Warning: Spoilers ahead!!

Well, I did it. I saw Mamma Mia! and The Dark Knight in one evening. There was a lot of popcorn involved. 

There was also a fair amount of pleasure. I can’t hate on either movie, because they both have moments I loved.

In Mamma Mia!, the “Dancing Queen” sequence lifted me right off the ground. The film takes place on a Greek island, and during this number, the island women all find “Dancing Queen” irresistible. They drop whatever they’re doing–carrying firewood, cooking, doing the wash–to chase Meryl Streep and her friends as they dance toward the ocean. Eventually, there are at least fifty women waving their arms and singing for the sky.

That’s a perfect illustration of what pop songs do: They make you so happy that you leave reality for a minute. When you’re screaming out the chorus to “Dancing Queen,” you may as well be on a magical island, and it’s thrilling to see Mamma Mia! capture that effect.

As for The Dark Knight… I agree with all the people who are praising Heath Ledger’s performance. It’s ridiculously unnerving. 

But here’s the thing: While these movies brought me two different kinds of pleasure, their failings are essentially the same.

I’ll explain what I mean after the jump. (Again… there are major spoilers ahead.) 

(Before I get started… have you read about the brouhaha over David Edelstein’s negative review of The Dark Knight in New York magazine? He has interesting things to say about it, and so does Patrick Goldstein.)

Anyway… In their low points, both Mamma Mia! and The Dark Knight suffer from relentless intensity.

In MM!, director Phyllida Lloyd keeps her actors at the fever pitch of emotion. Meryl Streep’s character isn’t just glad to reunite with her two oldest friends, she’s ecstatic, literally stomping around in a circle and making googly eyes before she walks up them. And when Julie Walters decides Stellan Skarsgard is hot, she doesn’t just wink at him. She falls on him, gurgling and cooing like crazy.

Lloyd and her editor are just as overbearing. They don’t film a dance sequence so much as assault it, filling every moment with jump cuts and smash cuts and panoramic shots of the sea. 

I think this is supposed to create a feeling of wonder, and I think the actors are supposed to be having fun. Sometimes it works, but mostly, I picture Lloyd standing off-camera in a track coach’s uniform, blowing on her whistle and screaming, “Have more fun, you bastards! Have more FUN!”

And mandatory fun isn’t fun at all. It’s exhausting. If more numbers could have been played quietly–or if the “tender” scenes could have avoided hysterical tears–the entire movie could have been as charming as the “Dancing Queen” sequence.

SImilarly, The Dark Knight would be more powerful if it let characters laugh without blood in their mouths.

Instead, director Christopher Nolan and his screenwriter brother make every scene obsidian-black. People don’t just get killed: They get killed by exploding cell phones that are sewn into their stomachs. Bruce Wayne’s girlfriend doesn’t just die. She dies loving another man, and Bruce lives with a delusion that she wanted him. Delightful! Pass me a Valentine!

I know The Dark Knight’s heaviness has a point. Nolan is making an argument about the balance of good and evil in the world, and the value of stories that may not be true. Bruce Wayne is comforted because he believes Rachel loved him, so what’s the harm in keeping up the lie? We as a society feel better if we believe our heroes are noble, so why not let us believe it sometimes?

And… sure. That’s an interesting thought. But it would be even more interesting if Nolan varied his tone. 2 1/2 hours of violence and despair left me so numb that I couldn’t consider the film’s message.

Also, for pure entertainment value, Batman’s final showdown with The Joker would mean more if it were the biggest fight of all. But since every fight scene is played at level 10, their duel feels like just another face-off. 

Maybe they should have battled to the sounds of “Dancing Queen.”