"O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!" -Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 5
The Joker is a charter member and the crown jewel of Batman's famous Rogues Gallery. From his first comic book appearance in 1940, the character has been portrayed as an anarchist with a penchant for impossible heists, an unpredictable M.O. and indiscernible motives. Sure, the motive for stealing a diamond seems obvious enough, but why would a thief have to kill the diamond's owner in the most elaborate fashion as well? As Michael Caine's Alfred opines in The Dark Knight, "Some men just want to watch the world burn."
What can be said of the late Heath Ledger's turn as The Clown Prince of Crime that has not already been said? To be sure, it is a miraculous performance, a tour de force even, but the realization of the character owes as much to the screenplay by director Christopher Nolan and his brother Jonathan as it does Ledger's acting chops. This Joker is a study in contradictions. He is a gifted criminal mastermind, but he cannot hide his disdain for the scheming of others. He is out to prove something, but he claims to be like a dog chasing a car. He wouldn't know what to do if he caught it. He is a remorseless liar and murderer, but we cannot take our eyes off of him. So, what does that say about us? Much like the Bible's depiction of Satan as a tempter, the Nolan brothers' Joker appeals to our baser instincts. His guile is masked by his frightening charisma and a singular ambition not to rule but to destroy. He is a terrorist whose jihad has no religion. Freed from the constraints of status, money, popularity, honor, identity and just about every other social construct, The Joker can do anything he pleases, but he does have at least two rules: 1. there are no rules and 2. no one is incorruptible.
Enter The Batman. Many have given Christian Bale's performance as the titular hero short shrift in the wake of Ledger's scene-chewing Joker. If there was ever any doubt that Bale's Bruce Wayne and Batman are the definitive take on the character, he obliterates it here by effortlessly gliding between each facet of the character's persona. Batman arrives on the scene in The Dark Knight as a fully realized character thanks to 2005's Batman Begins, but here Bale adroitly plays Bruce Wayne as a thunderstruck and conflicted witness to the ethical dilemma that his alter ego has wrought while his Batman is more confident, thus solidifying the notion that Bruce Wayne is the mask that Batman must wear.
For all the bravado of our two protagonists, Aaron Eckhart's Harvey Dent, Maggie Gylenhaal's Rachel Dawes, Gary Olman's Jim Gordon, Morgan Freeman's Lucius Fox, and Michael Caine's Alfred Pennyworth comprise a supporting cast that helps drive the plot. Actors of this caliber don't take roles that call for them to stand around and react to the actions of the homicidal maniac and billionaire playboy/industrialist/vigilante types, and while enough can't be said about this dream ensemble, it is Eckhart's Dent that gives the film its true heart. From his own foreshadowing to the end credits, his character's arc borders on Greek tragedy while still managing to prove relatable. It is another credit to Nolan's script and sure-handed direction.
As for Nolan, he has yet to make a bad movie. Even the least of his efforts, Insomnia, was better than an American remake of a Norwegian thriller had any right to be. Here he has transcended the source material and elevated childhood pulp fantasies to the stuff that celluloid dreams are made of. It is a truly astounding feat to turn a super-hero story into a densely layered crime saga, especially when one considers that this is only Nolan's fourth film since his festival favorite and first truly commercial film Memento unspooled in 2000. While Nolan eschews the stylist predilections of most young directors, his films are like swiss watches. His debts to craftsmen like Michael Mann, John Frankenheimer, Sidney Lumet and William Friedkin are manifest in his overriding trust in the intelligence of his audience and his desire to make even the most fantastic feats of derring-do believable in the world he has created. In "The Dark Knight" Nolan has given us a film that engages on many different levels, and by extension he has appealed to the broadest of audiences without pandering to the lowest common denominator.
Now two weeks into its record-breaking release, the cultural phenomena that is The Dark Knight strikes at the heart of one of the great issues of the modern world. As society becomes more sophisticated, villains like The Joker become more frightening. More is at stake. People have more to lose if anarchy is allowed to reign, and diplomacy, for all it can do, can't save humanity from the greatest evils that threaten it. Batman is no diplomat, and failed diplomacy has made his existence necessary. His justice is messy, but the incorruptible and principled hero deserves a place in the world of Gotham and perhaps our own.
Can you spot the UN High Commissioner for Refugees Goodwill Ambassador?
Try to imagine a new-age version of The Matrix, the seminal end-of-the-millennium fable about the future of humanity and technology. The problem with "Wanted" is that we've seen these go-for-broke high-wire acts before, and while CGI-enhanced feats of derring-do fail to deliver the same way they did in 1999, there's still some dazzle in watching seemingly ordinary schmoes bend the laws of physics. Unlike The Matrix, the world of Wanted is real (for lack of a better term). No one's dodging bullets here. Bullets are dodging people... and cars... and buildings.
Wanted is yet another summer of 2008 movie entry based on a graphic novel, and while it seems that movies based on exaggerated 4-color pulp characters might be reaching critical mass, it seems that Hollywood has not yet begun to pillage the resource that is the comic medium. As Wanted creator Mark Millar puts it, "Hollywood eats up ideas quickly, but comics come up with 300 new ideas a month." Unless you spend some of your free time keeping up with the formerly underground world of comics and their big brother graphic novels, you might not know that two of the finer movies made this century were also based on comic books. If you could name Sam Mendes' Road to Perdition and David Cronenberg's A History of Violence, then go to the head of the class. I would have also accepted American Splendor and Ghost World, but neither one of those movies really resonated with me. No points for V for Vendetta or Sin City. Too easy. From Hell, the Hughes' brothers adaptation of Alan Moore's retelling of the Jack the Ripper legend, is automatically disqualified because no turn-of-the-century prostitute would look like Heather Graham. But I digress.
Wanted has little in common with the grounded tales of fathers, husbands and their families in Road to Perdition and A History of Violence. In fact, the less you dwell on Wanted the better off you'll be. You see, there's a centuries-old clan of weavers who are really genetically-predisposed assassins that take their orders from fabric knitted by a magic loom that commands a large and otherwise vacant room in a crumbling warehouse. By translating strand positions into binary code and converting the code to names, this ancient society has mercilessly and without reason (other than the magic loom told them to) knocked off thousands of people over the years. Fine. Since we're bending the laws of physics, I can go along with this too.
I suppose the most amazing thing about Wanted is that some real actors signed up for this high-gloss hokum. James McAvoy, coming off critically lauded roles in The Last King of Scotland and Atonement, plays the ordinary guy stumbling toward his violent destiny with more skill than the script warrants, and Academy award winners Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman seem to be enjoying their turns as two veteran assassins, Sloan and Fox. However, the latter two casting decisions feel like narrative shorthand. Oh look, Freeman is the savvy father/mentor figure and Jolie plays the badass chick who likes cars, guns and knives. I would compare this turn to her lead role in Tomb Raider if Fox didn't make Lara Croft look like a Jane Austen heroine. Jolie has always been able to do more with fewer lines than most, and she is reportedly responsible for the laconic spin on the source material. I'd like to think she's just adhering to the adage, "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all."
I could have justified no review of this movie based on that adage alone, but there is something of value here. Like The Incredible Hulk, this film doesn't pretend to be much more than the vehicle for stylish and often thrilling action set pieces. While a movie that aims low and hits its target does not great cinema make, it is often better than the alternatives.
"You wouldn't like me when I'm angry. Seriously, it's not you. It's me."
Ang Lee's 2003 take on the jolly green giant was an ambitious misfire. It didn't help that the screenplay gave Bruce Banner ridiculously unnecessary daddy issues and that Eric Bana's Dr. Banner and Jennifer Connelly's Betty Ross were more Affleck and Lopez than Tracy and Hepburn. While you had to applaud Lee's high brow gumption, the whole thing played against the gamma-irradiated creature's central appeal as a raging Hyde to Banner's pursued and persecuted Jekyll. Even the Hulk's CGI realization didn't inspire awe.
This new Hulk makes Lee's Hulk look like Gumby in a toupee. He's rendered here as a dirty-green, veiny, stubbled, mop-top of a monster, and several clever filmmaking techniques and story elements keep this CGI incarnation from sticking out like a sore thumb against real backgrounds. Banner's alter ego is either partially shrouded in darkness, enveloped in smoke, obscured by atmospheric disturbances like sonic waves or heat refraction, set against groves of trees and overcast skies, or charging through neon-lit streets at night. It's a smart move because a seven-foot, green guy is always going to look a little off in a normal environment, so why not minimize the effect?
The main feat in this film is that despite its fast-paced bombast, the characters are actually well-developed. Exposition is taken care of in the opening credits, and director Louis Letterier's show-don't-tell technique of characterization works. We don't need a complicated mythology about a scientist who turns into a green behemoth when he gets angry, or scared, or distressed, or gassy. Here the Hulk is a given. He's a nuisance that a humble, unassuming man like Banner could do without and a terror to anyone who wants to control his power but can't, but we know all that. Now let's get on with it.
Scuttlebutt was that Edward Norton, who plays the good Dr. Banner this time around, wanted more of the substance he had infused into Zack Penn's screenplay. What serious actor wouldn't. No one wants to play second fiddle to a character with one line (You can probably guess what it is.), but Marvel had already been down that road and was determined to give the fans of the comic book what they wanted the first time around: less talk, more smash. Suffice it to say, there's a whole lot of smashing going on.
Norton and his supporting cast of Liv Tyler, William Hurt and Tim Roth take on their roles with one-note motivations and no delusions of making Oscar acceptance speeches next year, but let's all sit back and appreciate that for a moment: the joys of a B-monster movie done well and without pretension.
"Talk to the hand."
Iron Man is a hi-tech, shiny gadget of a movie, which is convenient because it’s about a guy who’s into hi-tech, shiny gadgets. Like any good gadget it does its job so efficiently that it’s difficult to find a fault in it of any consequence. Each component plays a role and each output is a result of previous input. While this doesn’t make for compelling movie-making, you have to appreciate the finely-tuned product of R&D that is Iron Man.
Now, hold the iPhone!
While Iron Man is not a daring movie by any stretch, there is a component in its schematic that keeps it from being a strictly 1’s and 0’s affair. The “unconventional” casting of Robert Downey Jr. as the billionaire playboy Tony Stark is a stroke of genius. Downey's career and personal arcs are the stuff of Hollywood legend, and his roles in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Zodiac, A Scanner Darkly, and Good Night and Good Luck are evidence that his most recent comeback is for real. His turn in Iron Man puts him in the club for actors with interesting and unorthodox resumes who finally got their shot at blockbuster fame with Johnny Depp, and Downey doesn't waste the opportunity. From his first appearance on screen, every piece of bad boy baggage is right there with him. He's not the guy you love to hate. He's the guy you hate to love.
Downey might even be too good to play this role. Once Stark suits up as Iron Man, you miss the little cad immediately, but director Jon Favreau (in what is probably the wisest decision he's ever made or will ever make as a filmmaker) gives us an under the helmet point of view so we don't lose Downey's performance during the CG mayhem. After all, we've seen super heroes fly around before, but has there ever been a comic book-based movie when the penultimate moment of the hero suiting up for the first time to kick some ass would have been a letdown?
The rest of the cast cruises in Downey's wake. Even Jeff Bridges' bald head and Santa Claus beard can't steal the spotlight when Downey's on screen. Gwyneth Paltrow (as much as I hate to admit it) is serviceable in her role as a Stark's gal Friday, and I have to say it was more than a little refreshing to have a female character not screaming her lungs out when confronted by a dangerous and overpowering villain. Paltrow's Pepper Potts acts like she has other places to be and this guy is screwing up her itinerary. She's no nonsense... like this movie.
"O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!" -Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 5
