Mrs. Speculator and I went to a panel in San Diego spotlighting Geoff Johns, who appears to be poised to write every book in the DC stable. Asked if he was planning on announcing his empire at DC soon, he laughed it off, but there really can't be anyone more busy there at the moment. I'm mostly enjoying his work, especially since he seems to have hit on a formula that works well, even if it is predictable (big reveal on the last page!). While the format is repetitive, the content changes, and it is that (and his near-encyclopedic knowledge of the DC universe) that really makes his books fun.
At the panel, Johns described a current mini-series called Rogues's Revenge, where the repercussions of the death of Bart Allen in the lives of the villains who performed the deed are explored. And while he was describing the basis of the mini-series, he said something along the lines that the villains should have been smarter than to kill Bart in his short stint as Flash. And you know, that all seems well and good...until I got to thinking about it.
While the original motivation of the Rogues Gallery was to rob and make money, over time that motivation has had to evolve, unless it is being artificially restrained by the continuity and rules of comics writing. Sure, they each had "superpowered" gimmicks--heat ray, cold ray, mirrors, control of the weather--and so they would appear to be a match for their nemesis. And perhaps there might have been a thrill over time to go up against someone as powerful, or more powerful, than they were. But after a while, it should have been apparent that the result of each clash was going to fall into a limited number of categories:
1. The rogues get captured and sent to prison. Perhaps they could go on a crime spree over some period of time, but if they stayed around Central City, the general result is capture by the Flash--it's the pretty much unbreakable rule for superhero comics: the villain gets caught at some point.
2. They get enough money to give up the life of crime. I can't think of a single instance of a villain just walking away from it all into retirement. I'm sure it must have happened somewhere along the way, but it's rare enough that a decently written story about it would probably be ground-breaking.
3. They capture the hero in some terrible deadly snare. The comics are full of the villains working out extraordinary traps in order to capture the hero, but what happens happen if the traps are successful? Either the hero escapes, which leads us back to #1, or the hero DIES. There's no point in keeping the hero alive after they have been captured, because they will eventually escape and put the villain in jail. Scott Evil's diatribes in the Austin Powers movies makes this point clear--don't talk to the hero, or describe your nefarious scheme; don't give them a chance to escape, just kill them. Because it is the hero's job to capture the villain, and the only thing that is ever going to stop them from doing that is their own death.
So, I'm not sure who is more naive: Johns for hinting that there had to be another way or the rogues for staying in the fight, even if it was against a new version of the Flash. Granted, solely from the standpoint of writing a serial format, the only option that doesn't end the series is #1, which is why it is what we see most often. The joy in comics comes from the deviousness of the villain and the whatever-the-attribute-is of the hero to overcome that trap. The best stories are ones that involve intricate machinations revealed over time, the ones that put the heroes at the worst disadvantage and then show them at their heroic best as they overcome the long odds. This is why Watchmen can only be a mini-series (SPOILER ALERT!): the villain wins! Of course there could be interesting follow-ups regarding the world that Ozymandias has created, but those really aren't stories of superheroes any longer.
Ultimately what Johns describes in his statement--that his villains should know better--is his trying to eat his cake and have it too. Real people in the situation the rogues found themselves in would have known better--they probably would have given up the fight a long time ago. But these guys continue to fight, which by itself masks an implicit escalation of tactics: villain tries a trap, villain fails, villain goes to jail. What happens next? If they stay in the fight, the villain comes back and tries a more dangerous trap, and the cycle goes on and on until it gets broken with the removal of one combatant or the other from the field.
This is why it is supposed to be shocking when a hero dies--not only is it tragic when a figure for good who fights for the general well-being of people he doesn't know is killed by the effects of his selfless decisions, but from a metafictional point-of-view, it imperils the series. Of course the hero almost always comes back, or the serial is generally dead. Barry Allen died, and Wally West took over. Steve Rogers died, and Bucky took over. The serial has to go on, or in comic book hero terms, "his death has to mean something." And the villain is captured and sent to prison, until they are released and escape and then it goes around again with a different pair of combatants.
The things we like best are the things that break this pattern--X-Men follows this pattern but in a soap opera format that is just as much about their personal lives as it is about fighting crime. And of course, the X-Men have the advantage that they themselves are not so much heroes as they are non-humans fighting for their own rights in a world hostile to them. They have villains to fight, but it's not about the redistribution of wealth, but upholding the rights of all sentient creatures.
But, for the vast majority of stories, someone has to win. And when it is the villains, they really have no choice but to kill, due to the implicit rules of their combat.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Monday, August 4, 2008
Home from San Diego
Mrs. Speculator and I just recently returned from our regular sojourn to San Diego and Comic-con, about which I will be writing more in the next few days. But in the meantime, I went through a number of books and movies, about which I'd like to say a few words apiece. So, allow me this space to do a little catching up, and then I'll get to subjects with a little more depth. (Mrs. Speculator and I have begun watching reruns of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and I can't help but hear his voice in my head for these introductory remarks. I'll work on getting my wit as sharp as his in his own introductions.)
Reaper's Gale by Steven Erikson: This is the seventh book in The Malazan Book of the Fallen, and it works much like the other books in the series: a cast of hundreds, if not thousands, are given separate threads which are slowly and sometimes not gently pulled together into a huge tapestry. Unlike the earlier novels, however, the gods begin taking a much more active role in the affairs of this world, and the various races can no longer ignore the activity surrounding them and their affairs. This novel returns to the country of Letheras, where we last saw an immortal Tiste Edur take the emperor's crown and watched as a single motley fool worked to overthrow the whole system for its economic corruption. As we return, the emperor remains immortal, but suffering from his immortality: Erikson twists the fairly standard trope so that the emperor actually does die, but returns to life after each death, a process that has driven him to the border of sanity and perhaps beyond.
The titular heroes of the series, the Malazan, find themselves far from home and their commander ordering them to invade Letheras, despite their relatively small forces.
Once again, the strength of the novel is the tremendous characterizations and the interaction between those characters. The plot feels like it meanders until all is resolved, and the reader is witness to world-changing events yet again. The scope is magnificent and daring, and the book moves really quickly, and like an avalanche, captures the ubsuspecting reader (but only if you devote more than five minutes a day to the book--my own personal weakness this time around). My biggest difficulty in finishing Erikson's Malazan books is having to wait to pick up the next one. I still cannot recommend this series, and this book, enough, and I do actually proselytize it in person.
On the Beach by Nevil Shute: This book had been required reading for me, either in junior high school and high school, and most of what I remember about it was how impressed I was supposed to feel upon its completion. It is supposed to be a classic of the atomic age, a bitter parable of man's folly to build weapons that are capable of destroying the world. And perhaps it is a classic, but it has outlived its possibility: the people in the novel are stereotypically the demure and courteous characters of the early 1960s, and worse of the British Empire, who face the impending doom of fall-out from an atomic war with the all-too-familiar stiff upper lip. All the characters remain calm and accepting of their doom, much as I would expect in the very final stages of such a disaster. Perhaps it is a different time, or perhaps I have been biased by disaster movies of the last 30 years, but I have a really hard time thinking communities could remain so calm for half a year as they knew their inescapable death was approaching. Civilization, as the book's epithet claims, goes out with a whimper.
I suppose part of the purpose of such an anticlimactic ending is to point out the ridiculous position that having so many earth-shattering weapons puts humanity in. And I remember the days of the 70s and early 80s, before the Berlin Wall fell, when nuclear destruction was a very real fear in our daily lives. Those times have past, leaving this book a somewhat interesting artifact of a different way of thinking. The characters are generally likable, though not particularly deeply written, and so mostly unknowable. But two of the main characters perform actions that I cannot explain, thus weakening the novel for me overall. I wonder if anyone has considered rewriting On the Beach updating it for modern attitudes and culture.
Wanted, as most of the reviews take time to point out, bears only a passing resemblance to the comic series on which it is based. It was difficult to set this aside as I watched the movie, so much did I enjoy that series, but then the sheer goofiness of the movie just swept me away so that I didn't care. James McAvoy plays Wesley, a middle-class dweeb caught in his unhappy job and unhappy life with no way to escape. That is, until the most improbable of events pulsl him out of that life, much like the stable-boy in the fantasy trope who finds he is hear to the kingdom. Wesley is the son of the world's greatest assassin, a member of a guild who has appointed themselves the world's protectors, "killing one that thousands might live." Instead of a ring or a sword, Wesley's destiny is revealed in the body of Angelina Jolie, who comes to rescue him from the sights of a competing assassin who has set himself up against the fighters for justice. What follows is the first of several ridiculous chases through the movie that forget the laws of physics and materials, including the human body. And yet they are so breath-takingly shot as to be ridiculsously fun, such that you find yourself laughing at the scenes on the screen as well as the audacity to even pretend the stunts could actually happen.
But once the screenwriters set up their characters and world differently from the way the comic series did, the movie really has no other direction to go in than the one it takes. The movie becomes predictable in its sweeping movements, if not in the audacaity with which it tries to carry off its scenes and stunts. The characters which had carried so much potential become awful stereotypes, and sadly predictable as a result, suckign a great deal of the joy out of the movie. Adn yet it is lavishly shot, a gorgeous production, making me think of Crank with a huge special effects budget or Smokin' Aces with a global conspiracy plot. It really is a lot of fun and perhaps advanced the effects craft for forthcoming and better movies, but I can only recommend the movie in that light, or as a matinee to pass time you find yourself unexpectedly trying to fill. It's the fluffiest of cotton candy, which seems to be the movie's goal in the first place, and it's clear everyone in the really strong cast are just having a good time.
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor is also a cotton candy movie, but it really doesn't have anything to offer. It isn't particularly fun as it mocks itself and winks at its viewers metafictionally in a sad effort to replace the powerful chemistry between Brendan Fraser and the original lead actress, Rachel Weisz. Her departure drags on this sequel as the usually wonderful Maria Bello just cannot pull off the combination of grace, style, and joie de vivre with which Weisz earlier played the same role. Fraser seems to just go through the motions, searching for a backboard off of which to play. The now-adult son, played by Luke Ford, is annoying in the stilted father-son conflict that doesn't seem to have any basis beyond the imagination of the screenwriters, or at least doesn't really show in the film itself. Even the effects, the strong point of the first Mummy remake, feel pretty dated and bland.
Unfortunately, Michelle Yeoh is scintillatingly beautiful when she shows up, serving as a stark indication of what the movie could have been had they really tried. Jet Li is dramatically underused and ridiculous in his appearance, never really getting a chance to show any ability to act. When I think of these movies in the future, I'll be trying very hard to remember how much fun the first movie was and the potential it showed for the action genre, potential that has seriously been misplaced. I am going to work very hard to forget that the second and third movies, especially the third, was ever made.
Reaper's Gale by Steven Erikson: This is the seventh book in The Malazan Book of the Fallen, and it works much like the other books in the series: a cast of hundreds, if not thousands, are given separate threads which are slowly and sometimes not gently pulled together into a huge tapestry. Unlike the earlier novels, however, the gods begin taking a much more active role in the affairs of this world, and the various races can no longer ignore the activity surrounding them and their affairs. This novel returns to the country of Letheras, where we last saw an immortal Tiste Edur take the emperor's crown and watched as a single motley fool worked to overthrow the whole system for its economic corruption. As we return, the emperor remains immortal, but suffering from his immortality: Erikson twists the fairly standard trope so that the emperor actually does die, but returns to life after each death, a process that has driven him to the border of sanity and perhaps beyond.
The titular heroes of the series, the Malazan, find themselves far from home and their commander ordering them to invade Letheras, despite their relatively small forces.
Once again, the strength of the novel is the tremendous characterizations and the interaction between those characters. The plot feels like it meanders until all is resolved, and the reader is witness to world-changing events yet again. The scope is magnificent and daring, and the book moves really quickly, and like an avalanche, captures the ubsuspecting reader (but only if you devote more than five minutes a day to the book--my own personal weakness this time around). My biggest difficulty in finishing Erikson's Malazan books is having to wait to pick up the next one. I still cannot recommend this series, and this book, enough, and I do actually proselytize it in person.
On the Beach by Nevil Shute: This book had been required reading for me, either in junior high school and high school, and most of what I remember about it was how impressed I was supposed to feel upon its completion. It is supposed to be a classic of the atomic age, a bitter parable of man's folly to build weapons that are capable of destroying the world. And perhaps it is a classic, but it has outlived its possibility: the people in the novel are stereotypically the demure and courteous characters of the early 1960s, and worse of the British Empire, who face the impending doom of fall-out from an atomic war with the all-too-familiar stiff upper lip. All the characters remain calm and accepting of their doom, much as I would expect in the very final stages of such a disaster. Perhaps it is a different time, or perhaps I have been biased by disaster movies of the last 30 years, but I have a really hard time thinking communities could remain so calm for half a year as they knew their inescapable death was approaching. Civilization, as the book's epithet claims, goes out with a whimper.
I suppose part of the purpose of such an anticlimactic ending is to point out the ridiculous position that having so many earth-shattering weapons puts humanity in. And I remember the days of the 70s and early 80s, before the Berlin Wall fell, when nuclear destruction was a very real fear in our daily lives. Those times have past, leaving this book a somewhat interesting artifact of a different way of thinking. The characters are generally likable, though not particularly deeply written, and so mostly unknowable. But two of the main characters perform actions that I cannot explain, thus weakening the novel for me overall. I wonder if anyone has considered rewriting On the Beach updating it for modern attitudes and culture.
Wanted, as most of the reviews take time to point out, bears only a passing resemblance to the comic series on which it is based. It was difficult to set this aside as I watched the movie, so much did I enjoy that series, but then the sheer goofiness of the movie just swept me away so that I didn't care. James McAvoy plays Wesley, a middle-class dweeb caught in his unhappy job and unhappy life with no way to escape. That is, until the most improbable of events pulsl him out of that life, much like the stable-boy in the fantasy trope who finds he is hear to the kingdom. Wesley is the son of the world's greatest assassin, a member of a guild who has appointed themselves the world's protectors, "killing one that thousands might live." Instead of a ring or a sword, Wesley's destiny is revealed in the body of Angelina Jolie, who comes to rescue him from the sights of a competing assassin who has set himself up against the fighters for justice. What follows is the first of several ridiculous chases through the movie that forget the laws of physics and materials, including the human body. And yet they are so breath-takingly shot as to be ridiculsously fun, such that you find yourself laughing at the scenes on the screen as well as the audacity to even pretend the stunts could actually happen.
But once the screenwriters set up their characters and world differently from the way the comic series did, the movie really has no other direction to go in than the one it takes. The movie becomes predictable in its sweeping movements, if not in the audacaity with which it tries to carry off its scenes and stunts. The characters which had carried so much potential become awful stereotypes, and sadly predictable as a result, suckign a great deal of the joy out of the movie. Adn yet it is lavishly shot, a gorgeous production, making me think of Crank with a huge special effects budget or Smokin' Aces with a global conspiracy plot. It really is a lot of fun and perhaps advanced the effects craft for forthcoming and better movies, but I can only recommend the movie in that light, or as a matinee to pass time you find yourself unexpectedly trying to fill. It's the fluffiest of cotton candy, which seems to be the movie's goal in the first place, and it's clear everyone in the really strong cast are just having a good time.
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor is also a cotton candy movie, but it really doesn't have anything to offer. It isn't particularly fun as it mocks itself and winks at its viewers metafictionally in a sad effort to replace the powerful chemistry between Brendan Fraser and the original lead actress, Rachel Weisz. Her departure drags on this sequel as the usually wonderful Maria Bello just cannot pull off the combination of grace, style, and joie de vivre with which Weisz earlier played the same role. Fraser seems to just go through the motions, searching for a backboard off of which to play. The now-adult son, played by Luke Ford, is annoying in the stilted father-son conflict that doesn't seem to have any basis beyond the imagination of the screenwriters, or at least doesn't really show in the film itself. Even the effects, the strong point of the first Mummy remake, feel pretty dated and bland.
Unfortunately, Michelle Yeoh is scintillatingly beautiful when she shows up, serving as a stark indication of what the movie could have been had they really tried. Jet Li is dramatically underused and ridiculous in his appearance, never really getting a chance to show any ability to act. When I think of these movies in the future, I'll be trying very hard to remember how much fun the first movie was and the potential it showed for the action genre, potential that has seriously been misplaced. I am going to work very hard to forget that the second and third movies, especially the third, was ever made.
Monday, July 21, 2008
The Dark Knight
The film ended, and the credits started rolling. People started milling about, gathering their things and leaving the theater. The names of the cast and crew slid past my view as I was pummeled by a repetition of the movie’s sweeping, brooding score. Mrs. Speculator nudged me to see if I was okay, and I told her I was listening to the music. But it wasn’t true—I was regathering my senses, trying to pull my thoughts together, digesting the impressions of what I had just seen. Readers, to put it mildly, I was completely blown away and I wanted to go back in line, get another ticket, and see it all again.
But you know, for the first hour or so, I was trying to figure out what the hype was all about. The movie I was seeing was a good movie but not a spectacular one. All the set-up elements were there: re-introducing the hero and other characters repeated from the first movie, introducing the new villain with a daring bank robbery, introducing the new district attorney, and then proceeding with a fairly standard plot regarding the mobs of Gotham City reeling from the effects of a costumed crusader thwarting their plans. Heath Ledger was a little creepy as the Joker, and his introduction served to show how smart he was as well as how unpredictable he could be. Aaron Eckhart’s Harvey Dent is amiable enough, his reputation as a crusader more apparent from other people describing him than from any actions we see on his part (though his one courtroom scene packs some wallop). Christian Bale, almost an after-thought in some ways, gets what feels like very little screen time beside the two new stars, but in fact, he stands back and lets them dominate their scenes. Bale’s (and screenwriter/director Christopher Nolan’s) Bruce Wayne is happy to be in the background, using his money and influence to pull strings, not necessarily to be the spokesperson for his charities or his business. This is in keeping with the way he is usually written in the comics, but not so much in the way he has generally been portrayed in previous movies.
Things really get moving when the Joker blackmails the city: either Batman unveils himself or people are going to start dying. And as proof of his intent, he murders the police commissioner and a judge, using very subtle planning, again demonstrating his intelligence. The threat shines a bright light on Batman and how Gotham feels about him: they are willing to put up with a vigilante who might be acting beyond the law so long as he is performing a perceived good, but when their lives are on the line, they are willing to give him up to save themselves. At last we get to see the real, canny madness behind the Joker—forcing people to face themselves and challenge their preconceptions, using their indecision to advance his own world-view of even more chaos. And then the movie breaks open, becoming about not just inherent good and evil, but about whether or not chaos and/or order are inherent. Aligned for the forces of order are the police, the judicial system and Batman, and even the mobs who deep down really want order themselves, just an order they control. Opposing them is one man, the Joker, and he slowly brings not just the city but its inhabitants to their knees. No one can predict or figure out what the Joker is going to do, and thus no one is safe, and every citizen of Gotham feels that fear.
There is no doubt that what makes this movie so spectacular is the Joker. I’m pretty sure that you could read articles for days about Heath Ledger’s performance, and I won’t deny it is breathtaking and hypnotic. He really should be nominated for an Oscar for this performance. It is a masterpiece of method acting, down to the repugnant noisy repetitious licking of his lips. His eventual soliloquies in the local jail and in his final battle against Batman are eerie, stark, and all the more chilling for how logical their arguments. And while Ledger delivers them perfectly, a ton of credit must go to Christopher Nolan, the man who directed those scenes and wrote them (along with David Goyer) in the first place. Without Nolan’s vision of Gotham as the battleground between chaos and order, without the context he provides, Ledger’s performance, while great, would be rudderless. The Joker is perhaps the most terrifying character I have ever seen on-screen: he is brilliantly smart, masterminding and pulling off complex plots with the finesse of a battlefield tactician, and he is utterly unpredictable.
And then, after Harvey Dent loses part of his face to a fire, becoming Two-Face, one of the most powerful scenes in the movie—his confrontation with Joker—takes place. Joker turns the bastion of order into an agent of chaos with agonizing logic. After the fire, Dent’s soul is not lost, but he is in emotional and physical agony. The Joker does what he does, turning Dent’s fears and anger in on him until there is no escape, and Two-Face explodes, shaping his own relationship with chaos. The acting in that scene is stunning on the part of both actors, but again, it is the direction and writing that get us to that point in the first place.
But I am really saving my last and hopefully best praise for the element of the movie that, I think, pushes it that last bit into becoming iconic: the score by James Newton Howard and Hans Zimmer. While the film is brilliant in its writing, acting and direction, the score should be long studied as the quintessential mood-setter and emotional undercurrent for drama. I don’t know enough about music to talk about it in detail, but I can say that echoes of it still rebound within my head, alternating between the half-familiar new Batman theme and the strident discord of the Joker’s theme. If the movie fails to win an Oscar in any category, it will succeed in this category. Nothing musical has moved me in a movie like this since the first moved me in a movie like this since the first Star Wars, but even that pales in comparison because the score didn’t need to be complex but instead accurately reflect the primary characters and their themes. The music for The Dark Knight, on the other hand, has a wider range of emotion to reflect and amplify, and in the deft hands of its composers, it takes on a life of its own becoming one of the principle characters of the film.
At last, a groundbreaking movie that takes the foundation of superhero stories and transports the entire concept into something much much greater. This is not just a really good comic book movie; The Dark Knight takes its viewers to themes and thought that they are probably unfamiliar with. It is simply a great movie, for any category. It transcends its genre and demands conversation and repeated viewing. It is a classic movie and one that fans of movies will be talkign about for a long long time.
But you know, for the first hour or so, I was trying to figure out what the hype was all about. The movie I was seeing was a good movie but not a spectacular one. All the set-up elements were there: re-introducing the hero and other characters repeated from the first movie, introducing the new villain with a daring bank robbery, introducing the new district attorney, and then proceeding with a fairly standard plot regarding the mobs of Gotham City reeling from the effects of a costumed crusader thwarting their plans. Heath Ledger was a little creepy as the Joker, and his introduction served to show how smart he was as well as how unpredictable he could be. Aaron Eckhart’s Harvey Dent is amiable enough, his reputation as a crusader more apparent from other people describing him than from any actions we see on his part (though his one courtroom scene packs some wallop). Christian Bale, almost an after-thought in some ways, gets what feels like very little screen time beside the two new stars, but in fact, he stands back and lets them dominate their scenes. Bale’s (and screenwriter/director Christopher Nolan’s) Bruce Wayne is happy to be in the background, using his money and influence to pull strings, not necessarily to be the spokesperson for his charities or his business. This is in keeping with the way he is usually written in the comics, but not so much in the way he has generally been portrayed in previous movies.
Things really get moving when the Joker blackmails the city: either Batman unveils himself or people are going to start dying. And as proof of his intent, he murders the police commissioner and a judge, using very subtle planning, again demonstrating his intelligence. The threat shines a bright light on Batman and how Gotham feels about him: they are willing to put up with a vigilante who might be acting beyond the law so long as he is performing a perceived good, but when their lives are on the line, they are willing to give him up to save themselves. At last we get to see the real, canny madness behind the Joker—forcing people to face themselves and challenge their preconceptions, using their indecision to advance his own world-view of even more chaos. And then the movie breaks open, becoming about not just inherent good and evil, but about whether or not chaos and/or order are inherent. Aligned for the forces of order are the police, the judicial system and Batman, and even the mobs who deep down really want order themselves, just an order they control. Opposing them is one man, the Joker, and he slowly brings not just the city but its inhabitants to their knees. No one can predict or figure out what the Joker is going to do, and thus no one is safe, and every citizen of Gotham feels that fear.
There is no doubt that what makes this movie so spectacular is the Joker. I’m pretty sure that you could read articles for days about Heath Ledger’s performance, and I won’t deny it is breathtaking and hypnotic. He really should be nominated for an Oscar for this performance. It is a masterpiece of method acting, down to the repugnant noisy repetitious licking of his lips. His eventual soliloquies in the local jail and in his final battle against Batman are eerie, stark, and all the more chilling for how logical their arguments. And while Ledger delivers them perfectly, a ton of credit must go to Christopher Nolan, the man who directed those scenes and wrote them (along with David Goyer) in the first place. Without Nolan’s vision of Gotham as the battleground between chaos and order, without the context he provides, Ledger’s performance, while great, would be rudderless. The Joker is perhaps the most terrifying character I have ever seen on-screen: he is brilliantly smart, masterminding and pulling off complex plots with the finesse of a battlefield tactician, and he is utterly unpredictable.
And then, after Harvey Dent loses part of his face to a fire, becoming Two-Face, one of the most powerful scenes in the movie—his confrontation with Joker—takes place. Joker turns the bastion of order into an agent of chaos with agonizing logic. After the fire, Dent’s soul is not lost, but he is in emotional and physical agony. The Joker does what he does, turning Dent’s fears and anger in on him until there is no escape, and Two-Face explodes, shaping his own relationship with chaos. The acting in that scene is stunning on the part of both actors, but again, it is the direction and writing that get us to that point in the first place.
But I am really saving my last and hopefully best praise for the element of the movie that, I think, pushes it that last bit into becoming iconic: the score by James Newton Howard and Hans Zimmer. While the film is brilliant in its writing, acting and direction, the score should be long studied as the quintessential mood-setter and emotional undercurrent for drama. I don’t know enough about music to talk about it in detail, but I can say that echoes of it still rebound within my head, alternating between the half-familiar new Batman theme and the strident discord of the Joker’s theme. If the movie fails to win an Oscar in any category, it will succeed in this category. Nothing musical has moved me in a movie like this since the first moved me in a movie like this since the first Star Wars, but even that pales in comparison because the score didn’t need to be complex but instead accurately reflect the primary characters and their themes. The music for The Dark Knight, on the other hand, has a wider range of emotion to reflect and amplify, and in the deft hands of its composers, it takes on a life of its own becoming one of the principle characters of the film.
At last, a groundbreaking movie that takes the foundation of superhero stories and transports the entire concept into something much much greater. This is not just a really good comic book movie; The Dark Knight takes its viewers to themes and thought that they are probably unfamiliar with. It is simply a great movie, for any category. It transcends its genre and demands conversation and repeated viewing. It is a classic movie and one that fans of movies will be talkign about for a long long time.
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