Dinner, dinner, dinner, dinner, dinner, dinner, dinner, dinner

I like to go into films blind. That way, I’m more likely to have an experience that will surprise and enthral. With The Dark Knight, this wasn’t possible. Not only was the Joker’s presence all but guaranteed during the ending to Batman Begins, but Heath Ledger’s death has elevated his performance in many people’s minds to the status of some kind of acting god. The net result is that the hype machine has been on overdrive, with pretty much everyone calling this the Best Comic Film Ever.

I disagree. That’s not to say it isn’t good, nor that it’s not worth watching. However, I sat there only mildly entertained by the plot and slightly disturbed by the brutality (in excess of most comic-book movies, and certainly over-the-top for a 12A film, but you’ll have seen a lot worse elsewhere). What lifts the film above merely average is some impressive stunt-work, one or two decent twists, and Ledger’s engaging Joker, who seems to be channelling a little Jack Nicholson and quite a lot of Michael Keaton throughout.

What almost drags the film down again is, well, almost everything else. Like Batman Begins, this movie is somehow hollow and lacks soul. And seemingly content to cherry-pick the best bits from various Batman comics (Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke, Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns, etc.), thereby offering an almost Batman-by-committee result, the film lacks focus. Perhaps it tries to tie too many threads together, but the result is convoluted and feels rushed, despite its extended viewing time.

The onus is largely on the escalation of warfare between Gotham’s most famous vigilante and the enemies around him—in other words, if it wasn’t for Batman, these super-villains wouldn’t exist. This has been an ongoing theme in Batman for some years now, although I’m pretty sure we didn’t need the Joker rather clumsily spelling this point out to Batman at one point during the movie.

And so although we get a standout (if not Oscar-worthy) performance from Ledger, some crunching battles, a few great scenes (notably a fast-paced bank heist that’s at once wicked and funny, but also almost anything Two Face does during his limited screen time) and a film that hammers home the ‘dark’ in ‘Dark Knight’ (repeatedly), we also have a somewhat self-important and gloomy production that’s at least a half-hour too long.

Once again, the Joker lost during the first round of Celebrity Poker Showdown.

Retro Gamer 53 yomped on in a couple of weeks back, containing my six-page feature on Marble Madness (including an utterly gorgeous two-page spread showcasing the game’s six levels). Despite being a slight game (seasoned players can speed through the entire thing in about four minutes), it’s one of the prettiest arcade games ever released, and it no doubt influenced a slew of modern titles, such as the likes of Super Monkey Ball.

Designer Mark Cerny, who now largely works as a consultant in the industry, mostly on console titles, provided a great overview of how the game came to be. However, one of his insights that didn’t see print was the fact that Marble Madness, to his knowledge, has never before received the kind of feature found in this month’s Retro Gamer.

This got me thinking. Most other publications that dare to acknowledge retro gaming do so in a somewhat cursory manner, perhaps grudgingly giving over a couple of pages each month to a single classic title. And even when the results are worth reading (Edge’s coverage of retro titles has been of a typically high standard), you’re still only looking at 13 titles a year. With so many great games out there, created by people who, judging my those I’ve spoken to, are fast forgetting how the games ended up like they did, this just shows how important to gaming a title like Retro Gamer is.

For more on Retro Gamer, check out the brand-new Retro Gamer website. And for more on Marble Madness, check out Bernhard Kirsch’s excellent site.

• Empire compares the Watchmen trailer with the original book. I think it all looks very generic comic book movie. http://tinyurl.com/6xf5e2 #
• So will The Academy have the guts to give WALL•E a proper Oscar nod, rather than dumping it in Best Animated Feature? Will they balls. #
• Wordle creates word clouds from RSS feeds. Quite nice to see ‘gnh’ included in Revert to Saved’s one. Wordle is at http://wordle.net/create #

Ja tvoi sluga. Ja tvoi Rabotnik

Very occasionally, cinema goers are lucky enough to witness a ‘wow’ moment—not a film that merely makes you think it was good, but one where you know you just experienced an event, a film that has the potential to change a genre utterly. Pixar’s WALL•E is one such film.

Superficially, WALL•E is a film about a curious little waste-disposal robot, tasked with cleaning up a toxic Earth (whose humans have nipped off in a spaceship while the work’s being done for them), who looks a lot like a squat Johnny 5. Kids will love the (surprisingly brave) initial dialogue-free section of the film, which shows WALL•E going about his business, building skyscrapers of trash, and playfully cherry-picking bits and pieces to take home and categorise (a memorable moment shows WALL•E confused by a spork, and, logically enough, after hovering it over his small pile of spoons and a collection of forks, he places it between the two) and a string of exciting, high-paced action sequences that arrive later.

However, look past the child-friendly sheen and you have the greatest example to date from Pixar of a film that works on several levels. The Earth that WALL•E is trying to tidy appears to have been under the thumb of megacorporation Buy n Large, intent on driving the population into a constant consumerist frenzy. And when later in the film you chance upon the fate of the exiled humans, Pixar’s cartoon-like presentation barely masks a fierce satire on consumerism, apathy, laziness, and a generation’s desire to experience the world via purely virtual means, rather than actually living life and making genuine connections.

Of course, WALL•E is the antithesis of this. Despite being a robot, he has so much warmth and love to give, and yet he’s spent hundreds of years slowly cleaning up the Earth as his fellow droids gradually malfunctioned around him, thereby leaving him utterly alone. When the possibility of companionship arrives, he grasps it utterly, first with a scavenging cockroach, and then with EVE, a robotic probe whose function is to determine whether Earth is habitable. (With EVE’s form being sleek and white, I imagine it’s all Pixar could do to stop themselves plonking an Apple logo on her.)

The fact that every one of these components works brilliantly is testament to the talent within Pixar’s walls. The messages aren’t heavy handed, but will resonate with those who chose to engage with them. The animation is, perhaps unsurprisingly, first-rate, with wonderful designs, direction and characterisation. But it’s WALL•E and EVE’s story that’s the most riveting. And although you might feel foolish at welling up at the plight of two robots—animated robots at that—it’d take a heart of steel to not be captivated by this genuinely heartwarming and hopeful tale about loneliness and how important it is to make connections.

WALL•E seriously considers peeling off and reapplying all the stickers, because life’s just too short.

• Sega bloke claims iPhone is as powerful as the Dreamcast. We await iPhone Crazy Taxi with bated breath. http://tinyurl.com/5j9kbz #