Most Anticipated Films of 2008

The Dark Knight (2008)
director: Christopher Nolan
starring: Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart, Michael Caine, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman

-Before you read this review, know that there are many spoilers herein-

If I tell the press that tomorrow a gangbanger will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will get blown up, nobody panics. But when I say one little old mayor will die, everyone loses their minds! Introduce a little anarchy, you upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos. I am an agent of chaos. And you know the thing about chaos, Harvey? It's fair.

As you all have heard by now, this is the greatest film of the year. If you haven't seen this movie, you're behind and if you have seen this movie, you must understand that this is a great cinematic achievement. What The Dark Knight brings to the table is exactly what Batman Begins did, but with much more detail, gloom and realism. If you thought Batman Begins displayed a strong sense of realism, you're right, but it doesn't even come close to even compare with the unstoppable force called The Dark Knight. This film is epic, revolutionary and groundbreaking. Comic book films have never been known to be deep, dark or poignant. The Hulk, Fantastic Four and Daredevil, to name a few, were examples of what Marvel transformed into film versions in order to capitalize on the titles and make a decent dollar (which is exactly what happened). In 2004, Spider-Man 2 was released. This was the first comic book adaptation to actually delve deeper into social and political issues and tackle a much broader subject. Iron Man was the next comic book adaptation to have such success in both the box office and with the critics. However, no comic book film in history has ever amounted to the success of The Dark Knight. This second installment in the revitalized Batman franchise is perhaps one of the greatest crime dramas I have ever seen. It displays self-awareness in terms of genre, strong themes which aren't usually associated with comic book films and corrupt characters which have such profound importance that you can't help but find inspiration in Christopher Nolan's filmmaking.

This is the first Batman film that doesn't actually have the word "Batman" in the title. This film's title, The Dark Knight, is more suitable than any other title this film could have received and it's better this way. If "Batman" was in the title, it would have made the film seem less mature than it is; this film is an exercise of societal understanding. Through it's blatant corruption and downfall, this film automatically becomes one of the most dark crime dramas ever made and giving this film a title such as The Dark Knight allows not only Batman to battle his character, but gives us insight into the other characters' battles as well. This quote that Harvey Dent says perfectly describes the outcome of the film: "You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain."

Ultimately, what this film depicts in its finale is the destruction of society's trust in a hero. After Harvey Dent is killed as Two-Face, Batman decides to protect society by posing as the villain and letting Dent be recognized as the hero. Even though Dent was corrupted by The Joker and went on a vicious killing spree, Batman and Detective Gordon both understood what needed to be done in order to preserve the stability of society in Gotham; Batman let Dent be seen as the hero for he believed that a hero should have a face and relate on a human level to the citizens (even though Dent later destroyed his "white knight" reputation). Batman knows he can no longer be acknowledged as a hero and finds it hard to relate to the public through his costumed self. Batman lacks human qualities and this adds to the study of his identity crisis, but in this film, the one thing that allowed us to see the humanity in his character was his love for Rachel. When that was destroyed, Batman hit a dead end and became corruptible again. The deep character analysis of Bruce Wayne/Batman is lengthy, but it is one that's more philosophical than any other character out there.

The character relationships in this film are somewhat complex, but very understandable. The three main characters are Batman, The Joker and Harvey Dent. In a detailed triangle of conflicts, all three of these characters are foils to one another. The most evident foil being between Bruce Wayne and Harvey Dent. Aside from the main Batman storyline, Harvey Dent's storyline is probably the most important in the film. Dent is easily a character which we can sympathize with and feel his pain. Once Dent is transformed into Two-Face, he becomes an agent of vengeance and his character development deepens. Literally having two faces allows his character to openly battle his identity and dilemmas (good versus evil in most cases, which is why his coin is also an important symbol). He has incredible importance to this film in terms of exposing Batman's corruptibility and the degradation of law and order in Gotham.

The Joker is also a vital character in the film. His origin and motives are unnamed, but this is for a reason. The Joker doesn't need an origin for he illustrates mayhem and anarchy and isn't really that significant other than for the sole purpose of wreaking havoc and being a catalyst for the battle between Batman and Two-Face. Comparing The Joker with previous film villains might reveal other integral facts about his limited importance. Anton Chigurh from No Country for Old Men and John Doe from Se7en are two characters which come very, very close to The Joker in terms of origin and motive. Having none allows this character to be completely chaotic. As I said in my review of Se7en, the villain character completely goes against the normal conventions of cinema and takes it to another level. The same goes for this film. The normal film conventions of the villain are completely diminished almost instantly in the first scene of the film in which The Joker (masked as a bank robber), murders all of his accomplices and keeps the money to himself. Having no morals, values or ethics brings The Joker that much further in the state of corruption and evil that is being placed upon Gotham.

As an ensemble, this cast is excellent and as singular performances the cast is even better. Assembling a cast of great actors like this and having them all play characters with such vital roles could not have been easy to do. Utmost congratulations to Christopher Nolan, Jonathan Nolan and David S. Goyer for creating such terrific characters and a masterful screenplay. The Bruce Wayne/Batman character was written with much more depth than it was in the first film. Allowing Batman to have such a strong character foil that is Harvey Dent gave him a huge obstacle to overcome, which only lead to a tragic ending for everyone. Aaron Eckhart was also fantastic as Harvey Dent. Dent is a character that takes a great actor to play and that's what we received with Aaron Eckhart. He takes his performance to higher levels each time we see him on the screen, especially when he is transformed into Two-Face and exudes a dying hope in humanity that makes it easy for him to be compared to one of Shakespeare's tragic leading men. Supporting performances from Maggie Gyllenhaal, Gary Oldman, Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman are all fantastic and each of them have at least one scene in which they steal the scenes. Maggie Gyllenhaal replaced Katie Holmes in the role of Rachel Dawes, the love interest of Bruce Wayne (and Harvey Dent in this installment). She is a vast improvement over the dull Holmes and gives an emotionally wrought performance that still sticks with me days after I've seen the film.

I've tried to leave the best for last and this is a better time than any to mention the powerhouse performance by Heath Ledger. The Joker is visibly an extremely tough role to play and Ledger not only played the role perfectly, he embodied the character and nailed every single intricacy. Talks of an Oscar nomination for his role are going around and I cannot help but support the campaign for a posthumous nomination. No one has ever played a villain with such commitment and Ledger's performance ranks up there with Hopkins' Hannibal Lecter and Perkins' Norman Bates. His portrayal blows Jack Nicholson right out of the water and makes him look like a fool for ever trying to play The Joker like he did. Not only is Ledger's performance the best of this film, but easily one of the best performances I have seen by an actor. I will continue to praise Ledger and spread news of his performance and I hope he gets the recognition he deserves for this performance which is truly haunting. Rest in peace, Heath.

In general, this film exhibits such mastery in its way of dealing with such topical issues. Christopher Nolan's direction is not only superior to that of his first installment, but superior to any other director that has attempted this kind of cinematic commentary before The Dark Knight. As Peter Travers stated, this film has come along way and breaks the barriers of being known as just a comic book film and delves into the depths of cinema and grounds itself with such masterpieces as Goodfellas, Heat and The Godfather. It's a crime drama like no other that not only displays an acute sense of social and political emphasis, but much more interesting relationships like that of William Shakespeare's tragedies. Many connections can be made between this film and Shakespearean plays such as Hamlet, Macbeth and even Romeo and Juliet. It would be ridiculous of me to even bother saying I highly recommend this, because that's obvious. This film is an epic masterpiece and a vehicle for success. It will go down in history and be praised for a long, long time, guaranteed.

Iron Man (2008)
director: Jon Favreau
starring: Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Jeff Bridges, Terrence Howard, Shaun Toub, Leslie Bibb, Faran Tahir

This is undoubtedly the best Marvel adaptation since Spider-Man 2 in 2004. Something went right with this film that completely failed with other Marvel films like Daredevil and Hulk. I wasn't too thrilled to see this film when it was being advertised, but I gave it a chance anyway because I figured it would have some redeeming qualities and if nothing else, Robert Downey Jr. is in it. I was completely blown away by this film and it was not at all what I expected. This, like most of the other superhero films, shows the hero's origin and life before his super-days. Politically aware and very topical, this film tackles themes and elements that most films wouldn't normally get away with. Being a comic-book adaptation, Iron Man uses its fictional elements and combines them with topical political themes and pulls off a great story (for the most part).

Tony Stark, a billionaire inventor and popular playboy, is on a trip to Afghanistan to demonstrate his new missile for the American soldiers. While he is there, his car is attacked and he is taken prisoner. His captors force him to build the same missile he was promoting for them. While in captivity, Stark meets an Afghan doctor who builds a piece of equipment that is used to prevent the shrapnel in his chest (from the attack) from reaching his heart and killing him. Also, Stark uses the time to assemble not a missile, but a high-tech suit of metal that will allow him to escape. After his escape, he holds a press conference at his company's headquarters in the US and announced that Stark Industries will no longer produce weapons. He begins assembling a new suit of armour with updated features, but soon realizes that his business associate, Obidiah Stone, has been selling Stark produced weapons to the enemies behind his back. Stone also steals Stark's plans for the Iron Man suit and builds his own. Stark now has to destroy the weapons used by the Afghans and prevent Stone from producing his own Iron Man.

The screenplay was very good for most of the film, but I felt that the story became a little weak about three quarters of the way through. When Obidiah Stone assembled his own Iron Man and began wreaking chaos on the city I couldn't help but think of Hulk and Nick Nolte's transformation. It was a very similar plot point and seeing as how I thought Hulk was a big piece of garbage, that really irritated me about this film. Otherwise, I thought the screenplay was very well written and the characters were very well developed.

Robert Downey Jr. was the perfect choice for Tony Stark. He and Stark are one in the same and the similarities between them are uncanny. A lot of people have a negative view of Downey Jr. for what has happened with him in the past, but I do believe he is one of the greatest actors working today and has lost a lot of credit for some stupid things he has done. He continues to give stellar performances and this is, by far, his best. He had exactly what the character needed; arrogance, brilliance, sarcasm, humour and the look. He is Tony Stark and I cannot commend the casting of him more.

The supporting cast was also impressive, most notedly Gwyneth Paltrow. I've spoken to a lot of people who didn't care for her "damsel-in-distress performance", but I disagree 100%. I don't think she played a damsel-in-distress at all. In fact, I think she was a very independent character and great female lead who wasn't exactly the main focus of the film, but did prove to be important in not only the plot development, but also the development of Stark's character. This is one of her better supporting performances since The Royal Tenenbaums in 2001. Jeff Bridges was misused in some scenes and played the typical villain which didn't impress me at all, but he did excel in the scenes that weren't with Robert Downey Jr. Terrence Howard had little screen time, but his one scene at Stark's house in which he [indirectly] confirms that there will be a sequel made me smile.

Jon Favreau has never really done anything great before having only directed some mediocre films (Elf, Zathura), but here he did some fine work. He isn't exactly experienced with directing an action film, but he did great with Iron Man and even managed to give himself a small part in the film (go figure).

Iron Man is one of the best Marvel films I have seen and easily the best since 2004's Spider-Man 2. It is in a different league than Hulk, Elektra, etc. Having some topical political scenes didn't hurt this film's excellence either. What made this film, however, was Robert Downey Jr. His performance was amazing and that alone makes me want a sequel. Iron Man 2 sounds like music to my ears especially after seeing the hidden scene with Samuel L. Jackson after the credits. If you've seen it, you know what I mean and if you haven't, you're missing out. So now, I await the sequel, but I am hoping Michael Bay stays miles away from it.

Wanted (2008)
director: Timur Bekmambetov
starring: James McAvoy, Angelina Jolie, Morgan Freeman, Thomas Kretschmann, Terence Stamp, Common

Now this is a damn decent action film. They need to make them like this more often!

Review coming soon .