Why so serious?

Some belated thoughts on The Dark Knight:

A fantastic action movie -- surprising, twisty, tense, scary -- but not quite enough mythical Batman mystique for me. With the decision to make this movie as real-world as possible (even more so than Batman Begins), there's a trade-off, and the result lacks poetry.

Batman isn't just an action-movie star interchangeable with Nicolas Cage or Denzel Washington. He's been around for almost 70 years. He's an icon and an American myth, right up there with Pecos Bill and Paul Bunyan, and The Dark Knight didn't treat him as such enough for me. Begins did. For example, the scene where Bruce's parents are murdered (the crucial moment of the Batman legend) felt like an opera on screen; it had the weight it deserved. The Dark Knight has no equivalent moment. We never even see the Batcave.

Heath Ledger was amazing, though. I read somewhere someone say that everyone else who's ever played the Joker was merely a caretaker for a role that Heath now owns, and that's definitely true. My fondness for the sweet blond Heath Ledger over the course of his entire too-short career has been well chronicled in this blog... that he was able, after all my swooning, to make me afraid of him, is the highest praise I can give.

On a final note, it's nice to see a DC character trounce Marvel! Now let's see if Batman can beat Titanic.