By Willie Krischke — July 19, 2008

Right off the, um, bat, “The Dark Knight” establishes itself as a different kind of comic book movie. Actually the seeds of its change are in its predecessor, “Batman Begins,” when Batman declares Gotham a city worth saving.   Now Batman carries the city on his shoulders, and must prove that he was right in his decision to not let Gotham go the way of Rome. Many superheroes have saved their city in a physical sense – defusing the bomb, defeating the megalomaniac – but never before has a superhero needed to save the city’s soul, as well. Christopher Nolan, who wrote the script for “The Dark Knight” with his brother Jonathan, makes that Batman’s task. The result is a movie with more weight, gravitas, and moral energy than any superhero movie before it.

Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker was legendary before anyone ever saw the movie, due in part to the actor’s tragic death shortly after the shooting. It is with great relief that I can report that the performance lives up to the hype. The Joker is the scariest villain to come along in quite a while, primarily because Ledger plays him with such ferocious intensity, intelligence, and bone-chilling aggression. Jack Nicholson’s Joker always seemed to be on stage; he was primarily a circus performer, with the unfortunate habit of killing people in his act. He was evil, but only incidentally. Ledger’s Joker is evil primarily. He is a villain on par with Iago and Mephistopheles; he never offers a reason for his destructive nature, and never needs one. As Alfred, Bruce Wayne’s butler, says, “some people just want to watch the world burn.” Some credit should go to the writers; the Joker may come across as a nutcase, but he is truly scary precisely because he’s not insane. The Joker is, if anything, an extremely evangelistic nihilist. He describes himself as “an engine of chaos,” and yeah, he’s got a hemi.

In a way, it’s a movie about the human condition, a spiritual as well as physical battle for the city. As Batman strives to bring hope to Gotham and looks forward to a day when the people will unite, take pride in their community and themselves, and no longer need the symbol he provides, the Joker wants to reduce the people of Gotham to their most base, self-serving and primitive tendencies. He continually sets up situations in which regular people must make impossible choices; his aim is to demoralize the people and cripple their spirits. Batman, on top of tripping up the Joker’s destructive traps, must find ways to make sure the Joker doesn’t win the moral battle. If Batman saves the girl, but the soul of the city dies anyway, the Joker has won. The stakes have never been higher.

“The Dark Knight” has an amazing supporting cast for a summer blockbuster. Gary Oldman returns as good cop Gordon, and his performance is more important to the whole feel of the movie this time around. Maggie Gyllenhaal replaces Katie Holmes as Rachel Dawes.  This casting change is on par with upgrading from a blowup doll to a real girl.  And Aaron Eckhart is Harvey Dent, the DA and “hero Gotham needs,” in Wayne’s own words. Dent is Rachel Dawes’ current squeeze, and surprisingly, the movie chooses to mostly underplay the ensuing love triangle, allowing the men to actually listen to and like each other.  Filling out the cast are Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine, as Bruce Wayne’s support team. Both are given more to do this time around, and neither performance is wasted.

“The Dark Knight” gives the viewer about twenty minutes to remember the characters and enjoy Batman’s awesomeness, then cranks the dial to 11 and doesn’t let up for two solid hours. There isn’t a moment that isn’t tense and exciting; Nolan has solved the pacing problems he had with “Batman Begins” by just never letting up this time around.  I’ve heard it described as dark and depressing; this seems odd to me, as so much of the movie is concerned with hope and the future. But it is fast-paced, intense, and at times, ruthless. It is a vision of a film, well realized and unforgettable. Let’s hope it sets a standard other movies will feel compelled to acknowledge, and strive toward.

Recommended

• if you felt like “Batman Begins” was a much needed reboot to the series.
• If you like movies with a deeper, darker, more spiritual element to them.
• If you want to see the best action flick of the summer, and one of the best movies of the year.

Not Recommended

• if you like the campy, Adam West/George Clooney Batman better
• If you think comic book/superhero movies ought to be shallow and kind of silly. These are men dressed up in costumes, after all.
• If you’re easily frightened. Ledger’s the Joker might be nightmare-inducing.

By Willie Krischke — July 11, 2008

A movie set some 800 years in the future, “WALL-E’ is a throwback of sorts. It pays tribute to lots of movies, from the expected – “2001,” “Close Encounters,” “E.T.” and “Short Circuit,” but also to more unexpected, and more human, sources, like “Hello Dolly,” “Modern Times,”  Buster Keaton’s films, and any number of Jerry Lewis and Woody Allen characters. This nostalgia gives a “sci-fi” film a big heart, which is good, since it’s about an abandoned planet and nearly hopeless future for our kind.

Our hero (his name is short for Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth Class) is the last inhabitant of Earth, except for a cockroach. The planet is covered with garbage, and the generators of all that trash have moved on – apparently, even the Earth was disposable. WALL-E keeps compacting trash, because he’s a trash compactor, and what else is he going to do? He erects vast towers of piled garbage, shaped like the Empire State Building. He has the right personality for the job, and this is perhaps the best joke in the movie: WALL-E’s the kind of guy who likes going through trash, because every now and then he finds treasures. These he collects, as well as anything that might be useful, and his abode looks like your typical software engineer’s desktop – completely overwhelmed with nifty junk, organized in some way known only to him. His favorite possession is a worn out VHS copy of “Hello Dolly,” which he watches obsessively, trying to puzzle out the civilization that left him behind. (God help us if mounds of trash and “Hello Dolly” are all that remain of human civilization. Isn’t there a dog-eared copy of “Hamlet” floating around out there somewhere? )

The first 40 minutes of WALL-E are magical ones. They are utterly absent of dialogue, save a few incidental sound bytes (which fill us in on where all the people went) and WALL-E’s emotive whistles and beeps, reminiscent of R2D2’s. It plays like a great lost Charlie Chaplin film, as our silent character navigates his way through a not-so-silent landscape, lost in the moment, taking what comes his way, and getting tangled up in comedic messes.

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EVE appears, a probe sent from above, and WALL-E falls in love.  Their relationship is part “Nutty Professor” and part Woody Allen – WALL-E’s the lovable nerd who collects stuff, EVE the sleek, efficient modern woman who promptly destroys his eggbeater.  EVE has been sent to earth by the surviving humans to look for organic life.  She finally finds what she’s looking for – in the form of a tiny plant –filed between WALL-E’s rubix cube and bubble wrap (which she also destroys.) She freaks out, shuts down, and, after WALL-E totes her around endearingly like Christopher Reeve for a few days, the mothership returns to gobble her up. WALL-E hangs on desperately. And thus ends the really great part of the movie.

And begins the “story” part of the movie. Up until this point, “WALL-E” has been content to futz around without much of a plot, conflict, or story arc, but no longer. The mothership contains the exiled human race, and EVE’s plant is evidence they can go home. The problem is, it’s been 700 years, and nobody remembers home, or cares. The movie’s environmental message, which to this point has been gentle, melancholy, and somewhat humorous, now becomes more overt, and a little mean-spirited.  The people are egg-shaped, beyond fat; living in low-gravity and riding around on couches for 700 years, their bones have softened and shrunk. (I wonder if this is an animator’s joke – Pixar’s humans have always looked a little soft, and now they use that weirdness to their advantage, sort of.) They never take their eyes off the TV screens in front of them, and have forgotten what authentic human interaction is.
Nonetheless, the captain (voiced by Jeff Garlin) gets excited about returning to Earth, the autopilot (in a throwback to HAL) revolts, and it’s up to WALL-E and EVE to lead a rogue robot army against the mothership and get the people back home. Yawn. This half of the movie really isn’t bad – in fact, a lesser studio (like DreamWorks?) probably would’ve jettisoned the first half and focused here – but it’s so inferior to the first half, it feels… beyond anticlimactic.

Naturally, as soon as WALL-E comes out on DVD, parents will buy it for their kids. And the kids will watch it incessantly. My guess is that most parents will stick around for the first half, but as soon as WALL-E rockets into space, find better things to do with their time. Like sort the socks in the sock drawer. That’s what I’d do, anyway.

Recommended

• If you’re going to take your kids to something this summer. WALL-E’s the one to see. (Though “Kung Fu Panda” wasn’t bad, either.)
• If you’re a Chaplin/Keaton fan, and would like to introduce your kids to those old classics.

Not Recommended

• If you’re tired of futuristic movies that paint a bleak picture of where we’re headed.
• If you’re a sci-fi geek. Someone somewhere is bound to post an article titled “The Scientific Inconsistencies of WALL-E” – they are plethora – and if that’s all you’re gong to see, you’re going to miss all that’s good about this film.

Rating: 1 out of 5 stars

By Willie Krischke – July 22, 2008

In the process of learning to write decent movie reviews, I read a lot of reviews. And I’ve come across certain terms used often by movie critics that don’t mean anything to me. When a critic says a movie is “richly textured,” I’m lost.  Or “the tone was off” – what is that? Maybe someday I’ll learn be admitted in to the elite Critic’s Club where they hang out, and there on the ornate shelf will be the Critic’s Lexicon. Until then, I’ll just have to use plain English.

“21” is a pretty awful movie, but I’m thankful now that I’ve watched it, because I can hereby add a terms to my homemade copy of the Critic’s Lexicon.   Flat. This is what you call a movie that ought to be exciting but isn’t.  ”21″ is flat. It’s got a great plot, featuring genius MIT students, a ruthless professor, card-counting, Vegas, gobs of money, double-crosses…yet somehow it never really gets going. It feels like director Robert Luketic has told this story at too many cocktail parties, and now is a little bored with it himself. If you’re a wannabe movie critic, and you want to know what “flat” means, watch “21.”

Luketic relies heavily on two of my least favorite movie tricks – the montage and the voiceover. Both are shortcuts lazy directors take when they can’t be bothered to tell a story efficiently and well. I’d say roughly half of “21” is either montage of voiceover. The rest – well, there are a lot of underwhelming slow-mo shots of casinos, and an awful lot of bad acting (Kevin Spacey looks particularly anxious to get on to his next picture – almost every scene he’s in feels rushed, like he’s getting it over with as quickly as possible.) There are, just for fun, some absolutely ridiculous costumes and an alarming amount of really bad advice on how to cheat a casino. (Tip to the attentive: if you don’t want the security guys to know you’re a team of students working together to cheat the casino, you may not want to a) walk into the casino together, b) regularly gather in each other’s hotel rooms, or c)hang out in the restaurant together, celebrating your winnings) Oh yes, and some of the worst dialogue this side of Bollywood. “Our window of opportunity is closing in on us,” our hero confides to his mentor at one point, in all seriousness.

“21” is based on the nonfiction book “Bringing Down the House,” by Ben Mezrich. A little research yields some fascinating facts — the card counting team actually pulled from several different schools, involved competing teams, brought in outside investors, and operated for over twenty years. It sounds like a fascinating story, and it ought to make a great movie – or even a series of movies. Too bad “21” is what we get instead. How long before someone else – someone with a real artistic sense, as well as knowledge of Vegas, maybe even someone who read “Bringing Down the House — can make a different movie from the same source material? What’s the statute of limitations on remakes?

Recommended

• if you know absolutely nothing about Vegas or Blackjack, and next to nothing about storytelling, good filmmaking, or human nature.
• If you want to know what a movie critic means when she says a movie is “flat” or “lacks energy.” “21” could be used in film class to define the terms.

Not Recommended

• if there’s anything else available.
• If you’re looking for “Blackjack Cheater’s Guide to Vegas.” Please, please don’t try anything you see in this movie.