Dark Night

We braved the crowds to see Dark Night (wait, is it dark knight? dark night? crap. I'm a moron.) on opening day yesterday. It wasn't actually as insane getting in as we were expecting. Even though there were seemingly thousands of people in line ahead of us, Zac and Danny's plan to charge the suited manager guarding the door, and Teresa and my plan of crying and talking about our periods/imminent pregnancies went unneeded.

To my disappointment, there was only one kook dressed up like Batman in the theater. When I saw the first Star Wars in the theatre a forty year old Luke Skywalker was having a light saber battle with a five year old Darth Vader before the movie. All of the previews looked pretty entertaining, except for the movie adaptation "of the best graphic novel ever in the history of everything" by the dude who did the last movie adaptation of the other "best graphic novel in the history of everything". That preview involved stylized shots of hot women with quasi-seductive but generally just bizarre sounding stripper names (Silken Floss??? Sounds like a thong that doubles as a dental hygiene device) saying dirty double entendres in artificially seductive voices. Danny and Zac were, needless to say, already making plans to go see that one.

The movie was excellent. I am generally impatient of 2 1/2 hour long movies because generally it just means the director was too conceited to edit his work, but in this case it totally needed to be as long as it was. Not surprisingly it was a very, umm, "dark" movie, but had enough humor to keep you from getting totally overwhelmed. Heath Ledger did an amazing job. Amazing. I would be saying that even if he hadn't died. He was creepy and funny and weirdly likable but totally fucked up. And the make-up artist who did his face should win an Oscar too.

The only two issues I had with the movie were with Christian Bale and Maggie Gyllenhal (or however it's spelled). Now, Christian Bale is yummy, I am the first to admit it. I swooned all through Captain Corelli's Mandolin, with the ridiculous plot and Nick Cage's laughably ridiculous Italian accent all because of Christian Bale with a full beard. I think he was even a bad guy and ends up raping someone, or killing someone, or kicking a puppy, but it didn't matter. Shirtless and bearded? I'm done. But there's something about the lower half of Bale's face that bothers me (hence the beard requirement). It's a little too anal retentive looking, or too prissy, or trying to hard. And in Batman you generally only get to see the lower half of his face under the Bat Mask, which is truly a shame. And his Bat Man voice is awful. It's like a caricature of a tormented super hero voice- all gravely and deep, but slightly nasal like he can't breath very well under the Bat Mask. It was very distracting.

My problem with Maggie was two-fold. She had dark circles under her eyes which made her look like she was an overworked housewife, rather than the beautiful childhood love of Bruce Wayne. And she never really got upset in the movie, just exasperated. Your fiance is going to jail? Your childhood love may be giving up being Batman for you? Pretty much everyone in Gotham City is being killed by a deranged clown? All she could manage was a disappointed frown and a furrowed brow. Even when SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT she was about to die it seemed more like she had discovered an accident on her rug by her new puppy. Irritated, but not the end of the world.

Other than that, excellent. I give it two thumbs up. And there was a preview for the next Terminator movie with Christian Bale, and guess what? Bearded. I'm so there.

EDIT: It's Knight. Durrr.