Monday, July 21, 2008 1:21 AM
*THIS POST HAS SPOILERS!!! If you haven’t seen the movie and don’t want to have any of the plot told to you, stop reading now! Go check out whatever Chris Williams is doing on his blog. For those of you wanting to read this entry, scroll down.
No seriously, there are spoilers.
Last chance.
The storyline in this movie was deceiving. This wasn’t about Batman vs. the Joker…this wasn’t about Gotham trying to divert a criminal mastermind. No, this was a movie about terrorism.
The Joker himself was labeled a terrorist in the movie, and was always seen as being separate from the “regular” criminals…always more intense, more willing to dismember or kill. I loved that we didn’t really get any back story on him, because he didn’t need any. His role was to represent that which we fear, that which we don’t understand, and that which for whatever reason wants to do us harm. He was the Satan to Batman/Gordon/Dent’s Jesus, sitting on top of the temple baiting them to bend their code of ethics and hurl themselves down.
And really, that was the heart of this movie: How do we balance our morals and values with the cost of upholding them. This movie gives us a forum to open up the discussions around the events of the current decade, and maybe that’s where I look at the movie and feel disdain. Maybe because I feel like the Batman let me down in what he was willing to compromise and what he wasn’t.
Consider that Joker said he’d stop the killing if only Batman would identify himself. Similar to how governments are threatened by terrorists that they will kill hostages if troops are not removed from the middle east. Batman couldn’t reveal himself, because the greater good prevented him…but how often are individuals and their families sacrificed at the alter of “greater good”?
Consider that Batman decided violating everyone’s privacy was alright since it would serve the greater good and locate the Joker. In the USA, the Patriot Act and other privacy legislation is still a hot topic. What means does an enforcement or governing body have over its people? Why does the Batman decide that he’s able to break certain laws and not others, and how does he justify the “do as I say, not as I do” attitude when scolding would-be vigilantes? Do we agree with Batman in his tactics, and if so do we also agree with our own governments and their want to have more inroads into our private lives?
The movie begs the question “In 2008, what is a hero?” What values do we as a society hold dear? Is it worth being a hero when you’re critiqued by those you try to protect? What is acceptable action as a hero? What is justice? What are the lengths we’re willing to go to protect ourselves? In this post-9/11 era, these are still questions that I think we’re wrestling with.
Ok…enough of the deep stuff…I need to comment on a few things…
First, 3/5 is my rating for this movie.
Joker – AWESOME!
Heath Ledger has set the bar high for anyone stepping into the purple suit and white face paint in the future. Definitely the reason to see this movie.
Batman – EPIC FAIL!
WTF was that gruff voice Christian Bale tried to use for Batman?! And the kewl thing with Batman was that he was always in the shadows, doing his work away from others eyes…not *appearing* at a crime scene and walking around with the police officers. Not disappearing into thin air when someone’s back is turned. Batman != Spiderman, and as such there needs to be a bit more air of reality to him, which wasn’t present in this film.
Harvey Dent – Awesome!
Great character that I *hope* wasn’t killed off at the end of the movie, otherwise I have the same comment that I had when Venom died in the last Spiderman: EPIC FAIL!!!
Gordon – Awesome!
Once again, a great performance by the commish! (Although announcing his promotion in the cell blocks was a little odd, yes?)
Realism – EPIC FAIL x 100!!!
The only pieces that seemed believable were the Joker’s schemes! Those I could buy, and even overlook things like how he wired up a hospital to be blown up and also walk into the hospital without anyone knowing. It didn’t matter for whatever reason, I could buy it.
But holy shit: Batman takes out a piece of brick that has a bullet in it, somehow calls in the BS artists from CSI and is able to recreate the bullet AND get a fingerprint?!
And please explain to me how, in seemingly mere hours, he was able to create a system complete with required multi-monitor interface, to track ALL cellular calls AND use the speech as sonar…AND be able to locate the Joker in ALL of that…AND have special optics in his mask that act like x-ray goggles?! LAME!!!!
And did the ballet dancers not question why Bruce was swimming to a plane, and why he was gone from the ship for as long as he was?
And that whole final scene where he’s running through through the maze of shipping containers…it just looked so clumsy!
And the way he “saved” that guy who was going to rat him out by crashing his car, and the way the guy “got it” that Bruce had saved his life so he should just keep quiet…I HATE it when that happens. I hated it in Spiderman 2 when that whole subway car sees Peter without his mask and is all “We won’t tell anyone Spiderman” So now there’s like 50 people who know Spiderman’s identity…you think that not ONE of them will tell somebody, or snap a picture?! If Youtube was in the Marvel universe, that would be up there in a flash from someone’s phone. But I digress…
The only thing I can think of is that this one tried something different in a hero movie: it was hero by committee: Dent, Batman, and Gordon all shared the hero duties, while the first Batman movie was focused on just Batman. And I honestly just didn’t really dig it. I was expecting a more conflicted Batman, but instead I don’t really know what we got. I think we got a more conflicted Gotham than anything, and the question comes back to how we as a society react to the decisions those we place in power…our “heroes” in government and elsewhere.
But those are my thoughts after seeing it and writing this at 1:16 AM. Love to hear your thoughts.
[EDIT]
I was talking with a buddy that made two interesting observations:
1. Apparently when Batman and Lucious are talking about the batsuit, he asks if it'll stop dogs and Lucious responds "Maybe a cat" or something to that affect...foreshadowing about Catwoman?
2. The guy with the cell phone that was surgically implanted into his stomach...did that scar look like...a question mark?
[/EDIT]
D