Friday, July 18, 2008

TDK (4 stars out of 4 stars)

Like you thought I was going to say something different. I sat in the darkness with 300 strangers, in a kind of mystical, orgasm of cinema for 2 and a half hours. It was great. Nolan's handling of this material is top shelf - maybe as good as just about anything DC has ever done, or if not that high, as good as most Batman stories ever told at the very least. There's something different about Joker and Two-Face in this movie. It's very hard to put your finger on it exactly. Like with Batman in Batman Begins, Nolan manages to make their presence in Gotham necessary and believable. You forget Batman is wearing a costume and that the other two are insane psychopath, supervillains. Harvey Dent is by far the most human we've ever seen him. They took a lot of the Batman: Year One concept of Harvey Dent as a collaborator with Wayne and Gordon in an obsessive, idealistic fight against Gotham's criminals, and made his transition to evil much more twisted than I was expecting. If I elaborated, I'd give it away, so I won't. Of course, Ledger was excellent in this. His part was pretty crucial to the level of the story, and I can't believe Ledger won't be reprising it in a third film. It's one of the lesser tragedies of his premature death, but it's still nonetheless tragic that this is the last time we'll see him. It was a fantastic final performance, though - one that I think any actor would be proud to have as his last role. Nolan through Ledger brought some fascinating things to Joker's part. Most of the time, Joker plays it crazy-straight, but every now and then he's genuinely funny, and when those situations arise, it's actually hysterical. He seems to be channeling Charlie Chaplin at times, too. Who knew Ledger had such a knack for that kind of physical comedy? We also see the messiah-savior figure in the superhero explored in this movie, as with most superhero movies, but done so in a way that is fresh and revealing about both the messiah-savior icon and Batman himself. He carries the sins of the guilty as a scapegoat in order to be his people's protector. Very powerful. I will be seeing it again in the theater. As a friend emailed me today and said, that's about as high of praise you can give a movie.

Note to others, though. At 12:15 in my town, the movie was literally lined up around the block. If your a gambling man, I'd recommend going and buying 20-30 seven o'clock tickets and trying your hand at scalping. I had a long conversation with a scalper doing that very thing while in line, and he seemed confident that he'd double-triple his money. I had not seen a line like that since the Phantom Menace, in all seriousness. With only two theaters in my city, I think it might be worth a shot. But, each theater has 2-3 screens, staggered, so unless they all sell out, you're talking about competing with some substitutes. I think my city is going to have the capacity to handle demand for evening shows, but you never know. It could very well sell out en masse, enabling you to turn a small profit, if you don't get caught. Update: Looks like I was right.

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