The Dark Knight, 5/5

Rated PG-13. Click here to view the trailer.

Holy crap. The Dark Knight, my friends, is one heckuva movie and although it’s not quite perfect (it’s a fuzz too long), it’s pretty freakin’ close. It’s not just a great comic book adaptation, this is a truly excellent movie.

The story is very complex and tight and from the opening bank robbery scene to the very last shot, director Christopher Nolan dares you to look away. A new super-villain has appeared in Gotham, and everyone including the cops and the mob, is running scared. Everyone except Bruce Wayne/Batman, which the Joker uses to his advantage. He continues his sadistic terror campaign throughout the city and pins most if not all the blame on "The Batman." Harvey Dent, the new district attorney believes in Batman, and Bruce Wayne believes in Harvey, but they may or may not be able to pay the price that justice demands. Make no mistake, people are going to die in this movie, and no, the Joker isn't one of them.

Nolan knows how to direct a movie and it feels very real. Everything, from the casting, to the music, to the special effects, to the script, to the title, to the theme of anarchy and self doubt, everything is spot on. Aaron Eckhart, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman and Morgan Freeman hit the exact perfect notes with their roles, especially Eckhart as "Gotham’s White Knight," District Attorney Harvey Dent. Gyllenhaal is adorable and feisty as his girlfriend while Caine makes me want to take out a loan and hire an English butler oh so much. Freeman’s Lucius Fox and especially Oldman’s Lt. Gordon and are simply joys to behold.

Of course, I’ve left out the two main stars: Christian Bale and the late Heath Ledger. I went into The Dark Knight knowing I’d enjoy the movie, but I was ready to point out its flaws and eagerly downplay the Heath Ledger hype as I once again preached the Gospel that is Tim Burton’s 1989 vastly underrated “original” movie. What can I say? I was wrong. Not only is The Dark Knight a (way) better movie than Batman, but Bale’s Caped Crusader could literally rip Michael Keaton’s version (also vastly underrated) limb from limb simply by glaring at him (I’d LOVE to see Adam West’s reaction) and Ledger’s Joker would make Jack Nicolson’s wet his pants. Bale is absolutely perfect (there’s that word again) as the darker, more philosophical Batman. Can he continue to cash the checks of justice, even if the people of Gotham must pay with their lives? At the very least, his determination is beginning to crack. As for Ledger’s Joker, well, I sincerely hope there is no one on this planet half as sadistic and hell-bent on anarchy as he. Every detail about him – his hair, his makeup, his scars, his voice, his mannerisms, his stride – screams criminally insane. He’s in charge of the movie and the movie’s plot from the word Go. As Caine's Alfred tells Bruce Wayne, "Some men just want to watch the world burn."

Subconsciously, we're drawn to the Joker because of Ledger's death a few months ago, but to lay the character's appeal on that alone is to deride Ledger's genius portrayal. Truly, this is a new criminal for the ages. There really isn’t anything more that can be said about it.

The Dark Knight is very, well, dark. And intense. This not a PG-13 movie your 8-year-old should be seeing, unless he (or she) particularly enjoys sociopaths shoving pencils through mobsters skulls. There are some very adult (not bow-chicka-bow-wow adult, just, “grown up adult”) themes as we watch Batman transform into a dark knight, not to mention some very graphic and painful-looking injuries.

In my review of Iron Man I mentioned that I’d love to see Favreau and Downey take on every super-hero franchise. While that high praise was and is certainly true, the same could be said for Nolan and whoever wrote The Dark Knight (I'm too lazy to look it up). They are two sides of the comic book coin: one smart alek, fun and clever, the other dark, scary and philosophical. I hesitate to say which I prefer, because they are so obviously the yin and yang of modern action/comic book movies. But, like a flip of Harvey Dent’s two-headed coin, you really can’t lose with either.

A Second Take

This weekend, I had the good fortune to go to a drive-in theater on Double-Feature for $7 a Car-Load Night. We saw Kung Fu Panda and Get Smart and although it meant that I didn't get home till around 2:30 Saturday morning, the weather was perfect for an outdoor movie and I came away with these two convictions that I need to share.

1) In retrospect, I was much too hard on KFP the first time around. It had a lot more laughs and heart than I remember. I stand by my original sentiment that's it's not overly original and the audience can pretty much see the jokes coming on down the pike, but it's still goofy good fun, especially if you can tap that inner reservoir of kid.

My first take on the Furious Five was accurate. They are pretty bland and useless. The same (sadly) goes for Dustin Hoffman.

Oogway, the ancient Kung Fu turtle was awesome the first time around and is even more so the second.

I also got it right the first time when I said the best scene involves Po's unique form of Kung Fu training.

It's not up to WALL-E's standards, but KFP is still a fun movie and I am now happy to recommend it. I don't know why I was in such a bad mood the first time around (I gave it a 2.5/5). It easily deserves a 3.5/5, maybe even approaching a 4/5.

2) I'm still in love with Anne Hathaway. I hear she's newly single...

WALL-E, 4.5/5

Rated G. Click here to view the trailer.

Single Waste Allocation Load Lifter – Earth class (WALL-E) robot seeks single egg-shaped robot to join journey through universe. Interests should include trash compacting, collecting Zippo lighters, horticulture, sharp shooting, hand holding and reenacting scenes from Hello Dolly.

How on earth can the movie described in this personal ad work? I don’t know, but since WALL-E is a Pixar-Disney effort, you can bet your sweet bippy with works and that it works well. If you come out of a viewing of WALL-E and your face isn’t sore from grinning, you officially have a heart of cold, hardened stone. You're probably a jerk, too.

WALL-E is the inexplicably cute and amazingly expressive star of our robot tale of literal star-crossed lovers. He looks like cross between E.T. (only not scary) and Johnny #5 from Short Circuit. He can’t communicate beyond R2D2-like beeps and boops, and yet the audience instantly falls in love with him. The character design team at Pixar was on their A-game. WALL-E lives 700 years in the future sorting out the garbage mankind left behind after we loaded up into a massive inter-galactic Carnival Cruiseliner. He’s a plucky and curious little guy and he collects relics of mankind (alas, no snarfblats or dinglehoppers). He has two treasures in particular: a tiny sprout of a plant growing out of a boot and an old VHS tape of Hello Dolly. Whether WALL-E knows it or not, he’s lonely (his only friend is a cock roach who eats - what else? - Twinkies).

Enter EVE (which stands for... something), an iPod-looking egg of a probe sent to Earth to see if it is safe for humans to return. Unlike WALL-E who is a rather mechanical, treaded robot, EVE is a sleek, digital, super-sonic wonder who is also a crack shot with a laser. Our two heroes briefly “date” until a spaceship returns for EVE and shimmies her back to the Mother Ship. Once there, the ship's autopilot tries to keep the surviving humans (who are now extremely obese and ride around in hover La-Z-Boys) from finding out EVE’s secret and destroy her and WALL-E’s relationship.

Whoever gave this movie the green light probably had reservations, because, well, a story featuring two robots that can’t talk and don’t lend themselves to plush toy tie-ins doesn’t sound too promising. Even though humans do eventually show up, there isn’t any actual dialog until a good 45 minutes in. To be sure, this isn’t the next Finding Nemo, but it is a very sweet, quiet tale of unlikely love between two lovable characters. It’s very hard to explain but despite no speech and (thankfully) no anatomy, WALL-E is inexplicably a dude and EVE is obviously a woman. I am admittedly a hopeless romantic, so it’s no surprise that the shots of WALL-E trying to hold EVE’s hand made my smile even broader.

Despite some rumors I’ve heard, it’s not going to win the Oscar for Best Picture. But man oh man does it beat the crap out of Kung Fu Panda.

Note: As my parents and I stood in line waiting to purchase our tickets, a preacher friend of my father’s walked by and told us he’d seen the movie and it was crammed full of socialist global warming propaganda. Sure, the movie shows what might happen if humans continue to litter and eat nothing but French fries, but there’s nothing inherently wrong about the movie or its message. As certified listener of Rush Limbaugh and card-carrying member of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy who is ready to denounce (or at least question) anything touting global warming or socialist propaganda, I can confidently say that the aforementioned preacher not only has a cold heart of stone, but is also a Grade-A jerk.