This weekend Bill and I went to see the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight. My parents were surprised I was going to see it given my longstanding, intense fear of clowns. But I had to put that aside and see it if nothing else, for all the hype, especially about Heath Ledger's potential Oscar-worthy performance.
I've always been pretty ambiguous about the Batman movies. I find them mildly interesting if I happen to see them, but wouldn't normally go out of my way to spend a lot of money at the theater on them, and there are a couple I've never seen at all. It would definitely be unusual for me to plan far in advance and buy tickets ahead of time, which we did for this movie. Oh boy was it worth it!
I won't spoil the story by summarizing it here, if you've seen the trailer you probably have a good idea what it's about. I will say that I had read a review that a main character is killed off in this, but even knowing that I was genuinely surprised by that particular plot twist--it was not who I expected it to be. One thing I really appreciate about the Batman movies in general and this one in particular is that there is violence, but it is not overly gratuitous--we know that someone has been killed without having to see all the blood and guts up close and personal, and if someone gets punched in the face they don't do closeups of the blood spurting out like you see in many movies (Wanted, for example, was really over the top in graphic violence).
Regarding Heath Ledger: all the hype is warranted. His performance is stunningly disturbing, unnerving, fascinating, disgusting, and brilliant all at once, and for me it really had nothing to do with his real-life death. I could not tear my eyes away. I've heard a lot of people/media speculate that his deep immersion in this evil character contributed to his death, and though I am no psychological expert, as a layperson watching this movie I can absolutely believe that.
See it. And, PS., yes the clowns were really scary. Not so much Heath Ledger's--he was scary in a different way, but all the "regular" folks with clown masks---eeeeeeek!!
3 comments:
oooooo we saw this movie today before jason went to work.
I really liked it!!! I'm not an action movie girl, but Jason is and he's wanted to see this since he knew it was coming out. So we watched it today and really liked it!
Good good movie. I thought the same about Heath Ledger's performance/death deal... you had to REALLY get into the character for this one.
One thing that irritated me, I can't stand smacking, or people that smack when they talk, so each time he talked it got that last nerve lol.
Ha! That's funny Ang. The more we post on each others' blogs the more I find out we have a LOT in common. I can't stand smacking either (and HL did a LOT of that in the movie!) but what really gets me is the noise of people/animals audibly swallowing liquids....Mr. M makes the most disgusting noises EVER when he drinks out of the water bowl, it's like fingernails down a chalkboard for me only 100000 times worse. It's a miracle he doesn't die of dehydration because when I'm around I can't help but chase him from the water bowl after about 10 seconds of hearing that horrible noise!
We just got back from seeing it. I hated it. Way too much violence for me--although I couldn't tell you all the violence since my eyes were closed a lot of the time. At one point I even stopped up my ears and started breathing (I'm sure that must be spelled wrong!) loudly so I couldn't hear what way being said. PK owes me big for this one---guess we'll be seeing Mama Mia soon :o)
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