The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

First Hit: The film could have been interesting; however the execution was poorly conceived and didn't live up to its own imagination.

 Heath Ledger was the star in this film but he died before he could complete it.

In this movie Heath plays Tony a conning trickster of sorts and is first introduced into this film by being rescued from under a bridge where he is hanging by his neck. How did he survive? He had a small metal flute placed in his throat to keep his windpipe from being crushed.

The people who find him hanging under the bridge and rescue him are Valentina (played by Lily Cole), Anton (played by Andrew Garfield) and Percy (played by Verne Troyer). This group of people is traveling in an ancient looking old rickety two story wood wagon drawn by two horses with a wizened old Doctor Parnassus (played by Christopher Plummer). 

Hundreds of years earlier, this wise old Doctor sold his soul to the devil (played by Tom Waits) so that he could marry the woman of his dreams. She died having their child Valentina. What did Parnassus wager with the devil when he sold his soul? His daughter would be turned over to the devil on her 16th birthday if he hadn't converted a particular number of souls.

With her 16th birthday just a couple days away, Parnassus makes a new deal with the devil. If he can save 5 souls before midnight on the eve of his daughter’s birthday he can keep his daughter.

To save souls Parnassus has a mirror people can walk through and when he is concentrating, the moment people walk through the mirror, their imagination becomes their reality.

They become in touch with their true soul and with this new information come back out of the mirror to lead a saved life.

Tony is a con man, and an expert at conning women into going into the mirror, and with four of the five souls saved everyone thinks the girl will be saved from the devil. However the show goes bad when a bunch of Russians in the audience recognize Tony as the guy who stole their money (which was the reason why he was hanging by his neck under the bridge).

To escape, Tony goes into the mirror three times and each time, because Ledger was dead before they shot this part of the film, a new actor plays him.

The actors playing Tony in the Imaginarium are Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell. Each does their impression, of sorts, of how Ledger would have been in the Imaginarium but none of them pull it off. Each time one of the new actors looks at a reflection of himself, they give a quizzical stare as if to say, so this is what I (Ledger) look like in my imagination?

Anyway, the film by this time has long since lost its way and is severely handicapped by the convoluted story and back stories which are presented to try to make the film make sense.

I would have rather seen “The Dark Knight” as Ledger’s last film because this one didn’t do him justice. Actors Cole, Garfield and Troyer are interesting and amusing from time to time but the story doesn't have any breathing room because it was always trying to fill in information the audience needs to know to make the next scene make sense. I thought Waits was an interesting choice as the devil because he has a gleam in his slit eyes which make him a likely devil. Plummer plays a good drunk but there is nothing extraordinary about his performance as this wizened old soul that use to keep the world working because he and his disciples kept the story going (yes, more back story). Depp, Law and Farrell did their best but there was little in their version of Ledger which matched up or tied back to Ledger outside of obvious character lines. There wasn't a feeling that these three actors were a continuum of Ledger's character. Charles McKeown and Terry Gilliam wrote this script while Gilliam directed it. Together they didn't seem that they had a clear idea of how to tell this story in a way that it sparked imagination; and wasn't this the point?

Overall: The film is overly convoluted and lacking in imagination. As much as I wanted to get into it because some of the Imaginarium sequences were fun and interestingly filmed, I felt like I needed to say goodbye and good riddance.

The Dark Knight

First Hit: Despite some strong performances and good effects this film is overly convoluted and more complicated than it needs to be.

I don’t particularly like films that overcomplicate stories. The Dark Knight is one of them.

At the end of the film I tried to recall the trip or excursion I was taken on during the previous two hours. I thought about why the story evolved the way it did and was that story clear. It is especially to this last point which had me frustrated about this film.

While watching the credits roll by, I couldn’t understand why the director and writer made this film so complicated with unnecessary plot twists and turns. Generally plot twists and turns are used to create interest and suspense but in this film it they just made it hard to understand.

Cleaning this up, a half hour could have been cut from the film, but then again that would have meant less special effects on which a large portion of this film is based.

Simply, the Joker (played by Heath Ledger) is causing havoc in Gotham. Because his thefts aren't about the money, the city government can't seem to find him, learn anything about him, or get a handle on what is going on. The Joker is about creating chaos and having a worthy and challenging opponent such as Batman (played by Christian Bale).

There is this whole story written around mob money being laundered in separate banks, then a plan to consolidate it, and all the money being controlled by some Chinese criminal which created needless complexity to the root of the story.

The simple fact is that there is a criminal named the Joker who is a criminal because it suits him and he does his deeds just for the sheer pleasure of them, to create chaos and unnerve society. Then you have, as the Joker would say, “The Batman”, who is both liked and disliked by the community because he is a vigilante crime fighter that helps the community by capturing the criminals that the government can't capture, but a good and strong police force wouldn’t need a vigilantly.

The Batman, like the Joker, are individuals, loners as you will, and are outcasts from society. The Joker is looking for a worthy adversary to “complete” him and Batman wants to retire so that he can have a more full life with Rachel (played by Maggie Gyllenhaal) and know the city is in safe keeping.

So the Joker is enticing Batman out to compete, as individuals, and to see who is the best. Herein lies the real story. It wasn't about mob money.

Christopher Nolan directed this wonderfully shot film. However, as previously mentioned, the plot was overly and needlessly complicated and the rapid cut editing took away from the beautiful shots of Gotham at night. Nolan got extremely strong performances from Ledger, Aaron Eckhart (as Harvey Dent and Two Face), and Morgan Freeman as (Bruce Wayne’s Chief Operating Officer). It is hard for me to rate Christian Bale’s performance because there aren't enough intimate conversational scenes as Bruce Wayne or The Batman. There are lots of shots of him swooping, standing on tall buildings, and fighting but that is it and therefore there wasn't much acting, just moving. Heath Ledger gave a very strong performance as the Joker and it was obvious he really made this character his own. Aaron Eckhart was outstanding as Harvey Dent, a shining light and hope for the city of Gotham, and Michael Caine was his usual elegant self as Bruce Wayne’s butler, friend and confidant.

Overall: This was a good movie and worth seeing, but I don’t believe it is a great movie. Some of the performances are very strong and many of the action sequences are very well done as well but the over complication and excessive quick cuts take away from more fully enjoying the performances.