Dir.
Christopher Nolan ,US, 2008, 152 mins
Cast: Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart
Review by Carol Allen
This long awaited new film shot partly in
IMAX format is a great looker. Beautiful, high angle swooping
shots of a now very contemporary concrete and glass Gotham
City, as opposed to Tim Burton's original Gothic vision and
some high octane action sequences. It also features two movie
stealing performances from Eckhart, as Harvey Dent, the clean
cut young district attorney leading the fight against Gotham
City's criminal elements and most particularly from the late
Heath Ledger is his final role as The Joker. Ledger is superb.
Lank haired with carelessly applied clown's makeup to mask
the character's facial scars and a chilling cackling laugh,
he is that villain most to be feared - a man who is himself
without fear and without any material desires. He just wants
to create evil. He's also often very funny. Harvey, initially
a rather conventional figure, who is also incidentally schmoozing
Batman/Bruce Wayne's ex girlfriend Rachel Dawes, now played
by Maggie Gyllenhaal, gets to suffer a startling transformation
later in film, when he becomes the horribly disfigured and
vengeful Two Face. Gary Oldman effectively reprises his role
as Lieutenant Jim Gordon, the police officer, who is covertly
working with Batman to keep Gotham City clean. And of course
there's Michael Caine, as Bruce's ever supportive butler
and accomplice.
Against all this competition, Bale
as the eponymous hero, sometimes appears a bit sidelined.
He was excellent in Nolan's previous Batman
Begins but in this film we learn very little more about him. He's
effectively sexy and cool in his Bruce Wayne incarnation
but when transformed into Batman he's hampered by a mask
which virtually hides one of an actor's most effective
tools, his eyes, while the deep, rather toneless voice
he adopts for that persona is distractingly inexpressive.
Nolan, who wrote the screenplay with his brother Jonathan,
attempts to raise some interesting ethical issues with
regard to crime fighting, which relate to the real, contemporary
world, but the detail frequently gets drowned out by the
action, noise and the impressive toys, such as Batman's
new Batmobike. One suspects Oldman's last words at the
very end of the film may have something important to say
to us. You may well though be unable to decipher them against
the overloud music soundtrack. Best just to sit back and
enjoy the spectacle and the wicked fireworks of Ledger's
impressive last performance. |
