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Well after the waiting and waiting for one of the most hyped films of the decade. I finally got along to the NZ premiere on Sunday. On the Imax screen of all places. Just in case Batman wasn’t big enough he’s now 10 stories tall…

The Dark Knight did not disappoint in any way. It was a fast paced action drama that exploded in your face with such a resolve to entertain and tantilse the senses. (Well at least sight and sound wise)

As sad as the loss of Heath Ledger is to the film world, he has left a legacy that in my humble opinion is quite possibly one of the best performances of all time and is not worthy of an Oscar but actually 2 Oscar’s. It is just that good! The supporting cast does not disappoint either. From Gary Oldman’s Gordon right through to Aaron Eckhart’s Harvey Dent… the emotion and drama that engulfs the audience and fully submerges each viewer into the powerfully displayed battle of Good versus evil. One key line that repeats several times in the film explains the journey that this film takes you on. “Either you die a hero or you live long enough to become the villain”. Fighting against the coldest killer or the vilest villain will mean hard choices to face. How far do you go in order to stop evil? Where is the line of no return? and where should it be crossed? The Dark Knight asks the question to all, does the ends justify the means? Or does strength & purity of character have higher value than the outcome?

I won’t spoil it for anyone by telling you what happens in this film. But the 2 and a half hours went by so fast with no down time and constant action packed scenes.

With two deaths linked to the picture it is by the far one of the most costly films ever made. (Not in dollars) and yet the American Film going public alone spent $155 million on seeing it in The Dark Knight’s opening weekend. (Beating the previous all time best of Spiderman 3′s $151 million)

At the end of the day this movie is gritty and violent but in my view so too is the battle of good versus evil that goes on through the world every day. Perhaps it’s about time we saw a hero stand up to bring about change.

Want another opinion?  Read Jonathan’s review of The Dark Knight.

Reviewed by: Jon E Clist.
Rating: M – Contains Violence.
Duration: 152 mins.
Genre: Action, Crime.
Director: Christopher Nolan.
Actors: Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Gary Oldman, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman.
Distributor: Roadshow.
Release Date: July 24, 2008.

Wall-E is another awesome animated film from the guys and gals at Pixar. The only reason I wouldn’t give it 5 out of 5 stars is that I saw the Dark Knight on the same day.

This I think is the best overall film from Pixar as it takes you on a wonderful emotional journey of loneliness, friendship and love through to loss and then finally triumph.

With very little dialogue in the first 2/3′s of this film it relies heavily on the emotion that is portrayed in the expression and action. As you sit and watch Wall-E you connect with his character and quickly love him. He is funny, curious and completely endearing. The story is a well thought out flowing tale of humanity’s strengths and flaws. We are loving but we are consumers.

In the futuristic world we see in Wall-E, our drive for consumption has seemly overtaken our desire to connect with each other. Leading us to evacuate the Earth and travel the Galaxy endlessly and hopelessly. That is until a small robot finds love and hope for all.

Benderspink has picked up the film rights to Red 5 Comics’ recently released horror/action comic “ZMDs: Zombies of Mass Destruction” by “Underworld” writer-producer Kevin Grevioux.

“ZMD” is the story of a new government weapons program that drops zombies, designed to be photosensitive and dissolve by a set time, into war zones at night to destroy the enemy population. But after one fails to self-destruct in the Middle East, a team of elite soldiers must enter hostile territory to stop a growing zombie army.

The project was brought to the company by production coordinator Josh Feldman and will be produced by Benderspink.

Red 5 Comics was created by Paul Ens, former director of Lucasfilm’s StarWars.com and Lucas Online, and Scott Chitwood, co-founder of TheForce.net and contributor to ComingSoon.net and SuperHeroHype.com. The company, based in Calgary, Alberta, began publishing its first books in the fall. Its “Afterburn” recently was set up at Relativity with Tobey Maguire and Neal Moritz producing.

Benderspink has carved a niche in comic book adaptations, setting up such projects as “Y: The Last Man” and “Drafted” at New Line, “Pencilneck” at Lionsgate and “Pet Robots” at Disney.

Grevioux, repped by WMA, is a stuntman and actor-turned-film and comic writer. He launched two comic book imprints and has been tapped to write “New Warriors” for Marvel Comics. [thr]

Back in 2005, Christopher Nolan re-imaged Batman into a darker, grittier, some how more realistic superhero. He picked Christian Bale for the lead role and he proved to be worth his weight in gold – as he does in most of his movies. Surrounded by a supporting cast that included Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine and Gary Oldman the Batman Franchise was brought back from depths of the campy ridiculousness of the 90s when a string of directors and terrible actors all but destroyed the man in black.

Three years later and Nolan has re-united the cast, and bought a new star to shine front and center, Heath ledger as The Joker. I’ll be honest and say that initially this worried me. The Joker was a character that had annoyed me immensely in the past – mainly due to Jack Nicholson’s less than serious portrayal in Tim Burton’s 1989 version of Batman.

Fortunately Nolan knows his stuff, and Heath embraced the role of a sociopathic killer who does everything, not for personal gain, but just because he enjoys anarchy. A character who could spread carnage throughout the entire movie with impunity.

The Dark Knight is a movie that focuses on The Joker; Batman is almost relegated to an also starred position. It’s The Joker who drives the movie, who gives depth to its darkness.

It’s in The Joker that we find a character so bad, yet so lovable. We almost want to embrace him for his tenacity, for his honest – if somewhat corrupt – motives. Fortunately we have Bruce Wayne and Harvey Dent to remind us which path to follow.

Why so serious?
It’s a question the Joker asks of various people in the movie. The joker is out to cause havoc, and have fun doing it. But he has a serious theory behind his motives: he believes that everyone is inherently evil, that they, given the conditions, would do just what he is doing. That all anyone really wants is a bit or anarchy.

Batman however has a different outlook, he wants people to take a stand and for Gotham to clean itself up and put him out of a job.

The result is an action packed, adrenaline fuelled ride that that starts off in top gear and never lets up, pounding through the two and a half hours at a blazing speed and leaving you breathless by the end of the movie.

The darker more serious tone of the movie is supported by the visual direction and the tonnage of violence, indeed the movie begins with backstabbing, murderous, criminals on a rampage. But the violence never seems gratuitous or overtly focussed on – rather like Joker’s reason for being, the violence tells the story of Gotham – a City that is still enveloped in darkness, but a city that has the glimmer of hope that comes with the breaking of dawn.

What about the Oscar?
Recently there has been a lot of buzz about Heath deserving an Oscar for his performance as the Joker. It was indeed a great performance, but I’m not sure it had the depth required for such an accolade. It was a performance that made the movie, but in the end he was a character that never evolved. I’d certainly like to see The Dark Knight movie honoured with an Oscar or two, maybe for production values or make up, as I think it deserves recognition beyond the Box Office records it’s been smashing, but I don’t think one individual deserves the credit for The Dark Knight.

The best movie of the year?
Probably not. I’d be prepared to go out on a limb and say The Dark Knight is the best Hollywood Blockbuster movie of the year. I don’t think anything else in that category will be able to touch it, but having seen a number of stand out performances during the Auckland International Film Festival, I feel the need to remind people that good movies come in all kinds of different packaging.

IMAX or not to IMAX
I was lucky enough to see The Dark Knight on the big IMAX screen. The opening scenes are filmed for the IMAX and fill the entire screen. It’s mesmerising and dizzying, giving the opening a grand sense of scale. Most of the movie however is filmed in standard wide screen format, that looks impressive on the IMAX screen, and the transition between the two formats is seamless and there are numerous scenes throughout the movie that encompass the full screen effect. Not having seen The Dark Knight on a standard cinema screen I can’t compare the two, but this I will say; if you’ve never seen a movie on the IMAX, this would be the one to see.

Food for thought (spoilers):
With all the talk of darkness and anarchy, it would be easy to dismiss this movie as self-indulgent entertainment. And it is. That’s one of the purposes of the movie industry. But also, as with most movies, it’s a form of story telling, and many stories have stories within them. It’s in these stories that the discerning viewer can find hidden gems. One such gem to look out for is during the scene where The Joker has two ferries packed with people set to blow up, but he’s leaving the choice as to who lives and who dies up to the people on the ferries. It’s the ace up his sleeve to prove his point, but them something unexpected happens.

Reviewed by: Jonathan Read.
Rating: M – Contains Violence.
Duration: 152 mins.
Genre: Action, Crime.
Director: Christopher Nolan.
Actors: Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Gary Oldman, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman.
Distributor: Roadshow.
Release Date: July 24, 2008.

“The Dark Knight” broke records like a disc jockey gone wild this weekend, upsetting former record-holder “Spider-Man 3″ with a best-ever opening estimated at $155.3 million.

The industry-record bow naturally yielded a studio high for Warner Bros. and personal bests for director Christopher Nolan and cast including topliner Christian Bale. But no less impressively, it also anchored a three-day weekend boxoffice record of $258 million, according to Nielsen EDI data.

Universal’s star-studded adaptation of the Broadway musical “Mamma Mia!” took second place over the phenomenal frame with a $27.6 million opening built on support from older females. Fox’s animated family comedy “Space Chimps” debuted in seventh place with $7.4 million.

Industrywide, the session’s collective boxoffice bested the $218.4 million weekend performance of July 7-9, 2006, which featured a $131.5 million opening for Disney’s “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest.”

The new industry record made mincemeat of conventional wisdom that a mid-July session could never pack such a punch and restored momentum in a seasonal boxoffice that’s now pulled even with the same portion of summer 2007. Year to date, 2008 still lags behind last year by 1% at $5.21 billion, EDI said.

Despite handicaps including a nearly 2 1/2-hour running time, the rapturously reviewed “Dark Knight” muscled aside previous record opener “Spider-Man 3,” which Sony opened to $151.1 million in May 2007. The latest “Batman” sequel dwarfed a previous pairing of Nolan and Bale on “Batman Begins,” which unspooled on a Wednesday in June 2005 to gross $72.9 million over its initial five days including a first-weekend haul of $48.7 million.

“This is a career-capper for anybody who works on a film like this in our business,” Warners distribution president Dan Fellman said. “It’s a great ride, and it’s just beginning, Most of the big summer films have already come out, so we have a great play time ahead of us.”

“Dark Knight” was produced in association with the Wall Street-funded Legendary Pictures, which co-financed half of the $180 million-plus production.

Although it also bowed big in more than a dozen foreign territories this weekend, most of the initial focus for “Dark Knight” was on its domestic performance. Industry officials now assume the film will be the summer’s biggest grosser, with some suggesting a domestic run of $350 million is assured simply on the basis of its first weekend.

Audience demographics for “Dark Knight” were ideally broad. Males represented 52% of patrons, with ticket-buyers evenly split between those under 25 and older moviegoers.

Grosses included $6.2 million from 94 Imax screens, which completely sold out throughout the weekend. The giant-screen haul solidly outpaced a previous Imax record of $4.7 million in Imax sales for the first weekend of “Spider-Man 3.”

“We sold out every single ticket in the country at every show,” Imax Filmed Entertainment president Greg Forster said. “We’re certainly sold out throughout (the weekend), and the majority of our theaters have sell-outs into next weekend and beyond. Our Web site has shut down multiple times.”

Nolan shot 30 minutes of the film using an Imax camera, stoking interest in the giant-screen version of “Dark Knight.”

Yet perhaps the biggest buzz-inducing element of the film’s pre-release marketing was its emphasis on the Heath Ledger’s role as Batman’s nemesis, the Joker.

Jack Nicholson played the character in 1989′s “Batman,” which starred Michael Keaton as the Caped Crusader. But in keeping with the grim tone of Nolan’s Batman films, Ledger brought a darker, more brooding approach to the character, and there’s talk he could be rewarded with a posthumous Oscar nomination for his success in pulling off the role.

Tim Burton’s original “Batman” fetched $251.2 million. For 19 years, that’s been a franchise-best domestic run, but now the tally is simply another record to be shattered by “Dark Knight.”

Friday was the sunniest day for “Dark Knight,” with an industry-record haul of $67.9 million brightened by thousands of midnight showings and even highly unusual showtimes such as 3 a.m. and 6 a.m. in many markets. Saturday brought in an estimated $48.1 million, and Warners penciled in roughly $39 million for Sunday.

“Mamma Mia!” — whose strong international cast includes Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth and Stellan Skarsgard — drew audiences comprised three-fourths by female moviegoers, with 62% of patrons age 30 and over.

“I’m so happy we were able to join in with the phenomenal weekend we’re having,” Universal distribution president Nikki Rocco said.

Prior to the weekend, Universal execs feared a record performance by “Dark Knight” might limit grosses for “Mamma Mia!” but the film ended up on the high end of pre-release projections in mounting a record opening for a musical. Assuming its weekend estimate holds up, “Mamma Mia!” outpaced previous record-holder “Hairspray,” a New Line release that bowed last July to $27.5 million.

“Space Chimps” — Distributed by Fox and produced and financed by Starz Media — skewed almost entirely to family moviegoers, as anticipated, and was never expected to figure among the frame’s top grossers.

“It was right in the range we were expecting,” Fox senior vp distribution Bert Livingston said.

Holdover films seemed a bit lost in the “Dark Knight” tsunami despite the record weekend boxoffice, though some films made out better than others.

Universal’s actioner “Hellboy II: The Golden Army” — the boxoffice champ last weekend — plummeted 71% in its second frame to $10 million in fifth place and a still-solid 10-day cume of $56.4 million.

But the 3-D adventure film “Journey to the Center of the Earth” from Warners, New Line and Walden Media dropped just 43% in its sophomore session — thanks to strong support from its hundreds of 3-D screens — to gross $11.9 million in fourth place with a $43.1 million cume.

Fox’s Eddie Murphy comedy “Meet Dave” tumbled out of the top 10 on a big 69% decline in its second frame, earning $1.6 million and marking a $9.4 million cume. [thr]

The new Batman movie, The Dark Knight, swooped into theatres to gross a record $US18.5 million ($NZ24m) from midnight preview screenings ahead of its official opening,.

That tally includes receipts from 12:01 am Friday showings only in 3,040 North American theaters – 3 am and 6 am screenings were not counted – and shattered the preview benchmark of $US16.9 million set by “Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith” in 2005, the studio said.

The robust advance screenings for Dark Knight bolstered projections that the film was headed for an opening weekend of $US100 million or more in the United States and Canada.

A $US100 million Dark Knight debut would more than double the $US47 million opening gross averaged by the five previous Batman movies released by Warner Bros, a unit of Time Warner Inc.

Those films have collectively amassed over $US1.6 billion in ticket sales worldwide since 1989, according to box office tracking service Media By Numbers.

The fortunes of Dark Knight, which cost about $US180 million to produce, were further brightened by mostly positive reviews and a record wide release in 4,366 US and Canadian theatres.

“We have been thrilled by the response to The Dark Knight, first from the critics and now from audiences,” said Dan Fellman, head of domestic distribution for Warner Bros, in a statement. “From our earliest screenings, the buzz on the film has been white hot, and it hasn’t let up.”

Box office analysts say the film is almost certain to surpass the $US100.1 million debut rung up in May by Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which would make Dark Knight the biggest opening so far this year.

Revenge of the Sith, by comparison, grossed $US108.4 million in its first Friday-through-Sunday frame from far fewer theaters than Dark Knight.

The last Batman movie, 2005′s Batman Begins, grossed nearly $US49 million its first weekend in North America and went on to collect about $US372 million worldwide.

Dark Knight, picking up where that film left off, reunites director Chris Nolan and star Christian Bale as the Caped Crusader. It also features the late Australian actor Heath Ledger in what turned out to be his last completed screen role, as Batman’s arch nemesis, the Joker.

Only 10 other movies have managed to cross the $US100 million domestic box-office mark in their first weekends, led by Spider-Man 3 with $US151 million in May 2007 and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest with $US135.6 million in 2006, the biggest July opening on record. [stuff]

A few years ago I watched Appleseed at the Auckland Film Festival, it’s gorgeous visual style, action and impressive storyline all combined to make it a memorial entry into the world of Japanese animation. Now a few years later the team behind Appleseed have released another “CGI blockbuster” that “ups the ante with its state-of-the-art animation and explosive big screen action” – I was sold, Vexille would have to be on my must see list.

Unfortunately, Vexille failed to live up to its predecessor. Admittedly, when it kicked into top gear, Vexille’s action was spectacular, edge of your sets stuff, but more often than not, for a supposed action packed movie, it seemed to be constantly missing a gear or two.

It was a visual treat and the Paul Oakenfold soundtrack kept up the pretense that you were part of a gigantic video game, but a video game that didn’t make a lot of sense and had you wandering aimlessly for too much time.

Reviewed by: Jonathan Read.
Duration: 109 mins.
Genre: Animation.

Directed, written and produced by filmmakers Annie Sundberg and Rikki Stern, The Devil Came on Horseback follows the experience of former Marine Captain, Brian Steidle and his experiences in monitoring the peace agreement between northern and southern Sudan, his following of the developing humanitarian crisis in Sudan’s western Dafur region and his subsequent work to compel the international community towards action to stop the genocide taking place and the crimes against humanity.

It begins by introducing us to Brian’s move into the military, a natural move considering his upbringing in a military home. Upon completing his obligated four years in the marines, Brian went looking for something else as he did not want to take a desk job and eventually took a job monitoring the ceasefire between northern and southern Sudan in 2004.

The Devil Came on Horseback gives us a glimpse into Brian’s growing interaction with the events taking place in Darfur, a genocide run by the Sudanese government and carried out in union between the Sudanese military and a militia group called the Janjaweed who were/are funded, supplied and trained by the Sudanese government and military.

We are introduced to Brian’s documented evidence of the genocide – graphic images of the violence and interviews with people from the Darfur region.

It is a documentary showing one man’s frustration with the events, his inability to stop them and his frustration with lack of action amongst the international community even in the face of his evidence that includes hundreds of graphic images.

Early emails to his sister show his optimism over how he believed the international community would act if they saw the evidence that he was seeing – images of things like young girl’s who had been shackled and burned alive in a girl’s school and their families who had been burned alive trying to save them.

Over the course of the documentary, that optimism is destroyed as he discovers the reality of politics and international relations.

One cannot help but watch this documentary, hear the evidence, listen to the stories, see the harrowing images and then share in Brian’s frustration and anger. The inhumanity up for viewing in this documentary is extreme and not for the faint hearted, but it’s a conflict everyone needs to gain an understanding of.

The imagery is gritty, shocking and compelling. The documentary feels unrelenting, showing us a harsh land filled with tales of extreme inhumanity. It’s not the sort of thing that should be viewed before bedtime and it should leave you thinking about it for much time following the initial watching. Most of all, it should compel you towards action, whatever you can do.

This is a humanitarian disaster we cannot ignore and The Devil Came on Horseback does not allow you the option of ignorance. After watching it you will walk away with a better understanding of the basics of the situation, a confusion at how people can lose their humanity and commit such acts, probably a sense of helplessness, but in that, hopefully you will realise that you can help change the situation It is a must watch.

For more information on the current situation in Darfur, goto: hcweb.org

Reviewed by: Frank Ritchie.
Rating: Not Available.
Duration: 87 mins.
Genre: Documentary.
Director: Annie Sundberg and Rikki Stern.
Distributor: Vendetta.
Release Date: Available now.

George A. Romero’s Diary of the Dead starts off with a group of film students trying to make a horror movie in the woods at night. Things aren’t going well however as the lead female takes the director to task over the typically un-realistic portray of women in the horror genre. It’s an in joke that will rear its head later in the movie, and it kind of sets the tone for Diary of the Dead.

As filming grinds to a halt, one of the crew is listening to the radio news and is the first to hear of the escalating outbreaks of the dead rising. Spooked by the news, the students set out on a road trip to try and get home, the student director however insists on bringing his camera along for the ride, so he can document this historic moment. Thus the movie has a whole student/documentary feel to it.

Of course documentary might be giving Romero too much credit, as this is pure mockumentary, where even this supposed master of the genre can’t but help make fun of everything, from the genre to the viewer which turned Diary away from the intense horror it could have been and forced it into a slapstick gorefest that had the audience laughing throughout the movie.

Sure it was good old fashioned entertainment, but as far as a good solid Zombie horror, I’m not sure it’s worth the price of admission. From what I hear, [REC] would be a better place to lay down your hard earned dollars if you want to scare yourself silly.

As a bleakly dark comedy, with copious amounts of cheese, Diary is sure to become a cult classic when it’s released on DVD.

Food for thought:
On thing Romero seems to have an eye for is social commentary, and in a world gone literally to hell, it’s everyman for himself. It is societies view that you have to look after number one however that leads to societies downfall in Zombie movies. Being selfish leaves you with no one to watch your back.

Reviewed by: Jonathan Read.
Rating: R16 – Contains violence, offensive language, horror.
Duration: 85 mins.
Genre: Horror, Zombie.
Director: George A. Romero.
Actors: George Buza, Joshua Close, Joe Dinicol, Amy Ciupak Lalonde, Tatiana Maslany, Tino Monte, Michelle Morgan, Megan Park, Philip Riccio, Martin Roach, Shawn Roberts, Alan Van Sprang, Chris Violette, Scott Wentworth.

The second trailer for Twilight hits the web, and whilst being somewhat more interesting than the first, I’m still not sold. It looks too clean for a vampire flick.