Scott Brooks Said What?

This was my most highly anticipated movie of the summer. It was “The Departed” starring Batman and The Joker. I went with 2 people a couple of years older than me and 4 teens (14, 14, 15, and 15)

The teens’ reviews: “Boring”, “I thought it would have been better”, “Loved it”, and “FN awesome”.

My review: Pretty Good.

Heath Ledger as the joker turned in a good performance. He was the highlight of the film. The blazing reviews he has been getting for his acting job is based on these factors: 1) He did a GOOD job. 2) The movie is very slowly paced so his under-the-top performance is a jolt in a slow paced movie. 3) Post Death Honors 4) All the cool lines in the movie went to the Joker. (They didn’t give Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman, Aaron Eckhardt, or Michael Caine anything interesting to say or do. I don’t remember 1 thing Batman said.) The Joker’s magic trick is CLASSIC.

I picked up on several of the inspirations for Ledger’s Joker. The obsessive annoying lip licking is straight from Hannibal Lector when he licked at Jodie Foster. The punk kid act is straight from A Clockwork Orange’s Alex as played by Malcolm McDowell. There were a couple of forced Nicholson’s Joker laughs. He also very much reminded me of Jigsaw puppet from Saw. So for me it was like listening to a really good a Beastie Boys song from “Paul’s Boutique” where all the samples form something cool but you still know that it’s really a lot of other people’s work that’s been incorporated. Kinda of an Andy Warhol painting of a soup can or Marilyn Monroe. No matter how many people say how original it is, it’s still not a Michelangelo.

So if The Academy wants to give him a posthumous Oscar that he maybe should have earned for Brokeback Mountain, who am I to protest. But, this was not in the same class as Jack Nicholson’s joker by any stretch of the imagination.  Had Jack Nicholson reprised his role with this script it would have been truly something magical.

The Rest of the Movie: I’m tired of the self conscious superhero looking for an excuse to quit storyline. But, I enjoyed the movie with all of its flaws. I would watch it again. To me it was as if they took the movie, “The Departed” and added in Batman and The Joker. And I really liked The Departed. I’m going to break it out on DVD asap as soon as I watch Jack Nicholson, Michael Keaton, and Tim Burton’s more entertaining Batman on DVD. Maybe I’ll watch them in picture in picture.

I do recommend the movie. It is pretty good. Better than The Incredible Hulk (who also played that get me out of here superhero role). Not as fun as Iron Man but with a much better villain. Not as good as Wanted with Angelina Jolie.

UPDATE: Quote from MSNBC review about Heath Ledger’s performance: “Nothing that Jack Nicholson, much less Cesar Romero, created even comes close.” That is utter nonsense. It’s a journalistic crime to insult and belittle the all-time best superhero villain performance just for the sake of hyperbole. Jack Nicholson has 3 Academy Awards (Oscars) for Best Actor and another 9 nominations. He was robbed of an Oscar for his take as the Joker in Batman but did win a Golden Globe for Best Leading Actor for Batman, a BAFTA, a Saturn, and various other awards. It’s a fallacious argument to tear one person down in order to build another up. How come it isn’t reasonable to say Ledger’s performance stands up to Nicholson’s?