“The Dark Knight” doesn’t open till next Friday, but already Christopher Nolan’s “Batman Begins” sequel is being favorably compared to the first film. I’ve seen “The Dark Knight,” and I can tell you a big reason:
Although most sequels turn out to be inferior to their predecessors, superhero movies operate under a different set of rules. The introductory installment invariably must detail the hero’s origins. In subsequent movies the hero can get down to business.
“Spider-Man 2” was superior to “Spider-Man.” Many enjoyed “Superman II” more than “Superman”; I’d at least argue that the original 1978 “Superman” gets going only after it dispenses with the back story and fits Christopher Reeve in his cape and tights.
This all makes sense. If you’re a comic-book fan, is your favorite issue the first one or a greater adventure down the line?
George Lucas had it right when he opened “Star Wars” smack in the middle of the overall saga. He blew it when he later devoted three entire movies to an unsatisfying explanation of how Darth Vader got to be so evil. No one asked.
Hannibal Lecter fascinated readers and viewers in “The Silence of the Lambs” (and previously, “Red Dragon”/“Manhunter”). Trying to make sense out of how he became a liver-and-fava-beans-munching cannibal, as author Thomas Harris and director Peter Webber did in the book and movie of “Hannibal Rising,” was a wasted effort.
The biggest problem with Tim Burton’s “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” adaptation was all of that added blather about how Willy Wonka was shaped by his troubled relationship with his father. Willy Wonka is magical. You don’t explain magic.
Christopher Nolan (a former Evanstonian!) gets it. Praise is justifiably being heaped on the late Heath Ledger for his nervy, charismatically wacko turn as the Joker in “The Dark Knight.” But a key reason Ledger was able to thrive was that the director and his co-writer brother Jonathan Nolan didn’t bog down the character with a heavy load of expository baggage.
Twice in the movie, the Joker tells someone how he became such a bizarre, scarred, face-painted spectacle, and one explanation bears no relation to the other. All we learn is that he’s a twisted liar, and we need not know more. Christopher Nolan, who has likened the Joker to the shark in “Jaws,” gives Ledger the freedom to define this psychopathic villain, and we sit and watch, riveted by how he does so.
In contrast, the one aspect of “The Dark Knight” that’s been drawing criticism is the handling of a dramatic transition made by the upright district attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart). Here’s a character who, unlike the Joker, does have a narrative arc, but presenting it to audiences in a way that scans emotionally while working in a comic-book context is a bit of a reach.
Mind you, I’m not arguing against character development. If anything Spider-Man’s character and struggles deepen in that second movie (before they go kablooey in the third). But the most compelling heroes and villains are forces that operate beyond the realm of logic.
We can be transfixed by Javier Bardem’s Anton Chigurh in “No Country for Old Men” or Dennis Hopper’s Frank Booth in “Blue Velvet” without knowing how they came to be that way. Likewise, audiences immediately warmed up to James Bond in “Dr. No” and Indiana Jones in “Raiders of the Lost Ark” without knowing their biographical histories. True, “Casino Royale” did serve as a semi-formal reintroduction to Agent 007, but it still doesn’t tell you how Bond became such a brute force.
The truth is that most extreme personalities defy explanation, and that’s as it should be. If real-life friends and acquaintances sometimes prompt us to shake our heads and say, “Gee, I thought I knew them,” then why should the most interesting movie characters be easily summed up?
We don’t watch superhero movies so we can understand these larger-than-life figures. Being amazed by them is more than enough.
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