if there wasn't backup? Harvey Dent clearly didn't know, based on his reaction, and no one else involved in the escort did either. To be fair, this is Christopher Nolan using a cheat based on the assumption that because the audience doesn't know he's alive, it doesn't matter that no one else seems to. The surprise is for our benefit, even if the plan seems vaguely defined after it happens.
 
 Since the film and its villains were announced, I always assumed that The Dark Knight Rises would be more like Batman Begins than The Dark Knight, if only because there were continuous rumors that Liam Neeson would appear and accordingly Ra's al Ghul would be somehow involved in Bane (Tom Hardy)'s plan to be "Gotham's reckoning." I've avoided as many spoilers as I can, but I do know the film opens eight years after The Dark Knight, where Bruce Wayne is physically and mentally out of the picture as a result of Rachel's death and the deal he made with Gordon to cover up Harvey Dent's death. Beyond that, I know very little, but it seems like Bane is trying to finish what Ghul started on a broader scale than the Joker was ever interested in. That, or it's Knightfall.Then again, with Bane being involved, and Knightfall being what comic readers know Bane for the most, I kind of always thought it was going to be Nolan's variation on that particular arc. We'll see tomorrow.

 The Dark Knight is a movie I've watched several times over the last four years, and I find I continue to enjoy the film and discover little things here and there (I still love that the entire time we were watching Batman Begins we could see the Batpod, we just didn't know that's what it was). It's not just a better movie than Batman Begins, it's a damn fine movie period. Not just as a comic book movie, or as a sequel, but as a film in its own right, The Dark Knight works.


 * Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. If you look up early reviews, including Kevin Smith's, you'll see Order 66 mentioned in every single one of them, even if it's apocryphal at best in Star Wars lore.

Retro Review (Part One): Batman Begins

 As some of you may know, the final chapter of Christopher Nolan's "Batman" trilogy comes to a close this Friday with The Dark Knight Rises, and in the spirit of pre-gaming I decided to watch Batman Begins and The Dark Knight again this past weekend. If each part is a stand-alone entry in a larger story, it makes sense to take a look at the first and second chapters again. That way, I can walk into The Dark Knight Rises with plot points and small moments fresh in my mind. After all, if we are to believe the hype, Nolan has tied all of the films together with his third entry.

 I had actually seen The Dark Knight more recently than Batman Begins (quite a few times more recently) so I thought I'd focus on the first film today, a movie that I enjoyed with a few caveats. At the time it did wonders to erase the memory of Bat-nipples and "ice" related punnery, but I can't quite go so far as to say that Batman Begins was a total success. I gather you've seen the film by now (it's been seven years and if you're even considering watching The Dark Knight Rises this weekend, I strongly urge you to) so rather than deal with a plot synopsis, I'm going to jump right into what I think works, what I think doesn't necessarily work, and some adjustments to my reaction after seeing it again two nights ago.

 First, let's look at what works:

 - Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne
 - Treating Batman like the monster in a horror movie for his first outing.
 - The supporting cast (including Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Rutger Hauer, Mark Boone Junior, and yes, Katie Holmes)
 - Keeping the villains (mostly) simple: mobster Carmine Falcone (Tom Wilkinson) and Jonathan Crane / The Scarecrow (Cillian Murphy) with limited use of Ra's al Ghul (Liam Neeson).
 - In general, the idea that most of the film is grounded in reality, including how Wayne gets his "wonderful toys."
 - The chase scene between the police and the Tumbler (which is admittedly surpassed in The Dark Knight using similar geography).
 - Keeping the retelling of the "origin story" short and to the point, and extra points for Joe Chill (Richard Brake) killing the Waynes (Linus Roache and Sara Stewart) instead of  Jack Napier / the Joker (I'm looking at you, Tim Burton!).
 - How little Batman figures into the first half of the film, and when he does, how Wayne uses each outing to improve his skills.
 - The hallucinations resulting from Scarecrow's toxin, especially when we see Batman through Crane's drugged vision.

 What doesn't work so well:

 - Ra's al Ghul's ultimate plan, which is of a James Bond villain caliber, complete with a super gadget, speeding train, and exposition spouting guy at waterworks who tells us the same things Gordon, Batman, and Ghul have already said.
 - The cowl for Batman just looks clunky. Sure, they address this in The Dark Knight, but this isn't The Dark Knight, so I have to dock it points for the suit being cumbersome.
 - The fight scenes are a little "meh" and not always easy to follow, from the opening Chinese prison fight to the League of Shadows ninja battle to Batman's final showdown with Ra's.
 - As much as I like Liam Neeson as Ducard / Ra's, it might have been more effective to keep "week one" of Batman's tenure devoted to Crane and Falcone. If you really needed to add someone else, Mr. Zsaz is already in the film but mostly underused.
 - When Ra's arrives, Gotham begins to look less like a real city and things turn into "movie" reality, where the train fight looks like a soundstage and so do all the streets it passes over. It's a shift from what made the film so interesting to the typical "comic book movie" showdown.
 - Setting everybody in Arkham free in the "Narrows" turns out to be basically a wasted opportunity, as the film quickly shifts Gordon and Batman back to mainland Gotham as they race to Wayne Tower.
 - Similarly, Rachel Dawes' arc as a prosecutor ends up being much ado about nothing, as all of the setup in her building a case around Falcone and Crane disappears so that Batman can save her three times. She doesn't even do much in the chaotic prison break, other than protect a little boy (future Joffrey Baratheon Jack Gleeson) and taser (taze?) Scarecrow.

 What I didn't mind so much this time:

 - Really, it's just Bale's Batman "voice," which is kind of a Clint Eastwood growl. It used to bother me and sometimes make me laugh but to be honest with you, I don't mind it distinguishing Bruce Wayne from Batman. That he doesn't use it consistently is still a peeve, but otherwise it didn't bug me.
 - I mentioned Jack Gleeson, now famous for Game of Thrones, as appearing in the film, something I didn't realize until I put Batman Begins on again. It's not a big part, but he does appear in the middle of the film and then again during the climax.
 - In light of where it goes in The Dark Knight, I no longer mind the sequel-baiting "Joker" scene that closes the film, and the discussion between Gordon and Batman about escalation really sets the stage for the next film.
 - This is total speculation, but I suspect that The Dark Knight Rises will have a lot more in common with Batman Begins than The Dark Knight, especially with early reviews citing Ra's al Ghul as an inspiration for Bane (Tom Hardy)'s master plan. Also, it drives the "full circle" concept home more than simply continuing the post-Harvey Dent saga.

 Okay, so Batman Begins is pretty much the way I remember it: a mostly good film with touches of great that I enjoyed a whole lot in 2005 and still dig today. I think its flaws are more evident than The Dark Knight's, a review I'll get to on Thursday, heading into the weekend of the Batman. In the Nolan filmography, I'd have to put Batman Begins before Insomnia but after The Prestige, The Dark Knight, Inception, and Memento. It's more polished than Following, and this isn't a "favorite to least favorite" scale, because I think there are fascinating aspects about all of his films, but it's not a movie I leap to revisit (like the first four are). It's a solid reboot of the Batman story when it was desperately needed and it set the stage for a spectacular sequel.

Blogorium Review: Harry Brown

Coming into Harry Brown, I had misgivings that the film was somewhat like Clint Eastwood's Gran Torino, a comparison that popped up repeatedly during the film's brief release. The truth is that Harry Brown is much more Death Wish than Gran Torino; where Eastwood's film is more about stubbornness in the face of change, writer Gary Young and director Daniel Barber's film is akin to Charles Bronson's "this place has gone to hell and somebody has to stand up!" series. A few of the deleted scenes hint at a film more like Gran Torino (particularly a conversation between Brown and a priest after Len's funeral), but Harry Brown is an efficient, well made thriller that manages to add nuance to a normally black and white narrative.

Michael Caine is Harry Brown, an elderly soon-to-be widower living in a lower class estate (i.e. housing project) besieged by hooligans. Well, hooligans sounds less threatening (thanks in part to Bill Hicks' "there's no crime in England" bit on Arizona Bay), but these young drug runners / rabble rousers / violent gang members - introduced in the film by a cell phone video of initiation by crack pipe, followed by a drive by shooting of a young mother - are a menace to everyone living in the estate, so much so that Brown would rather walk around the neighborhood than pass through the pedestrian tunnel they inhabit.

When Brown's wife Kathy passes, he's left with his friend Leonard Atwell (David Bradley) and bartender Sid Rourke (Liam Cunningham) to keep him occupied, but Len's fear of abuse by the local gang ends tragically, and Harry Brown is left with nothing left but his training in the Marines and an overwhelming urge for justice. Circling his quest for revenge are D.I. Alice Frampton (Emily Mortimer) and D.S. Terry Hickock (Charlie Creed-Miles), local police assigned to Leonard's murder.

Barber and Young find ways to deliver exposition in short, clear bursts, almost entirely with imagery: without saying a word, the film establishes that Harry and Kathy also had a daughter, that she died, and that her death coupled with Kathy's pushes Harry further into a hopeless state, one compounded by Len's ensuing death. Harry Brown is a film abut showing rather than telling, so when bits of exposition (like a story Harry tells to a dying arms dealer about war) appear, they feel organic rather than shoehorned into the plot. Harry's growing disdain for the police investigation compound his grief and bring out a man he "decided never to be again."

We meet the gang in an equally efficient series of police interviews, allowing us enough time to get some idea of who these kids are, what their place is in the gang, and hints at why they have such disdain for the authorities, all in less than ten minutes. I appreciated the fact that the kids in the estate have a good reason for not liking the ineffectual, arrogant local police: Frampton, a transfer to the homicide division, finds herself at odds with S.I. Childs (Iain Glen), a chief more concerned with good publicity and drug busts than working within his community.

When a raid late in the film turns violent, it's clear that police presence in their estate only incites the neighborhood kids to increase the hostility. At the same time, while their motive for hating authority is understandable, Barber and Young never let the central criminals - Noel (Ben Drew), Carl (Jamie Downey), and Marky (Jack O'Connell), and Dean (Lee Oakes) - off the hook for killing Leonard, even if it was in self-defense (as a cell phone video Marky shows Harry proves). Whether or not you agree with their behavior, they believe they have cause for it, creating an interesting struggle in perspective.

It's also important - and rare for this kind of film - to point out that Kathy isn't killed by the gang. Neither is their daughter, who probably died long before the criminals were born. Harry passively watches the kids break into a car and viciously beat its owner into the curb, and initially leaves out the critical detail about who the knife that killed Len belonged to, and his decision to turn violent is calculated, deliberate, and brutal following accidentally stabbing Dean after a drunken night at the pub.

One buys Harry Brown's transformation primarily because Caine straddles the line between old & frail and highly trained assassin with ease. Unlike Eastwood in Gran Torino, you don't initially believe that Harry Brown is a "guy you shouldn't fuck with"; he seems like an old man, just hanging on because he doesn't know how not to. At the same time, this is Michael Caine, and at all times one is aware that he can turn that switch and be the badass these punks can't deal with. And, of course, he does. If it helps, think of your reaction to Liam Neeson in Taken compared to watching the film unfold. Even Charles Bronson, who is supposed to be a "regular guy," still has a face chiseled out of stone in Death Wish. Credit to Michael Caine to believably shifting Harry Brown over the arc of the film.

The rest of the cast is comprised of familiar British faces from TV and cinema, including Mortimer (Elizabeth, Shutter Island, Redbelt), Creed-Miles (The Fifth Element, Nil by Mouth), Glen (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Doctor Who), Cunningham (Dog Soldiers, RKO 281), and particularly David Bradley, who most viewers will recognized as Filch, the eternally suspicious groundskeeper of Hogwarts in the Harry Potter series. It's actually such a shift in character type that I'd daresay that Potter fans will be impressed to see Bradley play a nuanced role.

Harry Brown stumbles a little bit at the end: in an attempt to make the crime more "institutional" outside of the estate, an otherwise minor character is elevated at the eleventh hour to "criminal mastermind" in a way that, while hinted at throughout the film, never quite gels with the revenge narrative. While it is a distraction, I hesitate to say it derails an otherwise fine film, made with care and precision to keep audiences invested throughout. Harry Brown is certainly a breath of fresh air in a genre that appeared to have lost its edge.

Unrelated (as much as possible)

I've been racking my brains trying to find something to write about other than the bizarre trifecta of celebrity deaths - Ingrid Pitt, Leslie Nielsen, and Irvin Kershner - because I just don't have enough anecdotes beyond repeating "The Empire Strikes Back was the first movie I saw" or "The Naked Gun was a movie we watched during the first sleep over birthday party I remember" or "Ah, Ingrid Pitt. Where Eagles Dare and The Wicker Man, and oh yeah, Doctor Who*." That's really what I've got.

Other being enthused at the combination of James Franco and Anne Hathaway (who are consistently excellent hosts on Saturday Night Live) hosting the Academy Awards, I don't have much to add to that. Awards Season has been more of a Neil thing over the last few years, and I often find myself missing out on the shameless Oscar bait high profile end of year films. Yes, it's true: I'm more focused on Tron Legacy and True Grit than... well, that should give you some idea of how out of it I am. I'll be lucky to catch Get Low before the Oscar ceremonies, and I really want to see Get Low.

While toying around with ways to approach the forthcoming "Retro Reviews" column - which replaces "From the Vaults" in January - I found myself torn between reviewing films from my perspective now, or when I first saw them. During high school and early years in college, I saw perhaps more films than any other period save for 2007-2010. Many of the films I watched then I've never seen since (Lost in Space, Godzilla, The In Crowd), but some, like The Fifth Element, were revisited, and when I think about what I thought of Luc Besson's film the first time I saw it compared to the second, a review from that first experience might be as entertaining as a critical synopsis from today.

If I can make time in the next few weeks, I really hope to have reviews up for Harry Brown, I'm Still Here, the complete Metropolis, The Magician, Head, and possibly a revisiting of The Expendables outside of the sphere of that other movie opening the same day. And yes, I might look into Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. That being said, I'm torn between Metropolis, I'm Still Here, and Harry Brown, which are sitting on the table with Ratatouille, Grindhouse, 12 Monkeys, Fight Club, The Wizard of Oz, and Best Worst Movie.

That being said, I have a sudden, pressing urge to watch The Wicker Man, Forbidden Planet, and The Empire Strikes Back...




* The Warriors of the Deep, if you were wondering.