I saw it in the opening week was impressed, live up to its hype so to speak.
Ledger was fantastic, I remember a couple of years ago hearing of his casting and thought it odd, but alas, the casting may be odd and unexpected but it always pays off and this is a prime example.
And I like the fact that he wasn’t overplayed as a clown like Jack did in 89. He wasn’t an over the top clown in a purple suit cracking jokes and doing tricks, the pencil by the way was excellent.
Anyway, he was played as a screwed psycho who self mutilated himself, wore makeup and cracked a few jokes here and there, not OTT at all, which was what I was hoping for, and I knew with Nolan that it wouldn’t be
Ledgers Joker is fantastic, a true mark of an actor completely absorbing himself into the part, its rare ability where you actually believe that is the person, you stop thinking 'that’s an actor in makeup acting' ala Jack Nicholson, you actually believe it is the character. An actor of such calibre can be lined up against Dustin Hoffman, Maggie Smith, Johnny Depp, Gene Hackman, Meryl Streep etc.
And Harvey Dent wasn’t over played as the Two/Face to be either, granted we didn’t see much of his Two/Face character in this movie but he was a nice guy and still might be in the next but a nice guy who can you trust but don’t want to get the wrong side of, I also like the fact that he literally became his own nickname after being given it to him as he was a two faced law student or something, I forget. The burns and the fact he wore his half burnt suit which becomes his Half and Half ident to go and a revenge rampage was just twisted. Going out for revenge in the clothes you were almost incinerated in I guess makes it feel better. Which was another good departure; he was burnt into that condition, no cliché comic book acid.
And the way Rachel was killed, alone and frightened because The Joker sent Batman and Gordon to the opposite of who they believed they were going after. IT wasn’t the age old, 'She’s not dead in the end, she played dead to fool The Joker' along with gordon type thing. She was dead, just dead. Just like Wash in Serenity, Dead. No returns. Excellently handled.
The Batpod, is it a slight nod to Batman Returns where the Batmobile, sorry, The Tumbler has an emergency escape pod thing? Yeah, I know, it’s a military vehicle so it would have an escape pod but still, you got what I meant.
And the best part, Gotham City was the best character of the whole lot. Nolan gave this perfect balance of characters and events happening that it played out as a kind of factual documentary splice together with clips from witnesses, it was genius. The fact that nothing really went to The Jokers plan, such as the boats and the hospital bombs was great, no ones perfect especially a twisted psycho.
By the way, ive heard that scene where The Joker cant detonate the last bomb was adlibbed, if it is true and it was a glitch in the pyrotechnics, Ledger was a perfect actor to use that to his advantage and actually play it out as if it was a genuine mistake in the story and try to figure out where the last explosion is by shaking and tapping the remote. And the fact as it went off; he kind of jumped a little and carried on walking in character. Ive read online reports it was adlibbed, but if it is true and it’s on the DVD release, that’s the best adlibbing ive seen in a while.
Nolan’s Batmans are so grounded. Yeah, they’re comic movies but they’re grounded in a way that makes it kind of believable, no comic acid, no nipples on the batsuits (Shumacher you twat), no sidekicks, no vehicles that look like Times Square etc etc.
And, we didnt see the Jokers final fate, all we saw was a swat team approach to him hanging. Will he go to Arkham along with the rest of them?
A mate asked me if maybe Nolan filmed an ending but change his mind because of Heaths death? To that i just said that hes the type of director not to alter a film becasue of this, he will keep his vision as complete as possible despite what happened, hes no wimpy dorector.
Besides, do we have footage filmed for the sequel that we dont know about that will be used in opening or part of the next movie or is that it.
Or is Nolan using our best ever feature as movie fans, our imaginations to work out the fate of The Joker.
