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Surprisingly good movie. Very rare to see a mass-appeal comic book film with an actual aesthetic and vision in today's market. The look and feeling of the comedy club scenes in particular were so well-done. I went in expecting a totally poo poo King of Comedy/Taxi Driver rip-off but it really felt like its own beast, with obvious references to those films It's a comic book movie through-and-through, which has confused some people I think. Very cartoony and heightened. Very funny in places as well, which is strange because the reviews I read lead me to believe it was really depressing and self-serious. Of course a young Batman is going to appear. I talked to some friends and they agreed that the killing scene at the end could work on its own as the grand finale to the film's social unrest rather than a cringey lead-in to a new Batman movie. I wasn't so sure, but if they say so... The film in general is visually inspired in ways the recent Marvel films I've seen haven't been. Phoenix has an insane instinct for knowing how to create images with his weird body, like that scary flex he does while his face is painted white in the apartment. Even the Bruce Wayne scenes this thread seems to think are naff got the imagery so so right, that serious little kid is perfect and the creepy little silent act Arthur does is spot-on. I think someone in this thread said that the "class warfare" aspects of the film are just window-dressing. They are 100% right and the film admits as such. The Joker literally says "I'm not political, I don't believe in anything". The movie seems to be commenting more on the kind of mania that people find themselves in nowadays, at least according to the news. It really is as simple as "the whole world's gone crazy". Same as Taxi Driver, now that I think about it, but in today's context (even though it's set in the 80s, if that makes sense). The only social position the film really seems to advocate is not alienating or disenfranchising the mentally ill, which I think is fairly unique and admirable for a mass-appeal comic book film.
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Oct 5, 2019 10:23
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JOHN SKELETON posted:I know, but I was trying to express that if you just concentrate on this movie's story without the Batman connection, those parts are just unnecessary and distracting. They don't effectively tie in to the story or the themes, they are there just for the fans to get that "I know what that is!" moment. You can do nods like that without it being distracting, like maybe if Bruce was in the background or indirectly referenced, I dunno. You could argue that the violence and madness Arthur causes leads to a childhood trauma comparable to what he suffered. The film doesn't substantially flesh out that backstory enough for that to be totally convincing, though. In any case the child within me who loves Batman liked those scenes just for how "right" they looked and I don't think they detracted from the movie
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Oct 5, 2019 11:39
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