Monday, December 17, 2007

It Looks Good, No Joke

The trailer for the new Batman movie The Dark Knight is now online. Go check it out.

Batman Begins was, I'd argue, about as good of a superhero movie as you can get. It got the tone of the movie right, pin-point characterization, good costuming, and it all didn't seem too silly at all. The only other movies that really come close to me as very well done super-hero films are Spider-Man 2 and the 1977 Superman movie.

The Dark Knight looks very well like it may be a very worthwhile sequel. I admit that Heath Ledger as the Joker initially seemed off to me, but Nolan did such a good job with the first movie, particularly with casting (well, I could have done without stepford-Cruise Katie Holmes, but she wasn't terrible), so I was willing to see how it worked out. Judging by the trailer, I'd say he's quite the impressive Joker, actually. What we can see shows a pretty scary Joker; he's calm until he has a fit of rage and seems genuinely homocidal. Jack Nicolson's much lauded Joker portrayal from Burton's Batman never sat well with me; he was far too campy (although, admittably, the performance fit the tone of the movie, which was a bit too campy for me as a whole) and over-the-top. Ledger's seemingly cool, brooding Joker is infinitely more frightening.

Warner has done a ton of viral marketing for this film. Take this interesting site for instance: The Gotham Times. Check out the "tear" on the front page and lots of interesting tidbits scattered among the other pages. Then compare it to: The Ha Ha Ha Times. I find it effectively creepy and morbidly humorous. A whole listing of the websites can be find here: Yahoo results. (Thanks to Mike Sterling for pointing this out.)

I'm looking forward to this movie

No comments: