Joke Joker Jokest

I finally convinced myself to watch The Dark Knight yesterday. Not that I do not like to see it, but I’m just a drag when it comes to hyped-up movies that I have not seen yet. Somehow, it makes me shun the idea of catching it with commoners, like groups of idiots who are either going to spoil the ending, or do crazy shit inside the cinema, (like shouting and INAPPROPRIATELY LAUGHING REALLY LOUD, making side comments as the scenes roll). They can do this because they are many. I know it for a fact because I am those people when I’m with my own crew.

Well that, and the kids. I just don’t like watching superhero movies with kids around. It just annoys me when they are not aware that they are disturbing other people, and I cannot do anything about it because they’re stupid kids. It’s not fair. I want to watch movies like this every now and then because I want to feel like a child sometimes, but in turn become much more of a coarse adult that I am, thanks to these tykes. I’d spank them, if I am as old as them. Their parents should not fuck anymore.

I was anticipating that thirty minutes during the whole film, I would feel like blowing up the whole theatre using an improvised bomb made out of toothpaste and gum. Thankfully as I had calculated, the place was not jam-packed so I was able to find a good spot right in the middle portion of the theatre. It felt like I was all alone with this giant TV screen in my room. Precious…very precious. On with the review:

The Dark Knight as we all know is the sequel of Batman Begins shown last 2005, in which I only slept all throughout. But TDK is not really dependent on its first Batman installment and so the story is easy to understand, except for Batman’s speech impediment. Well, I can remember that his enemy in the first movie was Scarecrow who was busted right in the beginning of TDK. Buh-bye Scarycrow. Moving forward…

The real meat of the story revolves around Batman years after he became the Caped Crusader (yes, “Cape” with a “d”) evidenced by his many battle scars and his new enemy, the Joker. Gotham city is now infested with criminals and criminalitities, from low life thugs to huge, untouchable mobs and gangs organized into one group with, well, what do you know!? One accountant!

It is hard-earned money – these mobs were able to amass, and I still couldn’t understand why the hell they need to have only one accountant. They should have at least two, so that when one gets burned alive, they still have a spare. Also, if it wasn’t needed in the story that Lau is an Asian, this is one clear sign of subtle stereotyping. Get the point?

Lau =Accountant= Asian =Math freak.

But this is just one of the things that you just ignore in the story, like how the Joker schemes the planting of the bombs. How he just turns up in a supposedly secured place where authorities are supposed to be watching out for him, and how he rounds up his own gang whom he simply disposes off after they’ve served their purpose to him. We just leave it to the fact that he’s the villain and should be magnificent portraying it as he executes the final blow, the fantastic explosions and sometimes the candid manifestation of his twisted persona ("Do you wanna know how I got these scars?"). And he executed it very well, indeed. It justified my officemate’s comment on Heath Ledger’s performance after watching the movie, and I’d say the same, It’s no wonder why Heath died.

On the other hand…well, Batman is Batman. We could not do anything about it further. I have learned from the same officemate that Ledger visited mental institutions for two years just to get an idea on how to become as demented as the Joker, and I have surmised that Christian Bale’s reference in this movie is none other than our very own Fernando Poe Jr. The King no less. Most probably the suit Morgan Freeman’s character has developed for Mr. Wayne locks his jaw in place so it’s as if he’s grunting every line he says. If you know Fernando Poe’s famous lines in his movie, Kapag Puno na ang Salop, you’ll get what I’m talking about.

TDK so far is the most serious Batman flick that’s been made. It has successfully created a sense of foreboding by combining the elements of dim lighting with few pale colors, almost infrasound hair-raising background sound in almost all the scenes and a well-thought, almost philosophical script well executed by the main actors. The Joker isn’t a clown. He’s the kind of villain who would sneak up on you in real life and cut both corners of your lips. Batman is horny and in a quarter-life crisis making him to decide to cut ties with his alter-ego– Gotham is so fucked up.

His subtle innuendos as Bruce for example are like ego punches to the character of Harvey Dent whom is engaged to Bruce’s former love interest, adding flavor and conflict thereby making it more dynamic to watch. Girl blows up -Maggie Gyllenhaal’s best performance- Joker escapes, and Dent escapes not with a cute face. The characters don’t fuck around. Gunshots are meant to kill, Dent –supposedly a man of virtue and integrity and rationality– suddenly flips a coin, and bombs are detonated, not defused in time.

The film cited a lot issues regarding the human psyche of right and wrong in a lot of levels but has been successful in all of them. Younger viewers in their tender formative years will see Batman as the hero and the Joker as the bad guy just because he blew up a hospital, or hanged a man, or wore a frightening make-up and because their idiotic parents told them so. Morons would just watch and drool and grope the breasts of their girlfriends during night scenes while they’re being masturbated. Critical audience, like *ahem* me, will see that fate has made a humor on Joker’s former life, and this dark past fuels his rage against anything decent and happy. This anger egged him on to plot against humanity itself not by blatantly undertaking mass obliteration without first proving his point that there is no good or evil in this world, but just man’s instinct for survival in whatever form, as what he had hoped to achieve in the ferry experiment. But as much as it sucks that the villain must lose at the end he didn’t succeed. However, the premise was later on concretized as the movie ends with the good and evil becoming irrelevant to what should be known as the truth (“He is the hero Gotham deserves, but he’s not the one we need right now”).

By the way, my former nickname in our neighborhood was Batman. It began when I senselessly jumped off the second floor window (fifteen feet high) of my Aunt’s house when I was six or seven. A neighbor saw me and my cousins noticed I wasn’t looking out the window anymore. I fell and hit my head hard on the ground and they rushed to pick me up. I was conscious all throughout. Then as my father became relieved that his youngest dick didn’t suffer any injuries (no blood, no cuts or anything swollen), he resumed drinking. Stupid kid, he said. I made myself a glass of hot milk and noticed two small punctured holes on my right arm. Then I started climbing on walls.