Doctor Strange - Too much madness, too little multiverse

Benedict Cumberbatch and Elizabeth Olsen are back again reprising their roles of Doctor Strange and Wanda Maximoff in probably one of the most hyped movies ever in a long time. The hype for the multiverse in the MCU has been around for a few years now with so many Easter eggs sprinkled in previous Marvel movies starting from the previous Strange movie, Spiderman far from home and no way home. Going into phase 4, it was pretty obvious that Marvel wanted to lead with Doctor Strange with little hopes for another Avengers movie. To be very honest, it's going to take a long time before people are on board for another Avengers movie and Kevin Feige himself has stated that they don't intend to do another Avengers film anytime soon. 

The multiverse of madness, a visually spectacular mess suffers from a serious case of sequelitis, a commonly used movie term where a sequel doesn't live up to the standards of the original movie, the classical example in the MCU being iron man 2. While Marvel has continuously and consistently managed to impress audiences in the past, most recently with Spiderman no way home, there was very little to stay connected with Stephen Strange here. This film feels like an Elseworld story and the Strange character depicted here doesn't feel like the Strange we have known and loved in the past.

For a Doctor Strange movie, there's actually very little involvement from Strange himself as he mostly feels like a side character in his own movie, with Wanda taking up more screentime than him and it felt like Strange's complete absence still wouldn't have affected how the events actually turned out. The plot of the movie was all over the place with some serious pacing issues.  

With Sam Raimi and Danny Elfman returning, I was expecting an OG Spiderman-type movie which this movie certainly was in a few scenes, especially in the beginning. Raimi went with a slight horror type of filmmaking which weirdly didn't work given the kind of reputation and style that Marvel had set up in the past even though we can argue that this isn't exactly in the same timeline as the others. A lot of people loved the new style, personally, I wasn't a fan of the horror elements that were there, this could have maybe worked for a DC Constantine movie and certainly not for an MCU movie.

Danny Elfman did manage to do a decent job with some of the scores but for the most part, the score wasn't nearly as good as Michael Giacchino's original soundtracks for the previous Doctor Strange movie. I'm still scratching my head as to why MCU went with a fresh start with this sequel. This movie certainly isn't anywhere close to how good the first one was in terms of music, cinematography, plot, and especially the climax. The Dormammu time loop will forever remain one of the most unique endings for any movie in cinema history. 

The climax here was so underwhelming and predictable and felt like if that had happened in the first 10 minutes, nothing would have changed. The characters themselves hint at a slightly different version of what would be the climax later and that is exactly how the events turn out, almost like a spoiler being dropped in the very beginning. As a fan of Elizabeth Olsen and her work in the past, I was disappointed with how they butchered her character and I'm reminded of a quote from the Dark knight, "You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain". It was unnecessarily dragged along the entire movie and was so boring and underwhelming to watch what she did and her motivation behind it, It really felt like a cheaper version of Mal's character from inception. I think I'd have liked her more if she somehow died in endgame along with black widow and Iron man. 

I didn't like why they pointlessly stretched her story arc and how poorly defined her motivation was to do what she did in the entire film. The movie just drops random exposition bombs at us whenever it felt like and at times it felt like it was a messy explosion of fan theories we've been hearing every now and then. There was definitely some forced fan service here which didn't feel organic at all unlike how it was in Spiderman no way home but still, sadly it turned out to be the best few minutes of the film following a boring first half. 

The chemistry between Strange and Dr. Palmer here seemed to be completely nonexistent here which was shocking to me given how amazing it was in the previous Doctor Strange movie with the limited screentime that the two of them shared. Coming to the main issue I had with the film, there was absolutely no exploring the multiverse at all here and just Elizabeth Olsen roaming around very angry, depressed, and moody which took up about fifty percent of the film's screen time which was so disappointing for me especially given how much Marvel has been hyping up the multiverse in the past. There was literally one scene that explored the multiverse and it felt like I saw a much more refined version of the same when Strange meets with the ancient one in the origin movie. Frankly, that multiverse scene reminded me of a very scene from Inside out which lead to Riley losing Bing Bong.

Marvel's "What If?" did a fantastic job with the few episodes that had aired and it felt like there was so much more depth to the show, especially in the 3rd episode involving Doctor Strange. The 40-minute "What If?" episode is leaps and bounds better than this 2 and a half hour movie which was just downright boring and all over the place. What surprises me here is the kind of reception that the movie is still getting and the box office collection it's going to end up making despite how the final movie has come out. 

Overall, Multiverse of madness was just a huge disappointment for me and I'd rate it as my 2nd least favorite MCU movie after Captain Marvel. As a fan of Dr. Strange's character development in the MCU so far, it really did break my heart to see this character's depiction in the movie and how even Benedict's charm wasn't enough to carry this film at least for me. It could just be my personal opinion to not liking this movie's style or maybe I am just too old and in denial for being disappointed that the movie didn't live up to the standards in Endgame or No way home but in my defense, Marvel always lived up to the hype. Personally, I'd have been extremely happy for the universe if they had just ended with Avengers Endgame but I guess the show must go on and Disney is not going to stop until they buy everything. 

Verdict

Fan in me: 4/10

Critic in me: 6/10

I've been meaning to take a break from the MCU for a very long time, especially after Endgame and how traumatic and satisfying the ending was. The only thing which kept me going to these films was the hype of Toby and Andrew's return, the hype for the multiverse, and Thor's storyline. Love and Thunder already has me super hyped and seeing how Taika Watiti completely transformed Thor in Ragnarok and with Christian Bale joining the MCU, I'm looking forward to a banger from Marvel, and following that, I do intend to go on a short break from the MCU. No Way Home and Batman have just set the bar way too high for all these upcoming superhero films to live up to which is going to be a huge challenge. 

The Batman - A new era for DC Movies

There really is no competition when it comes to who is DC's best superhero and over the years WB has experimented a lot with this character through video games like the Arkham series, the telltale series, a bunch of animated movies, and a few feature films as well. Marvel continues to dominate the shared universe spot with very little competition from the DCEU due to multiple studio issues but where DC has managed to dominate is when it comes to solo character study type movies. Joker made over a billion dollars at the box office, being the only R-rated movie to achieve this feat. The Dark Knight trilogy has managed to produce two separate movies which grossed over a billion dollars and even the infamous DCEU has Aquaman which grossed over a billion dollars. 

The Batman was originally going to be a standalone movie directed by Ben Affleck, with Deathstroke as its main antagonist but Affleck stepped down as director and Matt Reeves took his place as director. A few months later, Affleck announced that he's quitting as Batman due to personal reasons. Whatever the reasons were, this is a role that demands a lot from any actor, physically, mentally, and socially because it's a double-edged sword where on one side, you receive a lot of fame, money, and attention but on the other, there's going to be a mountain of expectations because the actor is basically representing the best comic book character ever created irrespective of what we think we see on feature films. There really is no debate over Batman being the greatest comic book character of all time regardless of how overpowered Superman is or how smart Tony Stark is. Whatever the reasons were and whatever conversations took place in the WB studio, the actor who was going to replace him was going to be under tremendous pressure.

The Batman was directed by Matt Reeves and stars Robert Pattinson as Batman, Zoe Kravitz as Catwoman, Paul Dano as the Riddler, Andy Serkis as Alfred, Jeffrey Wright as Gordon, and Colin Farrell as the Penguin. There was a lot of talk and controversy surrounding Pattinson taking up the role of the caped crusader, whether the Twilight star could pull this one off, a bunch of people including myself who weren't too happy with the casting but it looks like, after this performance, that bunch has completely disappeared. Pattinson's Batman is probably the standout performance in this otherwise extremely talented and veteran actor list which had a few other amazing performances and I'm happy to say that in a Batman movie, the actor portraying Batman did it best which usually is very rarely the case in these things. 

After being glued to countless gripping interviews of Matt Reeves describing the film to be a noir, character-driven detective story, that is exactly what we get on screen. Before describing the movie itself, I wanted to say how much I loved Matt Reeves talking about Batman which almost felt like a teacher making a whole bunch of students fall in love with a subject just because of how good he is and how well he knows a subject, only in this scenario, this is a subject that we already love. It really felt like more than the casting, WB picked one hell of a director who knew what he was doing, who wanted to stick to the roots of the character and not experiment wildly in the name of risk-taking yet managing to keep it fresh.

 The movie is 2 hours and 56 minutes long, making this the longest Batman movie ever made. It was nice to see WB not interfering with a director's work, trying to cut down screentime to make room for more screenings, thereby resulting in a poorly edited chopped-up movie which in the past has led to complete disasters like the Suicide Squad and Justice League Whedon's edition. Unlike those, this was Matt's intended cut for the movie and felt like under 2 hours when you step out of it. The pacing in the movie is pretty slow overall, it takes its time to establish the main characters to make us feel more connected with them. 

The trailers were pretty misleading I'd say, making us think like this was a full-fledged action movie. The movie does a pretty good job with the action overall but it's a movie that almost feels like an Arkham video game where we are witnessing what Bruce is witnessing, following him, thinking like him, and basically uncovering all the events behind the eyes of Bruce Wayne. Talking about Bruce Wayne, he is very rarely in it, and even when he is, he is pretty reckless about trying to cover his tracks as he is still the Dark Knight and uses Wayne as simply a tool to collect information for Batman, not yet realizing the potential for Bruce Wayne to do good to the city. This movie was also inspired by a famous comic book called Batman ego where Bruce struggles to establish a duality between Bruce and Batman which is clearly the case for this version too and I loved seeing such an unpolished version of both Bruce and Batman who are trying to perfect their role in the city.

 Other highlights of the movie include what was probably the best batmobile chase we have ever witnessed to date, a scene where he chases Cobblepot, sadly slightly spoilt by the trailers, Zoe Kravitz's pleasant surprise as both Selina Kyle and Catwoman which felt not like some filler content or forced love interest and distraction for Bruce but more like a trustworthy ally who keeps a check on him and is there for him at his worst and probably the best on-screen version of James Gordon. I have been a huge fan of Gary Oldman as Gordon but Jeffrey Wright's version almost makes it feel like he's jumped right out of a comic book. He really does feel like Morgan Freeman from Seven. 

 I love the fact that this movie didn't waste time in establishing things like why Bruce and Gordon are close, or why Bruce became Batman but rather sprinkles the origin elements every now and then. Basically, it assumes that we know who Batman is, making it a straightforward movie for the real fans of Batman and not first-time moviegoers expecting to learn who he actually is. Bruce and Gordon's chemistry was a highlight for me and I did not feel like arguing why Gordon is blindly supporting Batman or the reason behind their partnership at all. I think, in this case, DC has maybe taken a page or two out of the Spiderman homecoming and it totally works for me.

Not everything in this movie was perfect for me. I loved all the side characters including Oz, Catwoman, and Gordon but what I was hoping for was more scenes between Bruce and Alfred. I think Andy Serkis and Robert Pattinson's chemistry was on another level which is usually extremely hard to nail considering how much amazing content we already have between the two of them. There was a scene in particular in the 2nd half of the movie which had me and most of the audience crying and continuously clapping because of how brilliant the writing and acting was. I hated the fact that Alfred was barely in it for over 5 minutes in total. 

Another thing that I wasn't fully on board with was the Riddler. Paul Dano did an amazing job without a doubt but as a fan of the Zodiac movie already, I felt like it was a carbon copy of the Zodiac which lacked originality in the character overall. His acting was brilliant and there was a scene between him and Batman which was pretty close to the Joker Batman interrogation scene in the Dark Knight. Riddler's character was loved by a lot of people and for some of them, his killings were pretty sadistic and difficult to put up with but for me, there was not much to like in it and there is literally a scene where Riddler says "This is the Riddler speaking" just like "This is the Zodiac speaking". Batman villains have so much to experiment with and I was so glad that they went with the Riddler but the lack of originality for me was pretty lackluster irrespective of how ridiculously talented Paul Dano is.

Michael Giacchino's score was beautiful throughout the film and he makes it his own and definitely stands apart among other genius composers like Danny Elfman and Hans Zimmer. Greig Fraser's cinematography was another noteworthy piece of art in this film, the colors were extremely pretty and 95% of this movie takes place in the night, late evenings, or early in the morning which makes his suit stand out. There is even a scene where Batman is almost a beacon of hope in an otherwise hopeless and failed city which was nice to see.

Overall, Pattinson stands out for his dark, broody, depressing take on the Dark Knight in a film that is probably the darkest Batman movie ever and I am definitely looking forward to seeing where Matt Reeves is going to take this new Batverse. As much as we all want to see crossovers and a potential Justice League movie, I think the best thing for this universe is to try to expand the Bat-verse and bring in Robin, Nightwing, and the entire Bat-family before introducing aliens and magic to this otherwise very grounded and realistic universe. I really do hope that this isn't just a standalone trilogy and I want to see Pattinson as Batman in at least 10 different movies and a full-fledged established Batman in front of a complete Rogues gallery and villains like Mr. Freeze, Hush, Bane, and a few other villains we haven't seen before and if they were to do a Joker in this version, I really do hope that they push it as much as they can not because I hate the character, but because I would like this universe to wrap up with the Joker. I would love for this version to someday be the definitive version of Batman and this really does look like the perfect start to a new DC universe. 

VERDICT 

FAN IN ME: 9.5/10

CRITIC IN ME: 9.5/10

TENET - Nolan at his most

Christopher Nolan back to making sci-fi movies is probably one of the best things to ever happen in 2020. Tenet stars John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki, and Kenneth Branagh. The movie faced a lot of challenges amidst the COVID-19 pandemic but finally reached the audiences attempting to keep the movie business stay alive in spite of a crazy year.

We follow John David Washington, the protagonist who is a secret agent, recruited for a mission to avert an event that might end reality as we know it. Tenet is the most nonlinear of all his previous movies, a style which very few filmmakers have tried. Took me a couple of watches to get a brief idea of the plot. While one of the main complaints about the movie was the fact that it was so difficult to follow and understand, warranting multiple visits to understand it, the same remains one of the biggest perks for every Nolan fanboy out there. This is probably his most complicated movie to date, this opinion of mine might change after a couple more watches. 

He has never played with time the way he has in Tenet, even though we caught glimpses of the same in his previous movies, the most of it being in Interstellar, this is Nolan and his time fetish at their most here. I've seen it twice already and I still have plenty of questions, but I must admit the questions became fewer after the 2nd watch. My biggest concern was not even how complicated the plot was going to be, in fact, I was really looking forward to that because trying to understand a Nolan movie in some way makes you feel smarter and like you've achieved something, it feels like a science lesson with some spectacular visuals and mind-blowing music, I was afraid that the music part was going to be a huge let down due to Hans Zimmer's absence but Oscar-winning Ludwig Goransson has done a brilliant job with his scores in Tenet. 

Another huge complaint was that the dialogue couldn't be heard because the music took over and was extra loud, luckily, where I saw the movie there were subtitles, but this is something every Nolan movie has faced before so holding Ludwig responsible for this seems unfair. Two noteworthy tracks that are now part of my everyday playlist are 'Rainy Night in Tallinn' and 'Posterity'. Music is certainly one of the movie's biggest strengths and all my fears about the movie's absence of Zimmer were obsolete. 

The visuals were spectacular and the cinematography, top-notch, maybe the best I've ever seen until now even though there was one particular fight scene that felt a bit messy, to say the least. There is a lack of character development especially with the protagonist, nothing new there because the same issue has been there in a few of his previous movies as well, something which I'm hoping Chris works on in his future movies because repeating the same mistake every time doesn't justify its presence. Speaking of repeating mistakes, this movie has a female lead who is relevant to the plot who isn't dead, and does things that move the plot forward. Elizabeth's character in some ways is the main female lead in Tenet and that was actually a first for Nolan, having a significant female lead.

Nolan in some ways has always had a soft corner for India and Indian fans, something which makes our hearts skip a beat every time we notice it. We saw a bit of Rajasthan in the Dark Knight Rises, a small mention of Delhi in Interstellar, and this time, we see quite a bit of Mumbai and a lot of the veteran Bollywood actress, Dimple Kapadia. Not like he had to do a lot to impress Indian fans, he already had plenty of Indian fans before, this just felt like a huge bonus to every Indian Nolan fan out there. 

Overall, in the middle of this curse of a pandemic, watching Christopher Nolan's latest sci-fi thriller in IMAX was one of the few joys that 2020 had to offer. I am already looking forward to the future viewings and the hours of time that I'm going to sit and break my head trying to make sense of this plot. Tenet certainly lives up to the Nolan reputation and in no way does it feel like a downgrade to his previous movies, maybe not his best but I'm sure that Nolan personally enjoyed a lot while filming this one, its certainly Nolan playing the most with his favorite concept of all time, Time.

VERDICT:

Fan in me: 9.5/10

Critic in me: 8/10

Another noteworthy observation I had made during the course of the movie was that anyone who doubted Robert Pattinson as Bruce Wayne and Batman has now been proven wrong. Personally, I'm really looking forward to seeing his Batman, and the fact that both Nolan and Christian Bale approved of Pattinson's Batman is another thing that adds up to the hype, I'm sure that he's going to give us a Batman we can never forget.

  

Inception: Nolan's Best?

After the success of the Dark Knight, Christopher Nolan decided to finally work on his oldest script, which he had been developing for over a decade. I watched Inception a couple of days back and this time, just like the previous viewings, I looked at it from a new and a different perspective, and as always, I found myself in awe towards the end. Welcome to my third and final part of the three-part series where I attempted to highlight certain aspects of my 3 favorite Christopher Nolan movies. 

The other two movies which I reviewed are The Dark Knight and Interstellar. The only common thing about all the three movies including Inception is that at some point in all three movies, you will feel like you've never experienced this feeling before and that no other movie could possibly be this good. 

Inception came out in 2010, it won the Oscar for Cinematography and sound editing although I'd argue it deserved more, I stopped caring about what the Academy thought and didn't want to use that as a yardstick to rate movies. The movie had a lot of familiar faces from other Nolan movies like Michael Caine, Cillian Murphy, Tom Hardy, Marion Cotillard, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Ken Watanabe. Leonardo DiCaprio was the main character we followed, Cobb, an extractor who operates by stealing things from other people's minds from their dreams who is also on the run for being charged with the murder of his own wife. 

The majority of the movie involves an expert from a particular field explaining how things work in the dream world. The group consists of a group of architects to design the dream world, a forger, and a chemist. The main plot of the movie is a group of experts, led by Cobb, attempting to plant an idea on the head of a major corporation using positive reinforcement which would then inspire him to dissolve his company. This movie demands and deserves your complete attention throughout its run time, this is not your usual popcorn flick where you can afford to miss a few scenes. In order to fully understand what happens during the mission, you need to pay attention to every second.

I'm not going to go into any more details regarding the plot, what I'd really like to talk about now is Hans Zimmer and his terrific background score which keeps you at the edge of the seat without which the full depth of the movie can't really be felt. In my opinion, this is the best work of Hans Zimmer, no other movie comes close to his work in Inception. There are plenty of soundtracks from Inception that are on my everyday playlist, a few of them being "Mombassa", "Dream within a dream", "Dark Mal", "One simple Idea" and the best of the lot being "Time". Zimmer really gave it everything he had and to this day, Inception's background scores keep getting so much praise.

The other huge achievement was the achievement in cinematography. The visuals were some of the best ever put to the silver screen. There are scenes in this movie that took months to be finished, scenes that would make your jaw drop so much that you'd want to be a part of their world and make you want to say goodbye to reality. This movie was a visual masterpiece, every scene was a spectacle, and this movie was an inspiration to so many other movies that were made during the decade. Outstanding camera work, sometimes it just makes you forget what's actually happening and admire how good the shot looks. I guess if I'm looking to nitpick this movie, this was the only thing that I can actually complain about, that it was so visually spectacular, it made me lose focus of the plot at times.

My plan was to basically just highlight what I liked about these three movies in particular and finish it by saying all three were equally good in their own way but watching these three films now has made me arrive at a conclusion which I really didn't expect to find myself in. Inception is Nolan's most original idea, perhaps his oldest idea, he had the script ready for years, he didn't have the budget for it but following the success of The Dark Knight and the name he earned for himself after that, he could even afford to make a terrible film and still keep his reputation untarnished. But Nolan managed to do the opposite. I'm going to go out on a limb and say this, Nolan made something better than The Dark Knight and Interstellar. The only person who can beat Nolan is Nolan and I'm hoping to be blown away by Tenet whenever we get a chance to catch it in theatres.

He had DC Comics material to guide him to make The Dark Knight trilogy, he himself has mentioned plenty of times that 2001: A Space Odyssey was his favorite film and that Interstellar is loosely based on that. Nolan created something from scratch, something which was supposed to be just a collection of abstract ideas and perfected it with such a flawless feature film, he literally made dreams a reality. Inception is Christopher Nolan's crowning jewel and watching these three films over these past few days transformed the question mark that I had into a full stop for me, to put it in simple words, Inception is 'Nolan's Best.'

Verdict

Fan in me: 10/10

Critic in me: 10/10

Justice League Dark Apokoplips War - The crowning jewel of DC animation

As a hardcore DC fan, I've often felt heartbroken and disappointed watching our feature films struggle to make an impact on the big screens with so much potential and so much source material going waste. Maybe this was because of too much studio interference, cast issues or maybe we didn't pick the right directors but for decades, DC and Warner Brothers have been killing it in the animation game. They've given us classics like Batman Mask of the Phantasm and a great set of animated series including Batman, Superman, and Justice League. The same streak continued when they started off the New 52 animated universe with Justice League War and Flashpoint Paradox.

While fans like me were feeling sorry for the DCEU's current state watching Marvel excel at every stage, the animated studio kept themselves quite busy with a universe comprising of the New 52 characters. They started off the universe with Justice League War and kept giving us a couple of movies every single year. Justice League Dark Apokolips War is the final entry of the universe and it was a masterpiece that was better than the box office mammoth Avengers Endgame itself. It was an experience of a lifetime with all our heroes coming together one last time. Just to give you an idea of how cool it was, it basically had the Justice League, Teen titans, suicide squad along with my new favorite John Constantine and his friends fighting together against the biggest baddie of the DC universe, the character of which Thanos was based on, Darkseid.

This movie turned out to be as good as it was because every single character had already been set up beautifully along the course of 15 movies and no character felt new. Next time someone says DC is no good at making Justice League films, I'd like to show them this. This movie was fan service personified and my favorite character from the entire series was Damian Wayne. His character arc was easily the best and most complex. They used up at least 4-5 films having him as the main hero and in the end, I ended up liking him more than Batman.

The movie focuses mainly on Superman, Damian Wayne, Raven, and John Constantine. Superman has never been handled any better, this doesn't show an evil Superman out of control. It has shown us the best of the boy scout and easily my favorite Superman of all time. I can say the same about the rest of the characters, with the coolest of them all being John Constantine, sorry Stephen Strange, but he's my new favorite wizard now. Raven and Damian's arc were perfect, I love that so much screentime was given for the Titans.

I've never seen a better climax in any other film, including the genius one from Doctor Strange and the portals scene from Avengers Endgame. It was such a fresh take, exceeded all my expectations, I didn't see it coming and the ending was literally out of this world. This whole universe started and ended the same way and it was a beautiful way to wrap it up. The reason behind this is our strong source material and I am extremely excited about the future of this universe even though they were clear about this being their final entry. I think I kind of know what they're going for with this ending but I don't want to spoil it here. Most of the DC fanboys can predict what's coming next and I for one cannot wait.

This is an R rated masterpiece once again proving to us that DC is the boss when it comes to the animated film game and their stories have been so much better and darker than any other story. Easily one of the darkest stories ever and that's saying something. This is my DCEU and I'm waiting for their next animated movie announcement to see if I'm right about where they're headed. I'm grateful for whatever they've done with the New 52 series and Justice League Dark Apokoplips War is the best DC animated movie I have ever seen and my favorite comic book movie of all time. The animated movie writers deserve so much more credit than they actually receive, I hope more people start watching DC animation. I really don't see why Warner Brothers don't even think about handing the big-budget films over to them because in the end it's all about telling a story and no one has done it better than the makers of the DC animated universe.

Here's the list of the New 52 movie universe for anyone who still thinks I'm out of my mind in saying that DC is better than Marvel or for anyone who just wants to explore the DC universe more.

1) Justice League Flashpoint Paradox
2) Justice League War
3) Son of Batman
4) Justice League Throne of Atlantis
5) Batman vs Robin
6) Batman: Bad Blood
7) Justice League vs Teen Titans
8) Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay
9) Justice League Dark
10) Teen Titans: The Judas Contract

11) Wonder woman Bloodlines
12) The Death of Superman
13) Reign of Superman
14) Constantine City of Demons
15) Batman: Hush
16) Justice League Dark Apokoplips War

Verdict:
Fan in me: 10/10
Critic in me: 9/10

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