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Dir. Christopher Nolan
Rating: 6.1 | 0 User Reviews | Send to Friend
Hollywood has convinced me: Our only hope as a civilization rests in the hands of billionaire playboys with a stripper/model on each arm, a love of the high life, and more technological playthings than red blood cells. After all, the difference between Tony Stark's Iron Man and Bruce Wayne's Batman is mostly semantics and raised, pointy ears. Well, that, and a sense of brooding menace, perhaps. The sequel to the mostly-successful Batman Begins picks up very closely after the other has ended: Batman (Christian Bale) is still terrorizing Gotham City's criminals, with the aid of a fiery new D.A., Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart, sort of a poor man's Viggio Mortensen), who is committed to taking down the mob in the city, and wooing Wayne's eternal love, Rachel (now played by Maggie Gyllenhaal). Suddenly, the Joker (Heath Ledger), who's been busy robbing the mob of their money, proposes a deal to the underworld whereby he kills Batman and gets paid handsomely for the effort. The movie sets a blistering pace, knocking out practical effects in favor of CGI when possible, and supports an extremely talented cast. The problem is, being grim and dark doesn't necessarily equate being emotionally gripping. The film feels at an extreme emotional remove -- far removed from Frank Miller's agonized source material -- as if Nolan is afraid to truly dig under the surface of any of the characters, including its titular hero. The only actor to rise above this, naturally, is the late Ledger, who infuses the film with necessary dissonant energy. His Joker -- an "agent of chaos," like Milton's Satan -- is far more engaging than the straight-laced hero. It's a superlative performance, but he is such the most interesting element of the film that it noticeably sags when he's not on-screen. One final note, with the anticipation building for a huge release, no doubt the films will surely continue, albeit without the supremely talented Ledger, but a word of caution for Bale: I well understand Batman's need to change his voice from the winsome Wayne to better disguise himself, but the gutteral, oddly lisping rasp you've selected is, at this point, about a half-step away from Harvey Fierstein. Might want to lighten up on that one.
IMAX version: by Sam Benesby
While there's no need for bat-shaped 3-D glasses, the 48 frames per second provides high definition detail that makes the viewer feel as though they can see the pores on the Joker's face clog with makeup. For pure vertiginous thrills, Batman's base-jump from the top of a Hong Kong skyscraper is hard to top, but visually stunning wide screen shots, without the burden of that obstructing black frame, allows for audience members to see Chicago¬–er, Gotham City–on on a much more pervasive and grandiose level than ever before. Is it necessary to see the flick in an IMAX theater to fully appreciate its visual artistry? No, but it sure makes it a hell of a lot cooler.
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