The Dark Knight - Nolan's best?

It's been 12 years since this one came out, and the Dark Knight is one of the very few films that stood the test of time. It's my favorite superhero movie of all time, even though other films came close, once you start rewatching the Dark Knight, you'll be forced to agree with the fact that it is undoubtedly the best superhero movie of all time.

For a change, I would like to highlight what I thought was responsible for this movie turning out to be the way it was and why it was the best Batman film of the Nolan trilogy. The answer is not Heath Ledger, even though a lot of people blindly say the Joker made everything better. To them, I say, 'Batman screentime'.

What's the point of making a Batman movie without any Batman? I understand that it takes time to establish a character, but both Batman begins and the Dark Knight rises kind of felt underwhelming because there was very little Batman in both of them. Having him show up in day time to set the final battle of the trilogy was one of the biggest mistakes of Nolan's career. The best moments of both the movies still turn out to be those which feature him with his full costume. So yes, the next time someone tries to make a movie about Batman, they need to make sure that the majority of the screentime goes to him running and gliding around with his Cape and cowl because that's what the fans actually want. I really hope that Matt Reeves delivers and I really hope he learns that by watching the Dark Knight.

All my complaints apart, let's talk about the Dark Knight. We got to see Bruce learn from his mistakes and perfect his bat-suit along with Mr. Fox, just like he was doing in Batman begins. His tumbler scenes were brilliant and that whole scene where he gets a batpod out of his tumbler was phenomenal. We saw him glide around Hong Kong in his kick-ass new suit, full Arkham style, and that interrogation scene with the Joker was probably the best scene in the movie.

It really annoys me when people talk only about Heath and the joker when they talk about the Dark Knight, ignoring so much of Batman and his adventures. I'm not at all saying that Heath was bad, he did manage to revolutionize the role of an antagonist, something which so many people are doing because of him. His dialogue, his acting, the laugh, it was nothing short of a masterpiece. It's really tragic that he wasn't around to collect his well deserved Oscar, once again, breaking new records, bringing the superhero movie genre into the limelight. So yes, Heath was amazing, one of the best jokers, I might have to make a separate article choosing the best joker, I still believe that the animated version of Joker voiced by Mark Hamill and Joaquin Phoenix's version were just as good as Heath Ledger's portrayal. It just goes to say how good of a character the Joker actually is and how great the people who got a chance to play him on the big screen were. For all those critics going around and saying superhero movies are for kids, this is a character who nabbed 2 Oscars.

There was never a dull moment in the Dark Knight, something was always happening, and it was a non-stop action rollercoaster with not a second for us to breathe. Credit goes to the genius camera work which made sure that we were always paying attention, with those glorious long shots and constantly moving camera. All this awesomeness, along with Hans Zimmer's magical score just blew our minds while watching this spectacular film. Every department that was involved gave it everything they had and the product of their hard work was nothing short of a triumph.

I was kind of shocked when they killed Rachel because I realized I was just halfway through the movie and it already felt like so much happened, every second I was just wondering what more could they do and every second, the movie just kept getting better and it wasn't even improvisation, this is what you get when you have a solid script and both Christopher and Johnathan deserve equal credit.

The ending of the movie gave me chills, and it still continues to amaze me, the way they finish it, with Batman making an ultimate sacrifice for the sake of the city, it's citizens, covering up a huge lie that would have made the people lose hope. He was truly a silent guardian, a watchful protector, and a Dark Knight. That would have been the perfect way to finish a franchise and Nolan kind of did something in this movie that even he wouldn't have been been able to beat. The Dark Knight rises couldn't even come close even though there was a lot of buzz about people calling it the movie of the decade, it was still not even close to its predecessor.

The Dark Knight, in many places, makes you believe that you're never going to see anything better on screen than this and that this is the best work of Christopher Nolan, something he has managed to do in two other movies, which is why I will never be able to pick my best Nolan movie of all time. Every time a Marvel fan comes and brags how good their movies are and how much DC is screwing up, this one movie is still strong enough for us to counter every single thing they come up with, and to be honest, there has been no better villain than the Joker. Even the DC haters would have to agree with that.

The Dark Knight is a masterpiece, and I will keep rewatching it for the Batman scenes, the gliding, all the Heath Ledger scenes, the cinematography, the camera work, and Hans Zimmer's brilliant background scores. If I'd have to pick my favorite scores from this, it would be "Agent of Chaos", "Like a dog chasing cars" and "Why so serious?" 

Verdict 

Fan in me: 10/10

Critic in me: 10/10

Interstellar - Nolan's best?

I think the perfect quarantine movie award goes interstellar, I've watched it plenty of times but I've never related to it as much as when I saw it recently during the COVID 19 lockdown. It just goes to say how much of truth and reality there was in the movie and when you actually experience it and come close to an experience such as a world-ending event, it's a whole new feeling.

Christopher Nolan is the reason I started watching Hollywood, his movies and his style of storytelling and masterful writing kind of spoilt other movies to me because I keep trying to compare other films to his movies and it almost never reaches his golden standards.

Interstellar is one such masterpiece coming from the dude who has never managed to make a single bad film till date, Dunkirk being the one which still managed to be good, but just not to his usual standards. The movie is set in the future where mankind has screwed up, where we've successfully managed to choke earth to its breaking point and when we're about to become extinct as a species.

Farming has become more important than advancing our technology. "We didn't run out of television sets and planes, we ran out of food". The movie is full of epic quotes like that, which would fit perfectly on our WhatsApp and Instagram motivational/sad statuses with the background of some scenery, to quote our Tamil people, "idha auto pinnadiye ottalame". I think most of such good writing was only possible because of Johnathan Nolan's involvement in the script. Slowly our crops are dying, there are no more armies, just a bunch of people left, chocking and suffocating often encountering huge dust clouds.

So basically, the movie deals with NASA's final attempt at saving humanity, by sending a team of pilots and engineers through a wormhole near Saturn to another system with three potentially habitable planets. If you think that the previous statement sounded cool, the movie is 100 times cooler. The visuals were just out of the world, maybe because they were literally out of this world but the fact that Nolan still stuck to using actual sets without using green screens still continues to surprise me. Nolan's explanation to why he uses sets instead of green screens is satisfactory because he says that looking into a green screen and delivering emotions aren't nearly as good as looking at the actual thing and because of that, the movie-watching experience became even more immersive and the actors were able to show more heart.

He's one of the very few directors who continues to do stuff like that and the end result is simply spectacular. Speaking of emotions, Matthew McConaughey gave us a performance of a lifetime, playing the role of Cooper, Murphy's father, who single-handedly stole every single scene that he was in. He made us laugh with him, cry with him and be a part of this insane interstellar travel. I'm still surprised by the fact that he wasn't nominated for best actor. Matthew's performance stands out among the rest of the talented cast Anne Hathaway, Michael Caine, and Jessica Chastain. Matt Damon's cameo was another brilliant performance from the veteran actor who yet again gets a role where he has to be rescued, I don't know if Hollywood does this to him on purpose or if this is all just a funny coincidence. Nevertheless, the talented Mr. Ripley does a brilliant job with his limited screen time.

So apart from the brilliant cinematography, intense writing, captivating plot, scintillating, oscar-winning special effects, and world-class acting, another department which managed to fetch an Oscar nomination was Hans Zimmer's insane soundtrack. There are scores in this film which I still listen to on a daily basis, 'Coward', 'Cornfield chase', 'Where we're going', and 'No time for caution' just to quote a few of them. Somehow, his music just made the movie so much better, just as it had done in his other brilliant films. The Zimmer-Nolan combo has never once disappointed us and the only thing that broke my heart was the fact that Nolan decided to not stick with Hans Zimmer for his upcoming sci-fi thriller, 'Tenet' 

Every time I watch Interstellar, there comes a time where it makes me feel like this is the best Nolan movie of all time and that none of his other films have given me such a unique experience. The funny thing is, three of his movies have made me feel the same way at some point and I've still not been able to give even one of them the number one spot or even number two and number three.

One thing that Nolan managed to with Interstellar that he didn't do in his previous films is making the audience cry. I was convinced that making the audience cry was not Nolan's specialty but making the audience think was his forte but he broke that myth and made every single member of the audience cry like little babies in at least four or five different scenes. I was completely out of tears by the end of the film, it was as bad as my first viewing of Avengers Endgame.

Christopher Nolan is a gift to Hollywood and sci-fi is where he thrives even though he managed to make the best superhero movie of all time. I hope he sticks to SciFi and I hope that Tenet extends my three movie list of Nolan's best. Also, special mention to the comic relief, who knew a robot could crack such high-quality jokes, TARS was brilliant in the movie, so was CASE but I loved TARS more. Once again, Nolan tried something new in Interstellar, something which he didn't do in his other films, comedy, and it was brilliant.

I've seen Interstellar at least twenty-five times and each time, I learn something new or I unlearn something wrong which I had learned from my previous viewings and it's something I'd love to keep doing, for the emotions, the tears, the blackhole scenes, the wormhole scenes, the docking scene and for the bond between Cooper and his daughter. If you guys haven't seen it, it's high time that you do and it's the perfect quarantine movie, with all the COVID stuff that has been going on around us for the past few months, it hits you harder than intended. 

Verdict: 

Fan in me: 10/10
Critic in me: 10/10