Heath Ledger did not disappoint as The Joker. After hearing the non-stop Oscar buzz surrounding his performance, I went into the film wondering if he would be able to live up to the hype. As soon as he walked in screen and did his "magic trick" I knew that he was going to kick ass. Was he better than Nicholson in Tim Burton's "Batman" from 1989? I'm not sure the two really compare. Though they were playing the same character, their interpretations of him were vastly different and I really think Ledger nailed the darker, more sinister Joker that we usually only get to see in the pages of the comics. Regardless, don't be shocked if Ledger wins a posthumous Academy Award for his portrayal of the yin to Batman's yang.
If you ask me, Gary Oldman is Jim Gordon. His performances in both of Christopher Nolan's Batman films are so perfect. He even looks just the way I expect Jim Gordon to look like, like he leaped right out of the pages of Frank Miller's "Year One" and onto the silver screen. He doesn't really steal the movie, but then again I think it is safe to say that it wouldn't be the same without him. The same can be said for Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent. He plays the "white knight" of Gotham so well and seeing his transformation into Two-Face is quite fascinating. Some feel like they should have saved the majority of the Two-Face portion of "The Dark Knight" for the next Batman film, but I think including it this time was the right choice. Nolan and his screenwriters did a really fantastic job of using two villians and making it not seem overwhelming to the viewer, unlike what happened with all the villians in Sam Raimi's "Spider-Man 3."
Speaking of, it was good to see such a huge response for "The Dark Knight" from fans everywhere. It raked in close to $160 million on it's opening weekend and broke basically every single box office record imaginable. Unlike Spidey's last film, which set the weekend gross record last year, I actually felt very satisfied walking out of the movie theatre. There were only a handful of stupid little things that bothered me about the sophomore effort in the Batman franchise. Overall, I found it to be a far superior film than the last Spider-Man movie and it is much more deserving of these box office achivements.
My biggest complaint is the new Batman costume. It just looks, well, kind of ridiculous. I'm not into the all-black motif and the mask looks odd-shaped and awkward. It is definitely better than the costumes used in Schumacher's Bat-films, but not by a whole lot. Christian Bale's Batman voice was also a little much at times. Yeah, we get it, Batman is supposed to be menacing and scary but at the same time he doesn't have to growl and speak so harshly all of the time. I don't know, I just found it a bit much. Kevin Conroy, who does the voice in the classic Batman: The Animated Series and the recent "Gotham Knights" DVD, is my quintessential Bat-voice. Oh well, at least Bale really shines as Bruce Wayne. That allows me to forgive his cheesy voice work while in cape and cowl.
If you haven't seen it yet, what are you waiting for? It is great.
In completely unrelated news, another really good hardcore punk band is calling it quits. I wrote about the short shelf life of hardcore bands in my last blog entry and then found out that Dead Hearts are breaking up a few days later. This is a bummer, especially because these guys are from Buffalo, my hometown, and they seemed to be doing really well as of late. Their last record, "Bitter Verses," was solid and I was stoked to hear what was coming next from them.
Dead Hearts were never my favorite band ever, but I always enjoyed their shows and their music. I think they are solid guys and they made music that inspired a lot of people in this area, for that I'm always going to have fond memories of them as a band. I'll never forget seeing them play a Christmas party at a local independent record store called Sit and Spin. The place was packed and the singer, Derek, came out of the back dressed as Santa Claus as the band ripped into their first song. Minutes later, the costume was nearly destroyed and strands of stringy, white, fake hair were all over the place. I probably swallowed a good chunk of Santa Dole's beard that night. Anyways, I'm sure that some of the dudes will move on to new bands and I'm looking forward to hearing them when that time comes. Until then, I'll just count down the days until their last show. September 12, 2008. Should be a blast.
"Some promises last long after we're in our graves."
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