The transformative 2008 movie Gary Oldman can’t stand: “Why does it have to be fucking stupid?”
The only way you could criticise one of the most important and influential movies of 2008 in good faith is if you were also in one of the most important and influential movies of 2008. As it happened, Gary Oldman was.
Obviously, we’re not talking about the straight-to-video action comedy, Dead Fish, which nobody remembers, but Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight. As the follow-up to Batman Begins, the pressure was through the roof for the filmmaker to deliver, and that’s exactly what he did.
Arguably the greatest comic book adaptation in Hollywood history, for the next decade, every big-budget blockbuster looked to the middle chapter of Nolan’s trilogy for inspiration, with Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker shaping a generation of actors, never mind the Academy Awards increasing the ‘Best Picture’ field from five to anywhere up to ten, being colloquially dubbed the ‘Dark Knight rule’.
You’ll also be aware that Batman wasn’t the only superhero to change the face of cinema that summer. For better or worse, that was the year Marvel Studios launched its first feature, Iron Man. Since then, shared universes, cross-pollinating characters, and costumed crimefighters have dominated cinemas.
Two very different films that occupied the same genre and had an equally transformative impact on the industry being released within two months of each other is a rare occurrence, and despite being plenty biased in favour of The Dark Knight because he was in it, Oldman was still happy to take a huge shit all over the spandex-clad competition.
“It’s a genre movie, but why does it have to be fucking stupid?” he asked. “Like, Iron Man flies from Malibu to Afghanistan; that’s stupid.” It is stupid, but then again, so is an orphaned billionaire dressing like a flying mammal so that he can weaponise his fortune to beat the crap out of street-level thugs.
By their very nature, comic book movies are stupid. The Dark Knight might have treated its source material with more respect, reverence, and self-seriousness than Iron Man, but at the end of the day, both of them are about grown-up rich kids with daddy issues who run corporations during the day while spending their free time parading around in garish costumes and thwarting evil plots.
The actor who accepted a payday to star in Tiptoes and spent half the shoot walking around with a pair of shoes strapped to his knees shouldn’t really be throwing stones in glass houses and calling one film “fucking stupid” when he’s been in a few of those himself, but he’s allowed to voice his opinion.
Suspension of disbelief is key to enjoying comic book capers, and while Oldman could evidently suspend his far enough to have no issues with a clown-faced anarchist causing chaos on the streets of Gotham City, he drew the line at Robert Downey Jr’s Tony Stark making it from Afghanistan to Malibu in one tank, or whatever it is that Iron Man uses to power his suit.
