Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Where's Adam West?

We're about to see a movie tomorrow night. Something about an owlish vigilante. Perhaps you've heard a murmur or two about it?

The deafening wall of media hype over Heath Ledger's performance is like a ring of airhorns surrounding a macabre piece of art—you want to cringe, turn your back, & wait for it to stop. Or if you can pick your way within the ring, there is something to be enjoyed by all accounts. However, the very enjoyment of it has now become something macabre in itself.

This is all part of the mental preparation that needs to take place in order to not be disappointed by a movie like this. It's what my friend Steve calls Managing Your Expectations. This is not going to be a fun summer explodaganza. It's a grim, ponderous, brooding affair, wrought with heavy political allegory. We're a long way from the glib indifference of Tony Stark. This is a tortured character who swallows up otherwise charismatic leading men and, in the words of Stephen Metcalf, turns them "into inert hunks of titanium-carbon-fiber weave."

In a way, the Batman franchise's somber reboot offers a morning-after counterpoint to Superman's flag-waiving for the American Way. (In the hands of several of The Batman's better writers, not the least of which is Frank Miller, Batman was at odds with Superman for being a strongarmed facist.) If Batman is America, and The Joker is this unpredictable new enemy that we don't understand, the message of this post-9/11 movie seems to be You're Doing It Wrong.

If this is the case, then my message to Chris Nolan would be you're doing it right.