The Dark Nitpicker

I figure pretty much everyone has seen The Dark Knight by now. I've seen it once in the theater, a few more times on Youtube, and I intend to see it in an IMAX theater while I still can. This is a movie that gets better with multiple viewings; many of the seemingly throwaway lines at the beginning are foreshadowing for later events, and I think you need to see it a few times to understand the whole plot. Everything fits together quite well, and I haven't really noticed any glaring holes - for the most part, the movie is extremely well written. The screenplay is by Christopher Nolan and his brother Jonathan - the two also collaborated on the Memento screenplay, another very well-written film. I gave the film an 8 when I first saw it, but now I'm willing to bump that up to a 9, past the 8.5 I gave Iron Man.

I do have a few niggling issues with the film. Sometimes Alfred's attitude seems a little inappropriate for the situation, and I'd think that if the Joker is simply wearing makeup, the cops would wash it off of him when they capture him, to see what he really looks like and to help figure out who he actually is. But these are small matters I'm willing to overlook. There are three bigger issues that need to be addressed:

Issue #1. I didn't realize how attractive Katie Holmes is until I saw Maggie Gyllenhaal. That chick is beat. We can see she's beat. It's right up there on a 70- x 50-foot screen. So she's beat and at like 10 times the size of an actual person. And yet the movie insists on trying to convince us she isn't beat. Like when the Joker crashes the Harvey Dent fundraiser and Rachel Dawes-Gyllenhaal reveals herself:

Joker: Well hello, beautiful! You must be Harvey's squeeze. And you *are* beautiful.

Now, I'm not saying that I don't see why they cast Rachel Dawes-Gyllenhaal. She does look somewhat like Rachel Dawes-Holmes-Tomkat-Cruise. She's like her much older and uglier sister, but there is some resemblance. But we've got the Joker, the most compelling character in the film, trying to make us believe this beat chick is hot? I guess this is not unlike any celebrity endorsement - Michael Jordan wears these Nikes so they must be cool. Tom Brady dates Gisele Bundchen, and Leo DiCaprio used to date her, so she must be hot. I write this blog, so it must be good. Lies, all. Maybe the Comic-Con fanboys are willing to just take Joker's word for it. Actually, a lot of the guys who actually left their parents' basement to go out and see this film would probably think Rachel Dawes-Gyllenhaal is hot, since their only frame of reference would be their own mother. Luckily for me, I have a hot mother and her basement is wired for internet, so I'm not buying into Rachel Dawes-Gyllenhaal. Give me Rachel Dawes-Holmes-Tomkat-Cruise any day of the week, even with all the insane Scientology that comes with it. Of course, you are an adult and should make up your own mind:

Issue #2. The Batman Voice. Look, I understand the need for Batman to disguise his voice. Clearly he can't run around talking like Bruce Wayne as that would give away his identity. I'm even OK with the fact that he doesn't have Lucius Fox whip up some sort of technological solution to alter his voice - he just talks differently. And the voice isn't as horribly hoarse, grating and distracting in Batman Begins, or even in the first parts of The Dark Knight (with the possible exception of trying to get Lao to testify against the mob (If I get him to you, can you get him to talk?) But by the end of the film, when the Batman is saying really important things? Terrible, and it just takes you right out of the movie. I'd have preferred it if the fake voice Batman used was Christian Bale's actual whiny British voice. I assume fans will release a "fixed" version of the film, with a new voice dubbed in, at some point. Apparently some Star Wars fans greatly improved the Phantom Menace by basically deleting Jar Jar Binks in The Phantom Edit, and we can only hope for something similar here.

Issue #3. Heath Ledger is dead. I mean, shouldn't they have casted an actor who would at least survive until the movie was released? He was kind of an asshole in Venice when we saw him, but I didn't see this coming. Not that the movie needed Heath to appear on late-night talk shows to promote it, but still. Heath's death has provided me with fodder for my fantasy football team, but this also means that (a) we will never see the Joker again (at least, not until the third set of remakes of the Batman films, which are probably in production as we speak), or (b) they will try to pull another Katie Holmes / Maggie Gaggenhaal switcheroo on us. I think Heath did a great job with the role, and I can't really think of anyone who could take it over. It's an unenviable position, kind of like Aaron Rodgers finds himself in in Green Bay, or when the Wood Dog has to follow one of my blog posts. I suppose whoever plays the Joker next time would have to put their own spin on it, but there might not be a lot of room left after what Jack Nicholson and now Heath have done with the role. Granted, someone will take the role because they will be paid money to do so. Maybe I could imagine a real actor in the role, someone like Philip Seymour Hoffman. But more likely we'll just move on to other Batman villains. Please don't let it be the Penguin again.