My age, intellectual endeavors, and general disdain for popular culture would seem to make me impervious to Hollywood crushes. But ever since I saw American Psycho, I’ve had this thing for Christian Bale. It’s a cerebral attraction, I assure you: I think he’s really hot.
So I’ve been looking forward to seeing Bale’s second turn as Batman in The Dark Knight, and he didn’t disappoint. Granted, it’s kind of hard to see Bale’s face when its covered by that pesky bat mask, but I enjoyed watching his mouth as it trash-talked villains, rough-talked politicians, and sweet-talked Maggie Gyllenhaal. Bale’s suave, cool, slightly priggish good looks are in full bloom as Bruce Wayne, and all I can do to quell my inner swooning is touch my engagement ring and think faithful thoughts.
Mr. Tall Dark and Handsome Knight is not the star of the show, it’s the late Heath Ledger, whose much-hyped performance as The Joker is generating posthumous Oscar buzz. Honestly, though Ledger’s dark and creepy Joker is a welcome departure from Jack Nicholson’s jovial and innocuous interpretation, it just didn’t scream “Give that man an Oscar!” to me. I say, give it to Christian Bale instead!
As far an action movies go, the Dark Knight is riveting, if only because the pace is so fast that one moment of lapsed concentration could cause 10 subsequent minutes of confusion. I know that mass market movie-goers like fast paced movies, especially if each scene is punctuated by an explosion, gun fire, or a car chase, but I had a hard time keeping up. Adding to my confusion was that a surprising amount of dialogue was drowned out by background music or sound effects. Plus, as previously mentioned, Christian Bale’s mouth is fitfully distracting.
