The Dark Knight

I know it has been a while since this movie has been released both in the theaters and on DVD, but I’d like to write about it.

And tell you I told you so! Not you in particular, but anyone that I saw after I saw the first shot of Heath Ledger as the Joker was pulled to my desk and shown the picture. “That is Heath Ledger and he IS the Joker.”

When you get down to it, the Joker’s nuts, completely gone in the head and even with as much credit is given to Jack Nicholson, the Joker was not presented as this in the Burton rendition of Batman. Instead he was more of a mob boss who was willing to kill people in odd ways to establish a grip on Gotham City. He had a purpose.

Heath Ledger’s Joker did not. As he said in the movie “I’m just a dog chasing cars. I don’t know what I’d do with one if I ever caught it.”

That sums up the Joker so well, a completely maniacal, but not megalomaniacal, individual who will do whatever he wants to do at that moment regardless of what that is. In a way, I envy him. The romance of being able to say “I’m done with this,” and go on to whatever you want to do next. Of course in real life you can do that, but it would probably be decision after decision that descends to the murky depths of bad results. I don’t imagine someone with this philosophy in life, of truly doing whatever they want when they want, would last a week before being carted off to jail for various offences on the public.

But I digress.

I wish Mr. Ledger was alive right now. It would have been cool for him to receive his Golden Globe for best supporting actor. It would have been cool if I could have written a letter, even if never would have been received by him personally, saying that as far as THIS guy (I point to myself) goes, he is the Joker and anyone else stepping up to fill his shoes later on will have a big problem.

The Joker is my favorite villain. Ever. If there was ever a villain I wanted to be, it would be him. I know that sounds a little off, wanting to be a villain, but I believe that everyone has a dark side, and in this dark side lies the potential of crime, murder, and general all around bad stuff. It’s OK to want to kill your boss. Doing it might hurt your retirement, but we all have bad thoughts and urges and while the Joker has them as well, he follows through. Like I said, there’s something to that.

Unfortunately, Mr. Ledger felt like HE had big shoes to fill that had belonged to Nicholson.

I wish that I had a job in Hollywood as a counselor for situations like this. I wasn’t very impressed with Nicholson’s Joker and would have told Mr. Ledger that most of the respect given to Nicholson, I strongly believe, has less to do with Nicholson himself and more to do with the fact that Tim Burton made an amazing movie and Nicholson happened to be in it. Don’t get me wrong, he wasn’t detrimental to the movie or anything, but I wasn’t particularly impressed, or at least not nearly as impressed as I was with Ledger’s performance.

So I wish I had been able to tell Ledger that these shoes he has to fill are overflowing right now because he’s head and shoulders above Nicholson’s Joker.

Also, I’m getting tired of people saying he’s getting awards because he died. His Joker was awesome and he’s been one of my favorite actors for a while now, ever since Brokeback Mountain (great movie, by the way) and any awards is completely deserved.

However, I strongly think that as much as he deserves the awards, he would not have gotten them had he survived to see the success of the Dark Knight (the first Batman movie not to use the word Batman in the title). I think this falls more on the award people than the general population who saw TDK and said “MAN! I want more of that! Shame he died!” I think this is the award people hearing that and saying “why not?”

Because honestly, how many comic book movies have gotten awards regardless of how great the movie was?

Besides, awards shows are awful anyway. They should have a red carpet even for an award ceremony that the general population chose the winners of, instead. The whole committee thing is stupid.

This isn’t just with movies, either, but every award ceremony where the choices are not put in the people’s hands is flawed in my eyes and limited in scope.

But how would you do this? VH1 did it a long time ago with all sorts of categories even “most overplayed band.” You just logged in on-line and voted. The people spoke, VH1 listened and the award show worked out. It was particularly great because the bands actually showed up to the event. If you had a people’s choice show for movies, would Tom Hanks attend? That would be the limiting thing with the PC award. It hasn’t been around for ages and has not built up any sort of legitimacy. It’s not like a trophy could be glanced at and someone say “Ah. A Peep.”

OK, I slid off track again.

More about the Dark Knight. It can’t be mentioned without comparing it to the previous Batman movies and I am so pleased to say that this is a RADICAL departure from the previous Two Face. It 1) looked good and 2) was played just as it would have been in the desert. Two Face, as much as he is two separate people, isn’t so much split in personality, he’s just had his vision of justice shifted a bit to the flip of a coin “The only true justice” quote Tommy Lee Jones. He might get off on having rooms or suits with two different colors but honestly, this takes a radical back seat to the mental aspect he has.

This is the strength of Batman villains. Whereas with heroes like Spider-Man or Superman, you have villains with strange looks and little substance, but with Batman, villains like the Joker, Two Face, Scarecrow, even villains like Clayface, they all have something deep underneath the surface. Something you can really look at and maybe even identify with.

So seeing Harvey Dent walk around without having an altered suit, or two women, one for each side of his personality, it’s refreshing. And he was so willing to be hardcore based on the flip of his coin.

To say I was impressed with the movie is an understatement. As far as Batman movies go, this one is the best.

I will say that I want the same crew to make the Dark Knight returns though I wouldn’t know how they would handle the Joker’s part in the story. I guess since it takes place so far (not ridiculously far, this isn’t Batman 2099 or anything crazy like that) in the future it might make sense to get a different actor, but they would certainly have some big shoes to fill.

And his part wasn’t THAT big, all things considered.

The Dark Knight was incredibly impressive. I was impressed with Batman Begins, but this one takes the cake. It truly is a shame that Heath Ledger died not only because he made an AMAZING Joker, but because he was a great actor and seemed to be a quality human being. It makes me wonder when you see good actors like this die and other actors who shall not be named carry on living.