Friday, March 06, 2009

The Dark Knight

Fairly complex for a comic book movie.

Probably much more closely captures the true nature of the comic books series which I have found tend to be deeper than the average movie adaptation.

The hero is an anti-hero, the white knight ends up a villain and there is no happy ending. Anarchy seems to inspire chaos but it's all much more orchestrated and manipulated than that.

There is a small glimpse of hope in the common man thrown in to leaven the whole thing.

Dark themes of corruption, greed and mental illness compete with honor, trust and sanity.

Heath Ledger is on the surface a caricature but one which further attention reveals as a surprisingly layered caricature. I do however agree with a recent NPR commentator who stated that this Oscar, like Peter Finch's, was a posthumous correction of the failure to acknowledge the previous Oscar caliber role, Brokeback Mountain in Ledger's case and Sunday, Bloody Sunday in Finch's case.

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