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THE DARK KNIGHT Given the fact that Christopher Nolan's 2005 Batman Begins ranks as one of the best superhero flicks ever made, then where does that put this sequel that manages to be even more phenomenal than its predecessor? Certainly, it places it somewhere at the head of the class, and there's a nice symmetry to its release date: After all, it was 30 years ago that the Christopher Reeve version of Superman – still the greatest of all comic book adaptations – was released, and now we have its equal on the other side of the aisle, a superhero saga that's as dark and deep as its forefather was cheery and colorful. In fact, this might be the first superhero movie that exudes a palpable sense of dread and menace that tugs at our nerves in a way that both disturbs and delights us. Even in superior entertainment like Spider-Man and Iron Man, there's a feeling that it's all make-believe, but The Dark Knight offers no such safety net – it wears its danger on its sleeve. In this outing, Batman (Christian Bale) has done a fine job of tightening the reins around the mob bosses who have long controlled Gotham City, and he's soon aided in his efforts by idealistic district attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart). But their combined attempts to corral the city's crooks are hampered by the presence of a murderous psychopath known as The Joker (Heath Ledger). Eckhart stands out in what proves to be the picture's most fully realized characterization, though we all know who's the MVP of this particular show: The late Ledger is simply mesmerizing as this whirling dervish of cackling, lip-smacking, cheek-sucking sin. ****
THE MUMMY: TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR 1999's The Mummy was a barely passable Indiana Jones rip-off, while 2001's The Mummy Returns proved to be rather dismal. This one, though, is the worst of the lot. In the China of 2,000 years ago, a sorceress (Michelle Yeoh) places a curse on an evil emperor (Jet Li) who can now only be awoken by a drop of human blood; cut to 1946, where retired adventurer Rick O'Connell (series star Brendan Fraser) and his wife Evelyn (Maria Bello, replacing Rachel Weisz after the latter declared, "Screw this; I have an Oscar now!") mope around their English estate while son Alex (Luke Ford) is off digging up the emperor. Plot contrivances reunite all of them – plus Evelyn's brother Jonathan (returning stooge John Hannah) – in Shanghai, and from there, the gang is forced to fight the now-revived emperor. The sloppiness of the entire enterprise is immediately evident by the fact that the 27-year-old Ford looks nowhere near young enough to be playing the son of 39-year-old Fraser and 41-year-old Bello. From there, the movie only gets more absurd; for example, do the O'Connells really encounter abominable snowmen who, based on the employment of a field goal signal, must subscribe to DIRECTV's NFL Sunday Ticket package? And do scripters Alfred Gough and Miles Millar think that audiences will be impressed by dialogue that basically consists of variations on Rick yelping, "Well, here I am fighting mummies again!"? This manages to make even an epic battle between armies of the undead a dull undertaking. Clearly, here's a perfunctory franchise which needs to take a long-overdue dirt nap. *
MY WINNIPEG There probably won't be a more abstract and experimental movie released in Charlotte this year than Guy Maddin's My Winnipeg, yet for all its avant-garde innovations, its biggest source of delight is decidedly a flesh-and-blood one. That would be the presence of 87-year-old Ann Savage, appearing on screen for the first time in 22 years. Film buffs will remember Savage as the slinky femme fatale in the 1945 film noir classic Detour, and here she plays the other type of femme fatale: mommy dearest. The third picture in what Maddin refers to as "the 'me' trilogy" (after 2003's Cowards Bend the Knee and 2006's Brand Upon the Brain!), this finds a character named Guy Maddin (played by Darcy Fehr, though the film's ongoing narration is spoken by the real Maddin himself) trying desperately to escape from his hometown on a train that never seems to make any real tracks. As he sits there, he reflects back on what the city means to him, even as the oversized face of his mom (Savage) peers through the boxcar window, not unlike the manner in which the looming visage of King Kong peeks through that New York skyscraper window at a terrified Fay Wray. Through both family scenes and ones involving the city at large, Maddin creates a rich tapestry weaving together fact and fiction, along the way having great fun not only with experimental shooting techniques but with taking a tongue-in-cheek approach to the fluidity of memory and the fallacy of historical accuracy. Both whimsical and melancholic, this might be draggy in spots but never relinquishes its idiosyncratic grip. ***
