The Dark Knight

Another celebrity loss: Isaac Hayes died at age 65.

Today I finally got around to watching the uber-hyped The Dark Knight, a film which has been hyped to the moon for a variety of reasons, so much that it is currently Number One on the IMDB's Top 250. So, after weeks of being annoyed by mountains of IMDB threads about it, what did i think?

Well, I thought it was a pretty darn entertaining film, actually. It bites off a bit more than it can chew - a bit too much is covered in too little time, and after the Joker's escape from jail, the movie loses a lot of its interest by becoming repetitive and drawn out. (To be fair, it seems as a general rule that no one knows when to end an action movie these days.) But up until that point, it's a very well-made, entertaining film. The cinematography is nice, the moral issues raised by the movie are quite interesting (how can you fight crime by the rules, when the criminals don't play by the rules?), the characters are for the most part well-drawn and interesting. Most of the flaws are of form, rather than content - if that makes the least bit of sense.

Christian Bale is a very good Batman, and Maggie Gyllenhaal is adequate as his ex-girlfriend. Heath Ledger, who for obvious reasons has received virtually all of the acting hype, is pretty good, relishing his opportunity to play one of the nastiest villains in recent memory - although I wouldn't rate it as the amazing, Earth-shattering turn it's listed as by most critics. The two great supporting cast members are Gary Oldman, who gives us a layered and conflicted Commissioner Gordon, and Aaron Eckhart, who gives a fine performance as the naive Elliot Ness-like crusader who becomes a vengeful killer. The only real question is, why they decided to (apparently) kill him off in his first movie?

So, that's my take. Greatest film of all time? No. Very good for what it was, though. It gets an 8/10, which might be a mite generous, but what the hell, I enjoyed it.

I also watched Jaws 3 today, but I hope you don't expect me to say anything about that... I'll be working on my Pirates article, should be done by the end of the day tomorrow.