The Dark Knight

The Dark Knight. It’s hard for me to think of a film that does more right, while making me hate the title character.

The story is fairly simple, as far as comic book films go. Gotham’s police department is going after the Mob’s money, and Batman is helping them. The Joker goes to the Mob, and offers to help, while really just trying to get people to join his cause, which is just to cause chaos.

The acting is incredible, especially Heath Ledger as the Joker. More has been said about his performance than about any other character, probably, so I won’t go on for too long, but I’ll just say this. He feels real. Unlike most “supervillians”, he feels grounded in reality a lot more. His plan is chaos. Why? Fun. The Joker is wonderfully insane, in such a way that makes the audience like him, and sympathise with him. Heath Ledger played such a different Joker than we’d ever seen on film, and he was honestly quite scary. Every little motion, every flicker of a thought crossing his mind seemed real. There was never a bit where you thought “Haeath Ledger”, it was always “the Joker”. The rest of the cast is almost as good. Michael Caine, as always, great fun to watch. Morgan Freeman does a great job as Fox, Batman’s chief tech.

Gary Oldman as Commissioner Gordon is fantastic, really becoming the character. He is essentially, along with Aaron Eckhart’s Harvey Dent, the audience’s point of view for the majority of the plot. Great acting from the both of them, especially after Harvey becomes Two-Face, and meet at the end of the film. Probably one of the best scenes in the film, were it not for Batman.

Oh, Batman. I never really liked Batman. He’s not a character, he’s an event. There are scenes in the film when characters are discussing politics and crime, all serious looking, and it could almost just be a film about cops, and then Batman walks in wearing his underpants on the outside, and starts growling at people. The whole concept is just a bit annoying to me. As I said, an event. Things start happening, plot is unfolding, and then Batman happens. Shows up, punches people, and then leaves the rest of the characters to figure out what to do next. Also, the whole idea of him is a bit wrong to me. He’s a wealthy businessman, who goes around at night beating up poor people, and it is invariably poor people who have been taken in by criminals, and basically brought up a different way from him, and so he beats them senseless. Turn the point of view around, and it’s a group of underdogs fighting “the Man”.

Anyways, Batman’s underpants troubles aside, the film is great. Really well shot, some great action, fantastic practical effects work, great music by Hans Zimmer, and great acting. Overall, I highly recommend it. Best entry in the Dark Knight saga.

V For Vendetta

Sorry, didn't realise the font had gone all weird, and made the text invisible. Fixed it.

So, V for Vendetta. I know what the internet thinks of this film, and, despite the fact that I love the Wachowski’s, I’d never seen it up till now, nor have I read the graphic novel. Now that I have seen it, I must ask, why the hell have I not watched it earlier?

Right, let’s get away from my (not having seen the film), and onto the review.

So, plot. Basically, we start in a modern 1984, where the United States has been ravaged by civil war, and England has suffered from a massive plague. There’s a terrorist named “V”, played by Hugo Weaving, who rescues Evey, played by Natalie Portman, from the secret police, and takes her to see his first “performance”. V then blows up the Old Bailey to the tune of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture in a truly epic scene that shows off the films excellent effects work and model miniatures. He then lets Evey get on with her life, for a day at least. He then shows up at her job at a TV station, where the government is playing a message saying the Old Bailey was demolished because of structural instability, and plays a message to the country telling them to rebel. The police storm the building, and try to arrest him. Evey helps him out, and gets knocked out for her trouble. V essentially kidnaps her, to keep her safe. From there on, it gets a bit more complicated, but I won’t spoil it.

The acting is excellent in this movie, especially with Hugo Weaving who, despite not actually being visible, manages to convey exactly what V is thinking in the scene through body language, and his voice is great as always, and it gives him a kind of threatening, authoritative feeling.

One of the interesting bits of casting is John Hurt as Chancellor Sutler, a Big Brother type figure. John Hurt is, of course, famous for playing Winston Smith in 1984.

The film has a very dark tone, and the color scheme used reflects that perfectly, with many scenes set in dark areas, tunnels, prison cells, underground rooms, with splashes of color. The effects are something I have a particular interest in, and they are excellent. Really damn nice. The two major effects scenes, the destructions of the Old Bailey and the Houses of Parliament, are beautiful. It’s obvious that they used model miniatures, and it works perfectly. It looks far more real than a pure CG scene, and shows just how much they learned during their amazing work in the final Matrix film. 

There’s also a great slow motion fight scene, highly reminiscent of the Matrix lobby scene. 

Alright, my overall review. Good movie. I would totally recommend it, though there are a couple of scenes that aren’t exactly consistent with the tone, like the scene where Stephen Fry’s character does a weird comedy sketch thing on his show. Oh, and the film has Stephen Fry, so watch it.

Children of Men

*Note: This is one of the reviews I posted on my old blog, and I'm now moving it to this one

Children of Men is a rather interesting film. If I had to compare it to something, I’d have to say Half-Life 2, and in more than one way.

In the film, humanity is essentially screwed. No human has been born for 20 years, and there is only one functioning government left, in the United Kingdom. This government is oppressive and Orwellian, imposing harsh immigration laws on immigrants. The main character, Theo, played by Clive Owen, is a former activist, who meets his estranged wife, Julian Taylor, who gives him a mission, to transport a fugitive named Kee to the ocean, where she can be picked up by a ship, operated by an organization, called Humanity First. Nobody even knows for sure if it exists, but they are the only ones looking for a way to allow humans to reproduce again.

After a series of events during which an important character gets killed, Kee reveals to Theo that she’s pregnant, the first woman in 20 years to do so. Because of this, Theo goes from a guy just doing the job he was promised money for, to actively taking care of Kee.

What follows is a series of betrayals, deaths, and incredibly intense action sequences. The film is shot in a documentary style, most of the time using a handheld camera style. This would be distracting in many films, but in this film, it works well, especially during the chaotic action scenes. The other interesting thing about the way the film was shot is its long shots. Several of the action scenes take place in one camera shot. Weirdly, I didn’t notice it most of the time. It was just really immersive. Now, we know these were done partially with post-production wizardry, but it’s still really impressive considering just how much was done live, on set. The longest of these is a 454 second shot near the end of the film, of a battle between rebels and the government forces. That’s 7 and a half minutes. Very cool.

Back to the story. One of the things that interested me, or at least that I found different, was that, unlike in the other dystopian film, V for Vendetta, we don’t really see the government. Sure, we see that they’re the villains, rounding up and deporting refugees, and torturing prisoners, but we don’t really see the government itself. V for Vendetta, and other dystopian films and books, generally show the viewers just how evil the government is, how they’re conspiring against the people, and so on, but here, they’re only mentioned, and we don’t have an actual target for our hate against the villains. In other films and other dystopian works, the government always has a figurehead, some “leader”, and here there’s nothing. Another example of this is 

[MAJOR SPOILERS] 

in the final battle, now that Kee’s baby has been born, and Theo is leading them out of the building under siege, EVERYONE stops shooting. Rebels, and soldiers. Theo, Kee, and the baby all just walk out, through the battle. Soldiers and rebels staring at her baby, in awe, showing that the government wasn’t really fully in control of them. As soon as they leave the building, though, the shooting instantly restarts, and the soldiers destroy the building quickly.

[/MAJOR SPOILERS]

There are other issues mentioned in the film, including environmental issues, free speech, and racism, but I don’t have too much space left, really.

The acting is pretty good in the film, but nothing really jumps out at me as all that impressive, except Michael Caine. Oh, Michael Caine. He plays a sort of hippie... stoner... political activist... thing, and he’s great. Funny, and clever, and intelligent, and real. I completely forgot it was him, and just thought of him as that character. Really great casting, because it goes completely against what I think of when I see Michael. Except maybe in The Man Who Would Be King.

So, overall, pretty damn good. I highly recommend watching it. Interesting, but not perfect. However, it’s not really a movie I’m going to watch more than a couple of times, like I did with V for Vendetta.