The Dark Knight
Beware: Extremely minor spoilers. Nothing will be ruined by this entry, if you have seen the trailer.
Getting it out of the way, first thing: I was not overly impressed by The Dark Knight. My expectations were high. Extremely so. They looked down and saw the Hubble Telescope below, they were so high. That is not why the movie failed in my eyes.
Spent a bit of time this afternoon looking at clips of the movie that have leaked online. Watching them, I am noticing two problems.
First, the cinematography is failing in many scenes. When a character is being malicious, fearful, twisted, contemplative, et cetera it really helps to not be at the same angle and the same distance for half the scene. I watched the first minute of when the Joker crashes Wayne's party and while the lines are good and the characters great, the camera just swings about a bit and we never get the force of what is happening. The viewing angle is uninteresting. It adds nothing to the film, and by being nothing it detracts.
The cinematography especially fails when we are watching Batman fighting multiple opponents. One on one, Batman is great in Christopher Nolan's two films, you can get the full force of his anger, his desires, his emotions, his physicality. But, when the director is shooting complex fight sequences it falls apart. The final fight scene with the Joker's goons actually bored me because it was difficult to follow and understand. This is Batman! I should not be daydreaming during a climactic fight.
The second problem is that there was too much film. Not saying there was too much script, as it all made sense and the story stuck together, but we just saw too much of it. Too many little bitty flash scenes and extra moments when people were not actively moving the story forward. And, there are small little subplots that probably could have been removed altogether and not even dented the movie a bit. Things just kept on dragging. Probably the best way to describe it is being ready for the next part of the story and the previous part is still going for another few minutes. Tedious.
All that being said, there were some exceptional gems in this film. Heath Ledger as the Joker was great, and there were a few scenes that were exceptional. Funny and thrilling and a bit demented at the same time. The Joker at the hospital was particularly notable. I really wish the cinematography had been better in a few of his scenes as it simply killed his acting for me. When Harvey Dent becomes Two-Face I was thrilled. Honestly, once that transformation happened I more wanted to see Two-Face than The Joker. That was unexpected, which is a treat in of itself.
So, all said and done, it is worth seeing just for the gems and seeing how the story unfolds. However, unlike a couple other films released this last year, I am not eager to see it again in theatres. That, frankly, is sad.
Getting it out of the way, first thing: I was not overly impressed by The Dark Knight. My expectations were high. Extremely so. They looked down and saw the Hubble Telescope below, they were so high. That is not why the movie failed in my eyes.
Spent a bit of time this afternoon looking at clips of the movie that have leaked online. Watching them, I am noticing two problems.
First, the cinematography is failing in many scenes. When a character is being malicious, fearful, twisted, contemplative, et cetera it really helps to not be at the same angle and the same distance for half the scene. I watched the first minute of when the Joker crashes Wayne's party and while the lines are good and the characters great, the camera just swings about a bit and we never get the force of what is happening. The viewing angle is uninteresting. It adds nothing to the film, and by being nothing it detracts.
The cinematography especially fails when we are watching Batman fighting multiple opponents. One on one, Batman is great in Christopher Nolan's two films, you can get the full force of his anger, his desires, his emotions, his physicality. But, when the director is shooting complex fight sequences it falls apart. The final fight scene with the Joker's goons actually bored me because it was difficult to follow and understand. This is Batman! I should not be daydreaming during a climactic fight.
The second problem is that there was too much film. Not saying there was too much script, as it all made sense and the story stuck together, but we just saw too much of it. Too many little bitty flash scenes and extra moments when people were not actively moving the story forward. And, there are small little subplots that probably could have been removed altogether and not even dented the movie a bit. Things just kept on dragging. Probably the best way to describe it is being ready for the next part of the story and the previous part is still going for another few minutes. Tedious.
All that being said, there were some exceptional gems in this film. Heath Ledger as the Joker was great, and there were a few scenes that were exceptional. Funny and thrilling and a bit demented at the same time. The Joker at the hospital was particularly notable. I really wish the cinematography had been better in a few of his scenes as it simply killed his acting for me. When Harvey Dent becomes Two-Face I was thrilled. Honestly, once that transformation happened I more wanted to see Two-Face than The Joker. That was unexpected, which is a treat in of itself.
So, all said and done, it is worth seeing just for the gems and seeing how the story unfolds. However, unlike a couple other films released this last year, I am not eager to see it again in theatres. That, frankly, is sad.
– Posted: July 21, 2008, 01:37 pm