It wouldn’t work if he was throwing money off a parade float while Prince sang. This is a whole new joker.
Saturday afternoon I was going to have a little free time and figured I would catch a matinee of this film that I’ve been anticipating for a few years now. That morning when I checked show times for the Arclight at 9 am. I discovered that all shows that day were sold out. This film was packed and even the 3:10 showing on Monday was 75% filled. After looking at the box office totals I made some calculations and discovered that everyone in America saw this movie. So instead of a spoiler warning, I can just speak to this film with the assumption that we’ve all seen it. (To our foreign readers, beware of a little spoiling in this article.)
This film was great, but the greatness of the film was overshadowed by the performance of Heath Ledger. People are pontificating non-stop with the “he left us too early” sentiment so I am going to avoid that and judge his performance on its own merits. It was so good that I forgot about his tragic death. I was enamored the second he came on the screen. The opening shot takes your breath away and the following sequence sets the tone for the type of man the joker is. His next appearance shocked me and had me turn to my friend and say simply, “It is no on.”
The best strength of this film is that it follows the style set by Batman Begins. The Joker is one of my favorite villains and I love it all the more with the realistic interpretation. That guy is just plain crazy. We don’t get any back-story, and it is unnerving to see this man operate on his skewed morality. I thought I would be frustrated with this but really just loved it because it seemed to fit the character. Batman asks some big questions about his role and its prompted by the Jokers way of operating. While every other actors performance didn’t seem as strong as the first film, I think its because I was captivated by Ledger. It is not just a good comic book film, which is a genre that forgives for sub-par writing and acting all too often. It is a great film on its own. Ledger’s performance is like watching Anthony Hopkins’ original performance of Hannibal Lecter.
When I left the theater I started to question whether I was just riding the hype. Was I just enamored because of all the post-death praise? A few days later I think I really did like it that much. Better than Jack Nicholson, and I loved Jack. It is like comparing apples and oranges because the tone is so different. Honestly, I love this version of the franchise and want to see where it goes next. I hope not to see the Joker return in this set of films because it is so great the way it is. I enjoyed the themes and asked myself some probing questions in the days that followed. While this article may seem to be hijacked by a review of the Joker, the film was too, so it’s fitting. I am planning on seeing the movie again next week and maybe after that I can talk about things other than the Joker. Until then I have a great memory of the film. Based on the first half of the year, we have an Oscar for-runner in Ledger. If you haven’t seen it, go see it today, it is worth it.
