The Dark Knight

Did anyone have any special events going on for the midnight premier of the film? The theater I was in had a local radio DJ (whose name is, seriously, Bruce Wayne) hiding in the audience with a mic and commenting on/making fun of all the incoming patrons. And any of the posters or displays for other superhero movies (such as Hellboy II and Hancock) were all Joker'd up, what with smiling faces and "joker was here haha" messages done in lipstick. The news was also there filming the long line.
 
anybody notice "skewing images" when Joker was broadcasting his speech through a crazy shaking camera? [wabble images, jello vision, etc.]
 
Damn, I'm going to have to go back over to that Best of 2008 so far thread and do an update.

The Dark Knight is a great freakin' movie. LOVED IT!!!
 
Okay, this is not going to be a popular opinion, but I was pretty bored during this movie. Now, for those who'll say, "This is a summer movie, you're being too harsh." Well, this movie wanted to be taken seriously (why so serious?), so I'm going to judge it seriously. (that's why)

But first of all, I'm going to review the previews!

The Spirit - What... the... hell???? What was this??? Is this movie a joke? Man did this look awful. I still don't know what it is. Hopefully I never will.

The Day The Earth Stood Still - I might check this out. But looks pretty lame.

Terminator - I'm sorry, but I'm there. A lot of people hate McG. I think this is going to be cool.

The Watchmen - I have heard so much about this movie and wow was I underwhelmed. This looked really cheesy and, quite honestly, dumb. I will not be checking this out.

Okay, to the Dark Night...

First, the good...

1) Heath Ledger. I think people want Ledger to be nominated because it will sort of vindicate the fanboys that comic book movies be taken seriously. He was good - but this stuff about an Oscar nomination... ehhhh, not so sure. I think that's a premature reaction to his death. I really do.

2) The emergence of the batbike was supercool. I was not expecting that.

3) The directing. This is a well made, well-produced movie. Everything from the look to the casting. Some of his action directing could've been better. But overall, very well made.

THE BAD (major spoilers)

Okay, almost all my complaints have to do with the script. And ultimately, this is why I didn't like this movie. But I'll start with the small stuff that bothered me.

1) Batman's costume - Am I the only one who feels that Batman's mask looks really weird on him? It's shaped like a bird. He just looks funny in it.

2) Bale's Batman voice - Remember when you were a kid and you would have to make a phone call to someone pretending you were older than you were? So you husked up your voice to sound more "adult". But the person on the other end always knew you were a kid? That's what Bale's voice sounds like to me. It's almost comical. I guess it is a "comic" book movie though. so maybe it works.

3) Way too much going on - There were honestly like 150 characters in this movie. And about 20 subplots. After awhile of dealing with things like random characters trying to blackmail morgan freeman so that he could tell a funny joke I was like, "come on already. who cares??"

4) The theme - The theme was basically that cities are filled with crime, and there's nothing we can do about it. I'm sorry, but this might have been cutting edge stuff, say, in the 30s. But crime? Today? As something that I worry about? There are far bigger issues in the world that concern me. So right from the start it all felt ho-hum.

5) The Joker Character - a bad guy who has no motivation. I'm sorry but that's stupid. We call it amateurish when any other movie villian is written without a motivation. Clearly, this is overlooked because of Ledger's performance. But at the end I was like, "huh? he does this cause he's got nothing better to do?" lame.

5) GIVE ME A BREAK - The thing that turns Harvey into Two-Face. We're to believe, not only, that Batman is so into fighting crime that he leaves the love of his life to die to save Harvey Dent? But also, that batman couldn't take 1 second to turn back and TELL THE POLICE WHICH PERSON HE WAS GOING TO SAVE so they could go save the other one!?? Give me a break.

6) GIVE ME A BREAK 2 - Who honestly bought into that b.s. that the police would actually want to *arrest* batman??? How did this make any sense?? It is only there to create artificial conflict but there is absolutely no point to it! The guy is helping you! And he's doing your job better than you are! So what's your solution? Put him behind bars! Yeah, makes sense to me.

7) Cell phone thing - this was just dumb and pointless.

8) The ending - The big ending to a 180 million dollar movie is someone holding a kid hostage? Wow, I think I saw this on a rerun of C.S.I. last week. I was hoping after 2 hours and THIRTY MINUTES! (yes, cause this movie needed to be that long) that I'd least get some bang for my buck. Instead I got some introspective voice over and batman falling 1 story. Enough said.

It's very clear I'm in the minority here, but those are my reasons for not liking the movie.
 
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c.g._eads said:
5) GIVE ME A BREAK - The thing that turns Harvey into Two-Face. We're to believe, not only, that Batman is so into fighting crime that he leaves the love of his life to die to save Harvey Dent? But also, that batman couldn't take 1 second to turn back and TELL THE POLICE WHICH PERSON HE WAS GOING TO SAVE so they could go save the other one!?? Give me a break.
Click to expand...

SPOILER: Actually from what I remember Gordon on his way out asked "who are you going for?" Batman specifically says "Rachel." The joker switched the addresses on them...he knew he would go for rachel's location aka dents location. The jokers whole purpose was to make sure Dent stayed alive and "moved on" explained in the end where he is hanging from the little wire telling Batman his whole plan.
 
Either way, why didn't he just say "I'm going to this address. You go to that one." I know he was in a hurry but you just yell out the address. That way everybody lives.

As for the Joker, I admit I was kind of mentally checked out by that point. But wasn't he saying that he just likes chaos? That's the reason he was doing all this?
 
SPOILERS

c.g._eads said:
5) GIVE ME A BREAK - The thing that turns Harvey into Two-Face. We're to believe, not only, that Batman is so into fighting crime that he leaves the love of his life to die to save Harvey Dent? But also, that batman couldn't take 1 second to turn back and TELL THE POLICE WHICH PERSON HE WAS GOING TO SAVE so they could go save the other one!?? Give me a break.
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No offense... but you have to pay attention. The Joker set him up!
Batman went to the address that the Joker gave him for Rachel. The Joker knew he would go where he thought Rachel was... so he screwed him. :)

This is made very clear by the fact that Batman DOES tell Gordon that he's going for Rachel and that Gordon tells the officers that they are going to the other address. Gordon repeats this address not once but twice along the way. The one they thought that Dent was at, according to The Joker.

Joker screwed them and this was a very crucial scene in the movie that you obviously missed.

I won't bother with the rest of your post since I disagree with just about all of it and you weren't paying attention to begin with. :happy:
 
c.g._eads said:
As for the Joker, I admit I was kind of mentally checked out by that point. But wasn't he saying that he just likes chaos? That's the reason he was doing all this?
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WOW! I repeat... did you really watch it? The Joker wanted to show that there really is no good in people
and when put into terrible situations they will themselves do terrible things. Just like him.
The boat experiment proved him wrong. There is good left in people and hope for the city of Gotham.

Harvey Dent was his ultimate goal though. Which is why they ended up going to such lengths to hide his slip into madness.
The city needed a hero so Batman took the wrap for Two Face.

Harvey Dent remains a hero and the city has something left to hold onto.

Sorry, man. It just sounds like you weren't even paying attention.

Cheers,

Mike
 
I will not argue that I was tuning out because I was kinda bored by this point. But explain this to me. One of the addresses the joker gave them didn't exist? It was a fake so the second team would be led to a non-existent place?

Otherwise, if there *were* two real addresses, what's the confusion? You go to this address. I go to this one. Even if he switched them around, so that Batman went to Harvey Dent's, then wouldn't the cops end up at Rachel's?
 
c.g._eads said:
Otherwise, if there *were* two real addresses, what's the confusion? You go to this address. I go to this one. Even if he switched them around, so that Batman went to Harvey Dent's, then wouldn't the cops end up at Rachel's?
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It was obvious that Batman was the only one fast enough to reach them. He had to choose. The Joker screwed him by making him choose the wrong one. Batman thought he was going to save Rachel.

The police never had a chance of reaching them.

That's why The Joker told him that he was happy to let him know where they both were. He knew he would only have time to reach one of them.
 
SPOILERS: Yea you must have been out of it or something because the cops DID end up at Rachel's location. They never got inside though, it blew it up before they had a shot.

Either way I suggest you see the movie again...might be a stretch since you found so much about it you disliked. I still suggest you see it again, there is so much information and story and character development that maybe you just didn't catch the major the first time around.
 
Yeah, I know I'm not winning any battles on this one. And I guess the whole "choice" thing makes more sense now.

But seriously, why did they want to arrest Batman? That made no sense.
 
SPOILER: From Wikipedia: "In order to uphold Dent's vision, Batman convinces Gordon to blame all of Dent's murders on him. Batman returns to his status as an illegal vigilante to preserve Dent's image as Gotham's hero and give the city hope. As Gordon destroys the Bat-Signal, a manhunt is issued for Batman."
 
c.g._eads said:
Yeah, I know I'm not winning any battles on this one. And I guess the whole "choice" thing makes more sense now.

But seriously, why did they want to arrest Batman? That made no sense.
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My last attempt.... :)

The city was in complete and utter chaos. Things were worse than ever with Batman in the picture as far as the public was concerned. The Joker was killing people daily and said that he wouldn't stop until The Batman revealed his true identity. Of course, revealing his identity would result in his arrest due to all the laws that he has broken. Like it or not a good lawyer could put him away for a very ling time.

Don't forget, cops were getting killed and not everyone agreed with a Vigilante running around above the law.

Mike
 
Don't agree with your criticism but can understand them. As far as the cell phone thing, that was one of the things that went far beyond the realm of believability that was grounding the rest of the movie. It was a device to set up the analogy of "wire-tapping" to supposedly protect the greater good. Another 'lesser of two evil' choice themes found throughout the movie. Not the movies' strongest plot device but boderline acceptable IMO. They could have skipped it entirelly but that is why they call it art; subjective choices to express a larger vision.

But since people are helping to correct some plot holes I have one that I need a little help on. I don't remember Batman Begins very well but at the end didn't they establish the Joker as a resident of the asylum? If so, wouldn't they have all his background info from his time there? Maybe I remembering it wrong or maybe there is an explanation but that is one of few holes I noticed.

Oh and I do agree on his voice, it's a bit over the top, but if viewed as a choice made by the Wayne character in order to build his mythological character of "The Batman" it sort of makes sense.

Cheers
 
Michael Anthony Horrigan said:
My last attempt.... :)

The city was in complete and utter chaos. Things were worse than ever with Batman in the picture as far as the public was concerned. The Joker was killing people daily and said that he wouldn't stop until The Batman revealed his true identity. Of course, revealing his identity would result in his arrest due to all the laws that he has broken. Like it or not a good lawyer could put him away for a very ling time.

Don't forget, cops were getting killed and not everyone agreed with a Vigilante running around above the law.

Mike
Click to expand...

Yeah but put yourself in that situation. If you lived in Gotham, and this crazy Joker character was running around killing people, and he said, "The batman tells us who he is or I keep killing," would you really put Batman in jail (whose only mistake has been killing a few people accidentally) in favor of hoping a crazy lunatic psycho killer keeps his word? You already established in that previous explanation that the Joker directly lied to the cops and therefore can't be trusted. It doesn't make any sense.
 
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SPOILERNot making a sequel to this movie would be bad. Although the movie does END, there is still a cliff hanger. Also, did Harvey Dent die? He looked dead.. but it's tough to say. I guess you couldn't walk around forever with your face half gone. Anyway, I'd be disappointed if there was no sequel. Yes, I even think they should recast ledger, but it would probably wind up as someone doing a bad impression. So my question is, where can the 3rd movie go?
 
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