I decided to brush up on Christian Bale’s films to coincide with the release of Batman Begins. I passed on Newsies for now, but American Psycho would be good to watch in its entirety since I’ve only seen bits and pieces of it. Perhaps in the future.
Empire of the Sun features a teenage Christian Bale as an English civilian stuck in Shanghai as it is overrun by the Japanese during World War II. The story was a little slow, and it’s not something to watch when you’re sleepy, but still well done in the way we watch Bale’s character grow up in an internment camp.
The Machinist, on the other hand, was awesome — totally creepy and never had me bored. The trailers had me thinking it took place in some alternate universe or a stark future, but it actually takes place in modern day, the movie is just shot in a way to have everything appear undersaturated.
Bale is seriously just skin and bones in this movie, and to think that he bulked up to his Batman muscle mass in two months time. That’s dedication. This movie is definitely recommended.
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I watched The Machinist a few months back, and I don’t recall it being “awesome.” From what I remember, it wasn’t even that good. The story wasn’t very original, and besides losing so much wait, there was nothing spectacular about Bale and his character. Not that Christiane Bale is a bad actor, he’s great, but the character bored me. The most memorable thing about the movie is the weight of Bale’s character. I do remember pausing a couple of times just to make sure that what I was seeing wasn’t computer generated. Other than that, there’s no real reason to see this movie.