Early reviews for the Dark Knight are about to hit the net, but Rolling Stone Magazine is getting the jump on them all. And it looks good!
Heads up: a thunderbolt is about to rip into the blanket of bland we call summer movies. The Dark Knight, director Christopher Nolan’s absolute stunner of a follow-up to 2005’s Batman Begins, is a potent provocation decked out as a comic-book movie. Feverish action? Check. Dazzling spectacle? Check. Devilish fun? Check. But Nolan is just warming up. There’s something raw and elemental at work in this artfully imagined universe.I can only speak superlatives of Ledger, who is mad-crazy-blazing brilliant as the Joker. Miles from Jack Nicholson’s broadly funny take on the role in Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman, Ledger takes the role to the shadows, where even what’s comic is hardly a relief…It’s typical of Ledger’s total commitment to films as diverse as Brokeback Mountain and I’m Not There that he does nothing out of vanity or the need to be liked. If there’s a movement to get him the first posthumous Oscar since Peter Finch won for 1976’s Network, sign me up.
I actually expected as much from the reviews and I am relieved that the hype sounds like it will live up to the trailers.
Of course it would be in bad form to cut up Ledger so I expected a slightly tainted review, but this guy is convinced that Ledger knocks it out of the park. I don’t doubt him for a second.
Do you think the performance could be that groundbreaking to justify a posthumous Oscar? Could a role in a superhero movie deserve an Oscar?
That alone just doubled my already pants wetting anticipation for this film.
