A Dark Victory

It’s funny, but I’ve been receiving too many instant messages about The Dark Knight. I don’t know why it’s happening, but it’s like my friends are seeing me as Batman’s fiancé and they’re telling me if they like him. See, he just made another movie, and many told me it is a heck of a good one. This guy even asked me to review it. And then a girl told me “Mamma Mia can kick Batman’s gay ass anytime”. Huh! If Mamma Mia were to do that, it had to be preceded by an elaborate musical that juxtaposes ABBA with ass-kicking. Good. Luck.

So, the review… nope, that’s not coming along well at all. I’m sure you’ve had this feeling of being so impressed by a movie that you could never write coherently about it. Well, that’s just what I had gone through after seeing The Dark Knight twice. I even told another friend (I do seem to talk about my friends a great deal today, noh?) to watch The Dark Knight thrice, and then to buy its bootlegged DVD, and then its original DVD, and then its original DVD with extended cuts. Yeah, as it is, I’m already having a frustrating time quelling this overenthusiastic voice that I’m using now.

Screw reviews! You want those? Go to Rottentomatoes and go read the reviews validating your own opinions of The Dark Knight. I’m assuming you’ve seen it. What, you haven’t?! Then what are you doing here? Go see it! Go see it if that’s the last thing you do for this year, and then go right ahead and bug me with what you think of it!

I wasn’t a fan of Batman Begins. Sure, for a Batman movie it was more mature and more elaborate than all others before it, but to me it wasn’t as complete a tale as the greatest Batman comics. I couldn’t ignore Ra’s Al Ghul’s lack of character development, or Jim Gordon’s lack of role, or Katie Holmes lack of acting skills. And though I was uncontrollably excited about seeing The Dark Knight, I had doubts. I was expecting it to be passably entertaining (like Iron Man) but not memorable like Pan’s Labyrinth, which is the most recent movie I couldn’t stop raving about (and that one’s from two years ago).

But The Dark Knight? I love it so much I’m batty about it (harhar). I’m not even going to write a gushy paragraph about the brilliance of its actors, or say “this movie is so gritty and atmospheric and has such a fitting ambience and OMG the batpod! This is not just a comic book movie, but also a crime movie!” Everyone is saying these, and these are all true. And, though they can make The Dark Knight a winner, they do not make The Dark Knight a winner to me. No, what makes The Dark Knight a winner to me is with how complete it feels despite having so many plots and subplots, and how fitting the depiction of its characters are. Moreover, it wants you to think. It doesn’t romanticize, and it has a lot more going on than kung-fu and high-tech doohickey; just like in Batman comics.

For a start, you can talk about Batman, Joker, Commissioner Gordon, Alfred Pennyworth and Harvey Dent. You can talk about their personality and their psychology. You can discuss on why they believe in what they believe in, and then from their traits, ponder on what truly makes someone a hero. Is Batman a hero, or just a psycho? Will there be a Joker without a Batman? Who are the Harvey Dents of our society?

It’s like one of my friends says: you can write an academic paper from The Dark Knight’s various plots, characters, and themes. And THAT is how you make a superhero movie (or is it “movie based on comic books”, or “movie adaptation of a graphic novel”?). I’m not even going to let namby-pamby statements like “Incredible Hulk is great because it’s a fun, enjoyable, breezy-wheezy, safe, unaggressive and boom-pow-wanky ride” justify the existence of a superhero movie anymore, when we now have The Dark Knight as proof that superhero movies can have a brain and a heart.