The Dark Knight

I realize that our national conversation about Batman is already more or less over, but the weighty responsibilities of internet citizenship can’t be shirked so easily. So: Emily and I went to see the new Batman movie on Friday, with Jason, Gen, Sarah and two nice folks who disappeared so quickly that I’m not sure they were ever there at all. Mr. and Ms. Soze, we’ll call them (now and then not again).

Emily hated it, and at the time this prompted me to stick up for the movie in an attempt to defend the institution of comic book adaptations. They’ve only grossed, what, a billion dollars this summer? Clearly this struggling art form needs our support.

But now, thinking about it some more, I have some complaints.

Here’s the thing about the Batman movie: I want to signal my approval. Christopher Nolan is clearly thinking about Batman in the right way; the actors associated with the franchise are all doing an excellent job of adapting an awkwardly large and sometimes-cartoonish mythology into a filmed perspective that is as realistic as is realistically possible. The basic thesis of the movie was a good one, too, and an appropriate arc for the second movie of a Batman reboot. The movie looks right, it sounds right, it moves right.

My only real problem with the film was everything that happens in it. Spoilers:

Why are we going to Hong Kong? Why are we giving all the “terrible binary choice” schemes to the Joker instead of the duality- and choice-obsessed Two-Face? Why are we suddenly inserting hamfisted topical controversies into our final act, and then using it as an excuse to pollute our climactic action scene with unimpressive and confusing CGI? Why is the culmination of the Joker’s devotion to chaos a bunch of people on a barge putting their votes in a hat? Remember when people were running screaming from poison blimps as Jack Nicholson’s admittedly-ludicrous Joker gleefully presided over the deadly parade festivities? Wasn’t that much, much better?

Also, why is the mayor wearing so much eye makeup?

But as I said, I want to signal my approval: these are basically the right people to put in charge of Batman. And I completely agree with Ezra when he says that the superhero movie genre has much more life left in it than many people realize. The archetypal nature of these characters makes them uniquely suited to big movies that are somewhat less stupid than can be reasonably expected. It’s nice to be able to entrust beloved franchises to professionals who recognize that opportunity and want to do right by it, instead of giving it to incompetents or shame-faced wannabe-artistes who’re looking for a payday to tide them over until they can shoot another doomed small film about terminal illness or divorce.

Now I just want them to hire Bruce Timm and Paul Dini to write the script. Although they can keep whoever came up with the thing with the dude with the cellphone. That was pretty awesome.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 28th, 2008 at 10:28 am and is filed under pop culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.