The Dark Knight Wanders

Rating: Null/10 (15 July 2012)

With the dark knight rises about to hit cinema screens it has got me thinking. Perhaps because I was never a huge fan of the franchise I haven't been as aware of the hype in the way I felt it surrounding the Star Wars Prequels. There has however been something of a slow burn that is now starting to ignite, and it has about it the sense of pomp and solemnity that was first given to the series with Heath Ledgers untimely death, something that now suggests to the world at large that this is more than simple entertainment.
I'm going to have to disagree..this is less than simple entertainment. And since first, last and every minute in between I am looking to be entertained by a movie, that raises a problem. The dark knight is a film that takes itself seriously. I don't intrinsically have a problem with that. A lot of movies could learn from that. In this self reflexive self congratulatory age where the endless in-jokes, jobs for your mates and wouldn't -this- be -clever- even- if- it -doesn't- fit- at- all style abounds, film makers who are completely absorbed in the world they are presenting is not a bad thing. We go to escape this world, if they don't believe in their own reality how can we? The problem is this film takes it's STATUS seriously. The film itself, the story, the characters, the tiny details that add up to make us believe and care about what is unfolding before us, to draw us in biting our nails in horror and hope? That kind of got forgotten in the heady glow of epic ideas and mythic imaginings.
Batman, the unsung hero, vilified despite giving everything- the idea stirs my soul. the execution...em did they get round to it? Maybe its still on the drawing board. It was a long film a lot of things had to get cut..but maybe the wrong things?
The Joker, the anarchic psychotic apocalypse. Bad because he likes it, without reason, without limits, without a plan..well there is a plan- several actually all very neatly playing into each other. Destroy Batman. Bring Gotham to its knees. Take away all hope. And its executed very well for a man who just likes to create chaos and do what he pleases when he pleases. In fact he is so well thought out he has the entire city running in circles unable to stop him and his well trained army..of recently escaped mental patients..
Rachel Dawes, the woman Batman loves but cannot be with in case it puts her in danger. The woman who is engaged to the only other man who is standing against the chaos. The woman who is herself standing against the corruption. The woman who despite not dating Batman, is in mortal jeopardy throughout both films.
I can go on. The film did. It dragged. Full of strange circular dialogue with big words and epic nonsense that bored me. The humour was taking a nap and I wanted to. Every time I thought it was going to be over, it went off on another random plot line. A film should take you inside as if it were real, make you cower like those first film goers as that train hurtled towards them. This was flat images on a flat screen, big, fancy, long.