Movie review: The Dark Knight

Wow. Just, wow. When I wrote my review for Iron Man, I said that it would become a standard against which other superheroes movies would be compared to. Well, The Dark Knight certainly compares favourably. I found it to be excellent! Despite being two hours and a half, I didn't want it to finish. I didn't know it was that long when I went to see it, but as I was watching it, I knew it was longer then usual, not because I was getting bored, but because I was getting so much! And I'm certainly not alone thinking so. It broke records, it's getting great reviews from both professional critics and regular movie goers and it currently holds IMDB #1 spot of their Top 250, with over 91K votes. It is that good.

I did go see it on it's official opening day, after work. I wanted to see the Imax version, so I went "early" to buy my ticket during my lunch time. When I got to the theatre, all Imax showings for the day were already sold-out. Darn. But I had to see it that evening, so I bought a regular ticket. The Montreal's Scotiabank movie theatre (formerly the Paramount) still has excellent and big screens as regular ones. I will go back to see this movie and this time, it will be Imax.

Great performance from all the main actors, including Heath Ledger as the Joker. Once again, the Joker steals the show, but this time it's even better. The Jack Nicholson version was good, but it was Nicholson in Joker makeup. This new version is just the Joker. The actor disappear and we are left with a pure evil Joker. That's a compliment, in case I'm not clear. It's really too bad Ledger can never take this, or any other role in the future. He even performs a magic trick like you have never seen before!

The other actors include Christian Bale as Batman, Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent, Michael Caine as Alfred Pennyworth, Gary Oldman as Lt. James Gordon, Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox and Maggie Gyllenhaal as Rachel Dawes, plus many more.

The story keeps you guessing and is very well written. This is more then your typical three acts script. It's very human and you care about the characters, who are faced with difficult problems and dilemmas. There's a bit of humour, some of it pretty dark, but it's pretty serious most of the time. Oh, also, there's action! Fights, chases and a whole lot of violence, although not as graphic as they could have make it (probably to keep it PG-13).

Don't bring young kids to see this movie, but do go see it yourself (unless you're a young kid...). Even if you're not a typical superheroes fan, this one might be able to get you to start liking this genre. If you are a fan, you probably saw it already, but if not, what are you waiting for? You have to see this on the big screen.

Movie review: Wanted

I knew two things when I went to see Wanted: It was an action movie, starring Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman. First, the real star is James McAvoy, unknown to me until then, who plays Wesley Gibson, a man with talents he doesn't know he has, until he his contacted by a member of The Fraternity, an assassins group. That member is Fox, played by Jolie. The leader of the group is Sloan, played by Freeman. Second, while it is an action movie, I found it to be more then what the trailer let us know. That's a good thing. And I'm not just talking about a single surprise twist to the story at the end of the movie, but several plot development to the story. Of course, it does have it's lot of improbable or even impossible scenes, has can be witnessed in the trailer.

I do not want to spoil the story, so I'll keep it brief. Gibson works in a cubicle, in an office, as an accountant. He's been at it for a while and he'd love nothing more than leaving that job, but doesn't have the nerves to do it. He keeps taking the abuse from the boss and takes pills to deal with the stress. After his encounter with Fox and a wild ride running from another assassin who rebelled against The Fraternity, he gets to meet Sloan and the rest of the gang. He learns about his father's history with the group and about his own abilities. At first, he doesn't want to join, but after a few more work related events and other events in his personal life, he will of course join the guild.

What follows is training, missions and revenge. One of the thing that pushed him was the fact that his father was killed by a rogue member of The Fraternity. Everything leads to this final vengeance, or so he believes. Other things gets in the way. In particular, the obligatory assassination orders, which are summoned in a very unique way. I can't really say more, except that the visuals are very good, there are many great action scenes, as well as over the top sequences and a bit of humour here and there, for good measure. Good casting too, I didn't know many of the actors, but they did a good job.

Of course, there's a lot of violence, so don't bring young kids along. And one word of advice: Don't stand on that X on the floor... ;-)