The Rawness

I liked The Dark Knight, but I will admit you make some good points here. However, I think your biggest problem in this article is the constant attacks on every comic book fan who liked the movie. We’re all 20-30 year old losers who need this movie to somehow validate us according to you, and I think that’s horribly unfair and unwarranted. Okay, you didn’t like the movie, that is fine. You defend yourself well and you attack what you see as flaws in the movie. All fine. But I am a comic fan, who is between 20 and 30, and I liked the movie not for its supposed realism (which I grant is subjective as hell), but because of the moral choices it presents, the characterizations, and the fact that it is clearly a middle chapter where the hero loses, to hopefully come back stronger next time. You may reasonably disagree with those points but they are different reasons than you suppose every comic fan has.

Using my own views to refute your argument is perhaps not a perfect defense of the movie, of course, but my point is more that you shouldn’t just lump your entire opposition together behind a banner that doesn’t really fit, and is patently insulting as well, isn’t a perfect attack on it. So you may want to consider that.

You are absolutely right. I felt sometimes I had to like the movie because my fan boy friends would crucify me if I hinted at the shit fest that was this Batman movie. I appreciate you going so far to write this page! I will pass it on!

Jesse:

We?re all 20-30 year old losers who need this movie to somehow validate us according to you, and I think that?s horribly unfair and unwarranted.

I don’t think all 20 and 30-something comic fans are losers. I’m a comic fan in his 30s myself. What I do think, and it’s a trap I myself fully admit I used to fall into, is that many comic fans feel a need to justify their hobby by “proving” to people how adult and mature it is. No one can ever just admit anymore that one of the biggest draws of superhero comics is that you get to see two people in cool outfits beat the shit out of each other in the most fantastic, outrageously exaggerated and unrealistic ways. Everything has to be complexity, complex characterizations, deconstruction, etc. Let’s be honest, if that’s what was really the biggest draws of these books to us and why we as comic fans are so drawn to them, we could easily get all those things done much better from other sources like epic movies, great literature and some independent comics. What those things can’t do bette than comic books though is deliver a kick-ass, knock down, dragged out slobberknocker superhero battle. My point isn’t that adult comic fans are losers, it’s the opposite. I’m saying they shouldn’t feel like losers and should be happy embracing superhero comics for the fun, entertaining and often clever junk entertainment that it is.

DM: Thanks for stopping by and commenting.

A) Like the movie or not this one hell of a post. I couldn’t imagine you when the movie was over, I bet you wanted to run someone over.

B) You should have went to see it in right state of mind (wink wink). It makes for much better viewing.

zprs last blog post..i like sex

Amen, brother.

Exhaustive reading, but finally I know what I didn’t like about the movie… THE WHOLE THING.

There are just too many things that doesn’t work.

Thanks for a magnificent post.
Alex

sigh. I love you to death T, but i have to respectfully disagree with you on this one. I’m a 30 year old comic book fan just like you. I enjoy the escapism that fantastic storytelling can provide but at the same time i’m older and more mature so I genuinely enjoy more sophisticated storytelling and plot. These two things are not mutually exclusive but at the same time they don’t necessarily have to exist in the same place at the same time.

I can’t speak for everyone who’s admitted to loving this movie. Because even though 10 people might agree on some precise course of action they might all do so for 10 different reasons. But your criticism of this movie, to a large degree, is predicated on a one-dimensional characterisation of adult fanboys. And this isn’t to say that that description isn’t completely accurate in most cases, but it really has nothing to do with the movie and more to do with why those people liked the movie. Basically you’re problem is not so much with the merits of the film itself (though you have your gripes about it) but with the level of adulation given to it compared to your own opinion of it. but here’s my question:

Why the fuck do you care?

I loved the movie and i was only slightly enamored with Begins. But I had my own reasons for loving it. You brought up some great points about the movie. But honestly, at the end of the day I was captivated and satisfied. Now is this because i’m a cultural philistine who can’t appreciate good story strucure, character development and realistic issues? Of course not. I’m not even saying that this movie had all of this or didn’t.

But this is a movie.

While its fun to analyse and appreciate various aspects of a given film, ultimately its purpose is to provide entertainment. And to the extent that it does is the extent to which I say i like it or not. Now some movies i enjoy because of the accumulation of various film making techniques that create what film buffs would consider a “masterpiece”. But sometimes a movie’s value is made up of more than the sum of it’s technical parts.

I too thouroughly enjoyed the Burton Batman. I also enjoyed the campy Adam West Batman. But i’ve never even thought of comparing any of them to each other. They are three different movies. Same characters but different takes. And I understand that you want to judge this movie by its self professed merits. But you have no idea to what extent the director held himself to that standard. Sure he mighta came out in an interview and said “I want this to be more realistic.” But does that mean he had a “Realism checksheet” for every camera shot, every line of dialogue, every story beat? I’m sure he gave himself some latitude.

Now insofar as he made parts of the story more realistic YOU found it boring. and when he chose to embrace some fantasy or belief suspension YOU found it to ring false. That’s fair. But that’s also your opinion. I found little in the movie to be boring. I didn’t mind that gotham looked like chicago or that rachel dawes isn’t a 10 or that the batmobile looked like a tank. i still enjoyed the story. I’m not saying YOU should. and if you do it might not be for the same reasons.
But your animosity towards this movie is, IMHO, is more a function of everyone else’s REACTION to it and less about the actual cinematic experience it offered you.

Final point. This is the exact opposite of when indie/foreign/underground fans get up in arms when they’re favorite film/artists doesn’t get much attn. Like the mere mention of a mainstream artist at the exclusion of an unknown one is a crime against humanity. My take is: WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU CARE? If “MC Backpack” goes platinum tomorrow or if every cohen bros. movie opened #1 at the box office, how would your life change? What difference does it make if 10 million people share your opinion as opposed to 10 thousand?

And if you can be unconcerned with the level of popular discussion about your favorite unknown project, why be concerned with the level of popular discussion about a well known project?

Interesting post, however I disagree with a lot of it. In regard to your point about plot holes, the answer is simple. The movie is supposed to be realistic, not real. Believe it or not, there is a difference. Quoting someone who goes into actual laws and positions that exist in the real world in order to highlight how the movie goes against its supposed mantra of realism, is illogical. Clearly none of this could or would happen in the real world, that does not mean, however, that the psychology can’t be based on possible psychological reactions to extreme conditions and that it has to rely on comical scenarios or magic for entertainment value. If anything, in this case, being realistic means not being silly (which is my real problem with the earlier Batman movies).

In regard to your point about Batman being impotent (aside from what is clearly your opinion about what a villain “should” do), I disagree. The fact that the people on the boat didn’t blow it up shows he is not impotent. If you remember Batman Begins, the whole reason the he even became Batman was to be a symbol that inspires people to do good and scares criminals (things that he couldn’t do as Bruce Wayne which is something that his father didn’t realize in his attempts to clean up Gotham). So the boat not blowing up is actually proof of him not being impotent. Also, it’s not 100% clear that Batman killed Harvey Dent/Two Face, in fact most people believe otherwise, so that’s not yet another victory for the Joker.

In regard to your point about the Joker, I’m not sure what clowns you have seen but anyone in clown make-up and a suit (which is what the iconic Joker wears) is not going to appear like the clown you would see at a child’s birthday party. No part of the Joker has ever appeared harmless. I do agree that Nolan took it to a new extreme, but that is precisely what I liked about it. If anything, this Joker was a newly subtle and nuanced masterpiece. In terms of psychology, someone who is crazy enough to be the Joker is probably going to exhibit the behaviors that he exhibited. He only limped when he was in the truck crash, so that is not really an exhibited behavior but his constantly tonguing his scars, his hunching over, his never telling how he got the scars are all behaviors that could be exhibited by a psychopath.

The fake moralizing and depressing points are both really problems with the way that it was written. I liked how dark it was and Batman actually didn’t kill anyone so it wasn’t really hypocritical. The same is true for your point about Nolan not being able to shoot action.

I don’t thing that T was condemning 20-30 year olds for liking comics – he obviously does as well. What he’s arguing against is 20-30 year olds corrupting what comics are all about in order to “justify” their tastes to people who think that comics and comic movies are immature. And the sad thing is, it never works; if you tell an Art Film fan that you have just seen a “Batman” movie, they are going to look down on you, no matter how “dark” and “gritty” it was. And who gives a f**k what the Art House crown thinks anyway? Too much good popular culture has already been ruined sucking up to these snobbish nitwits. Let Batman be Batman. Say it loud: “I like comics, and I’m proud!” (with apologies to James Brown).

I’m no comic book geek and I really could care less about the Batman comic legacy but I thought relative to other mindnumbing summer blockbuster shit fests that require mental retardation for two hours, this film was good. Does it have plot holes? Yeah. Was Maggie G miscast? Yeah. The films flaws just weren’t all that distracting to me because I was contemplating the films larger themes all of which were very sophisticated for a summer blockbuster. I didn’t expect a summer movie to be dealing with such heavy stuff without moralizing or being pedantic. Fuck, you can tear apart Star Wars and Titanic if you want but at the end of the day they will still be the highest grossing films in history and the reality is this film is poised to supplant one of them.

Well put Df. At the end of the day this was a summer blockbuster and not an arthouse flick that was released in the dead of autumn. Comic books, superhero stories and blockbusters in general are tales told with broad brushstrokes. Were this a story told in a more episodic form (say as an HBO miniseries) I’m sure some of the storytelling would have been tighter. But ultimately, most people enjoyed it because, like DF said, people contemplated the larger themes instead of getting hung up on relative minutiae.

And Phil hit my nail right on the head. The point of these films was to be more realistic not necessarily to be 100% real.
Again, this doesn’t mean you’re not entitled to find the film’s realism to be boring and its fantastic elements to be off-putting. But don’t begrudge someone else for feeling a different way about it all.

I’ve been a Batman fan from day one. I read Wizard magazine every month and pretty much kept abreast with all the hype going into the release of the movie. But even with Heath’s death and all the Oscar buzz I still wasn’t overly hyped to see the movie. I wanted to see it but I wasn’t frothing at the mouth the way I was for some of the Star Wars movies or Kill Bill 2 (I actually was more gassed to see the Watchmen trailer). But I left that theatre excited, surprised and satisfied. And that had nothing to do with a need to justify my fandom to the mainstream public, or to justify a promotional hype that, for the most part, is lost on me.
It was simpy because I was given a great cinematic experience involving one of my favourite heroic characters.

Wow you need help my friend seriously. Well the hell with that WHY SO SERIOUS??? Someone certainly got a lot of time on their hands to write about hate. I watched the Dark Knight and loved it I still think Begins was a little better though. But Enough of that lets go back to this long criticism. In all honesty this long criticism is not very good because it is full of anger and hate. Go out and be happy watch the olympics or something but do not crucify Chris Nolan and the writers and actors for all the hard work they have done.

TSK, TSK…TSK.

why so serious!!.

i guess, some lil deprived lil boy.
never read the actual legendary alternative to the regular dC batman titles, the dark knight.

you show your ineptitude to the source material.
go read a comix, or two, namely the legendary contribution by frank miller. if the box office receipts are able to make hollywood scriptwriter stick rigidly to the source material. i think you won’t like many of the films, that darkknight will hold honest to the source material in adaptation.

your review and criticism shows you:

one, never read a frank miller contribution in your life.
two, it also shows you are one of the people that DC/WB tried to appease when they ran the original batman franchise into the mud with joel schumaker.

also,…..batman has no superpowers, i don’t think you understood that, or the idea that he is the next generation’s sherlock holmes.
now granted sherlock holmes was a coke, heroin, and opium user, if they were to put sherlock holmes into a film that was an adaptation, of the source material. i would want that tidbit, and wrinkle included.

from your review, i believe you on the other hand, want the sherlock holmes in the deerhunter hat, who is brilliantly sober. with no, background into how he became so intelligent. while also, handling the death of watson, and an even crazier moriarty. at least in the books, you knew holmes was high, and plausibly thinking outta the box, to apprehend and solve crime.

at least in batman, we know bruce is actually brilliant and uses luscius[morgan freeman's character], as a foil to illustrate his technical wizardry. the batman character never just went to order, parts without any source knowledge of what he was designing. you also, missed the part of the film where, bruce actually designed the plans, of the next batcostume, as well. which was the setup, and paid homage to all the previous bruce wayne characters as well. even, in batman’s haste to create the batcomputer, and use it. bruce shows his duality in that instance of the movie. plus, batman this point needed to be tackled because in the regular dc universe batman is always at the helm of the device. the movie picked into the morality of privacy that, in the regular DC universe batman always, violated consistently.

i mean seriously, you are the reason hollywood is so messed up, because you don’t really have an interest in this type of genre. yet, hollywood used to bend over backwards to appease this ignorant fan, for the sake of a dollar. well darkknight is finally the solidified effort that will make literary conversions to film standup and hold true to the literary source material. that drew large enough, in critical acclaim, and revenue, that warranted it become a movie franchise, in the first place.

you are the scourge of the earth that has devalued every subculture and genre in the entire world. from metal, punk, rocknroll, blues, and most importantly hiphop, and our cultural contribution music wise of rap.

you are the enemy, and your thinking is the sole reason, why subcultures are swallowed and bastardized.

Art Barr

go read the dark noir ABSTRACT source material, THE DARK KNIGHT. penned and penciled by the legend, FRANK MILLER. See, what his aim and scope was that helped to usher realism into comix, and make them evolve, and stand in the context of time. then go tackle, the rest of miller’s classics including the runs on sincity, and most importantly daredevil. get educated on what you are missing, because you are missing a lot.

also,…i have a review, of the dark knight. it gives the psychology, of the fan of this type of movie and what we wanted. plus, the reason why the source material shouldn’t be violated, compromised or amalgamated as well.

HEY JOE,

Art Barr, here…granted this is my first review here at the tomatoe….I have to say i usually don’t post anywhere else except for my message board home at:

FORUMS.SOHH.COM

Granted, that place is under reconstruction after a heinous hacking to the online hiphop community. I needed an outlet for my posting, review, rant editorial addiction. So here is my first entry into, the ROTTEN TOMATOE, and my first tomato review.

before we get started, I need to let you in on my style. it is brash, unadulterated stream of consciousness online rant masterful mastery. woven with scathing editorial, and personal opinions, chock full of pop references, which, I use as mechanical metaphors.

plus, the most important component; I only review material i have a vast knowledge on the subject and tone of. meaning you won’t catch me doin a review on material that isn’t great or moving. Plus, additionally, and most importantly, i won’t/don’t comment about anything genre wise. unless, i know some tidbit or fact, of the creators lineage or stylings. meaning, i know exactly what the phuck i am talking about, usually and typically. unless i note so, in the early stages of a review to set the tone.

if i tackle a subject i am unfamiliar with, I will note so, and also give the reasoning behind why i am tackling that review. which usually will be because i was so moved, by the artistry. or, just plain discusted by the lack of intelligent knowledge and omission of components which should have been included in the material. granted that is the reason why i am reviewing;

THE DARK KNIGHT

one, because as a former comix letterer and penciler, watching comix book movies is always a great confidence builder. I even went to comix school for two years and was taught by the penciler of SPEEDRACER, norm dwyer. Plus, writer, rapheal nieves. Who might i add was the first writer to supply a similar death, to the one that the joker gives the bodyguard goon in his run on hellstorm. except instead of his writing including a pencil, and a “trip and fall” sequence. raph’s included, a close to but not so similar death by a beverage straw. So, when i heard they were adapting the dark knight. i hoped to be getting, an incredible journey in watching the licensing of a comix book character come to life, on the big screen. most importantly watching the compromise live and in color on THE BIG SCREEN. i mention compromise, because in the comix book movie genre a lot of compromise is done. namely, on the characters and lineage presented in the comix to make the material a gateway for newbie and general fans. Plus, and most importantly as a homage tool to reel in credibility from the consistent drawing fan medium. so with that said, i present my review of:

THE DARK KNIGHT

Initially, I will tell you:

I AM A MARVEL GUY, when it came to comix. my whole life has been spent pretty much championing anything marvel, and shunning anything DC, for most of my life. I have to also, say in my MARVEL allegiance. I would have to mention that, BATMAN titles, were a guilty twotiming turncoat addiction. i would sneak and read all the time. especially for the small story arc nature, or one shot stories. I am not sayin batman, was one of my monthly titles..but if i was bored or there was nothing out. I would go grab a stack of batman comix, and not worry about quality. get all my needs met, and appeased by any of the numerous batman comix, especially detective. One of the chief differences between MARVEL, and DC is. DC is owned by a larger conglomerate, WARNER BROTHERS. which means they are global. generally when it comes to their franchises, they create a wholesome product when put on a large drawing medium and scale. Mostly all DC characters suffer from dilution when put into a larger realm, and BATMAN & SUPERMAN, are two franchises, which suffered greatly because of their gloabl reach, and WB’s dilution. I lived through the gawdawful DC relaunchs and tries to make BATMAN, & SUPERMAN relevent, or current. As, DC broke batman’s back, and the franchise. then, inserted AZREAL, as a brooding killing batman, in a new cool suit and the whole garbage behind it. Plus, watched as they failed miserably to re-right the franchise, through almost DALLAS where is bobby, ishedead like similarites, in Bruce’s recovery. Let’s just say that in this movie they didn’t wane or dilute the impact, or the literary genius that miller supplied into the original story. nor, did they forget the rollercoaster ride, it took to tell the incredible tale, while also getting across the softness, that DC under WB had become stifled from. So, if you are a MARVEL guy, and are used to BATMAN being soft. that story arc, and component make this movie TOTALLY an incredible experience. AS, the screenplay includes that ripple in their product. But, in hall of fame like fashion, fashions that detail into one of the most riveting film contributions, in the comicbook genre history.

granted there are redeemable qualities, and more important stories that DC has given the comix world which some will say eclipse marvel. I have lived that storyline, and watched as vertigo, which really is the line of comix that was bought out by DC, that gave them the superior literary nod over, MARVEL. Vertigo comix line, is basically the line of comix that gave DC its acclaim at literary genius, and basically saved the line of comix, at DC from credible hell, in the mid to late eighties. Vertigo opened the door to save DC, as did the WATCHMEN[which was probably the most confusing title, and departure from typical comixbook stylings to read as a kid, but incredible.] being a child of the seventies though, i had been reading comix, and most importantly drawing comix almost most of my life, since three years old actually. One thing was always a constant, till the mid to late eighties, and before vertigo was bought out by DC:

MARVEL WAS ALWAYS BETTER THAN DC, WHOLEHEARTEDLY

The initial softness that WB, shackled onto its leading franchises in superman, and batman. Usually act as an inhibitor, but in this movie, this factor to uphold their softness, bolsters this film incredibly. it creates an incredible dialogue tackled in the plot climax of this movie in a conversation between BATMAN, & a defeated JOKER, BRILLIANTLY. i mean UTTER, SHEER BRILLIANCE, brilliantly played, magnified, honed, and owned almost solely by heath ledger. just his nuances, physically, plus his incredible depth, in small pieces of this film that act as a sort of origin to the JOKER, psychologically, as a character will have you spellbound, and wishing you could have more. WHEN, i tell you this JOKER, is better than any joker ever, in any batman adaptation, ever.. i am not playing. literally, LEDGER’s joker is the character lenghtening joker, in exact detail that gave spiderman new life, when TODD MCFARLANE, drew the hook spidey eyes, and finally showed the details in his webbing and weblines. LEDGER’s performance of the joker surpasses hannibal, and even the confident creepiness supplied by the villain in SE7en, as well. If you are looking for a villain to personify, a villain, look no further. As a matter of fact, he eclipes, and outdoes every moment jack nicholson had as the joker, in many and every moment of the film. any expert of the original BATMAN movie will notice the homage to the original joker. plus, Ledger’s incredible mastery, and progression to the outer fringe of almost and probably never being bested ever. I am not sayin this just because of his death, i am literally saying that ledger should have not died. he is one of the best villains ever, close to even mitchum/deniro capefear villain infamy, EASILY..no joke.. i mean seriously no joke. it seemingly feels like LEDGER channels ever joker ever created from the whimsical rasta on the cartoon, THE BATMAN, all the way to every comix book joker, while also outdoin even the JOKer badness that killd’t robin all in one fell swoop. Not to mention, the childlike component of the arkum, hannibal lector, connection that batman has with the joker….when he needs to seek the joker as an insight into helping him fight crime. The my good buddy batman joker moment, is even intact in this role, and just the sheer depth supplied in this scene gives homage to every person who ever read a batman comix, that had the joker as a dominant character.

Well, this socalled softness that existed in the comix was a killing component of the batman franchise…well, that was before Frank Miller, took to the batman franchise and created the darkknight storyline of lore. which by the way, over time was folded into batman’s continuity, but initially was offered as an alternative gateway reality to batman. Plus, was not integrated into the regular batman writings and runs. Similar to the godawful contribution people find so rewarding as the ULTIMATE XMEN parrallel universe. y’know the one, that sells high but is complete utter crap, and one reason i stopped reading comix all together. I included that to say, that hey, marvel has done its bad deeds, and over time. I just became an old defunct collector so small childlike issues of marvel vs dc, fell to the wayside. yet, the idea and ideal still existed when coming across DC material that i could get a product that could be stifled creatively, because DC is owned by the WB[warner bros] conglomerate. Making it open for tampering when it came to source material, which would ultimately dilute the overrall impact of the original literary contribution. Meaning when i heard DC, was making a film adaptation of Frank Miller’s dark knight. my initial reaction was:

yeah,..they will phuck this one up, ROYALLY.

plus, i will be royally pissed, if the joel schumaker bubbly bumbling buffonery school of film making mantra was upheld. meaning, WB would take the name of this incredible masterpiece, and literary best seller in the graphic novel realm, plus completely omit the value of the original comix. for the sake of tryin to globalize this batman entry, and make a dollar. granted i love, money, but i find it distasteful to ruin literary classic if adapted to film for the sake of a dollar. meaning, that if LOTR, was adapted so masterfully, and had so much acclaim. then why doesn’t every other franchise patterned after literary classic uphold the same. when, it is virtual proof that accurrate adaptations to the source material, show a film will reap the rewards in the box office and credibility.

with that said, this review which will be detailed because this film is highly important to the rest of movie making from adapted literary source material. I will tackle, the issues and list the differences this movie makes that should set, and fully solidify the industry standard, on comix book film making

Plus, dually i also cringed, because barring SInCITY. plus the whole omission of the actor’s guild, and the pr on that movie. Plus, Miller’s blacklisting fiasco in robocop II. When they left most of his writing genius on the cutting/editing room floor. while also making him take the blame for its awful showing in the box office revenue wise. Plus, dually blackmailing him, till SINCITY. Couple that with MARVEL omitting his classic, and industry changing critically acclaimed, highly detailed, and regarded run, on the movie DAREDEVIL. In that awful movie, which is actually worth reviewing on DVD, if you get the directors’s cut by-the-way. i felt regardless of his[MILLER's] recent triumphs in film, and box office receipts. that DC would still find a way to omit his material, pacing , and depth from this film.

WELL, I CAN SAY FINALLY IN A COMIX MOVIE.

DC SHOULD BE PRAISED BECAUSE THEY DID NOT DO SUCH A THING.

which wins huge kudos from me, and supplies much needed hope as a flim goer, and comix book movie fanboy.

LET’s just say if you haven’t seen this movie, and read the reviews, from positive to negative and are a former avid comix reader. plus know the legend

of this adapted graphic novel best seller. You will be rewarded with a movie that captures the dark noir writing style, and detail that miller beautifully supplied. Nolan, is incredible as a director on this film. His, cinematography, links the original batman franchises, from the noir filled original offering, made by TIM BURTON. Plus, mixes and obliterates the lighthearted bullsh!t that schumaker used to kill the once mighty batman franchise. He even retreads key moments of comparison to the original burton film, in his movie. while also surpassing them, with a large assault rifle toting joker, and gadget riding batman, gun battle ride into action. in comparison to the gag, almost vomiting in my mouth reflex of Jack’s joker pullin out a large long barrell 357, to shoot down batman. which, then nolan also, surpass a second time, by appealing to the cult following of the original movie. by giving the fanboy, a what if, the joker didn’t plunge, segueway into the conclusion and climax.

THE DARKKNIGHT, as a mechanism of film making also lengthens and gives credibility to staying to the source material of the comix. Which, also bolsters the entire genre of filmmaking, and gives hope to every fanboy alive. Especially disgruntled, and displeased fanboys, who left the realm of comix collecting. to look at every comix book movie entry with skeptism, initially. yes, there are a lot of fanboys out there, and honestly our commentary is what actually leads to movies being blockbuster draws in this genre. appease the fanboy, make a hundid million dollars…in a short time. after this movie, I have to say to every fanboy. “you should and will be happy to go into this movie and have all your prayers, FINALLY answered.”

Plus, now you can simply diss any other movie that is of the fanboy persuasion. If it doesn’t keep to the literary detailed styling seen in the source material. The boxoffice receipts of this movie should keep every future franchise honest, in that respect and regard. In every possible minute detail. so for the people reading and hearing about the next ironman being the drunk legendary ironman of lore. there is hope, after this film it will stick exclusively to the source material originally supplied in the comix story arc. plus, live up to the true offering that have made that story arc, a classic.

then hopefully we will get a DAREDEVIL story, written and directed by frank miller, and robert rodriguez, as well. to usher that character in to boxoffice lore as well.

Now, back to DC, and the marvel inferiority complex. I will tie into why this movie is also the best comic book movie ever, and surpassed XMEN II, as the best comix book movie of all time as well. One, dark knight sticks completely to the source material. whereas the XMEN franchise experimented, and up until the godawful third installment, was close to making an incredible movie franchise, complete with compromised intelligent filmmaking and detail, to the source material.

On, the third installment of XMEN, that franchise went in a new direction with an awful pop video director, in BRETT RATNER. i should call him SHATNER, instead of RATTNER. simply because he SHAT upon, and completely sucked all the life out of the literary/comix conversion of the XMEN, in one fell swoop as a franchise. plus, could have ultimately stifled all comix bood movies from being good films instead of fanboy pieces as well. in that regard, THE DARK KNIGHT, is actually a real THRILLER psycho movie. It, even features an old switcheroo plot change that outdoes hancock’s as well. In XMEN III, rattner, omitted, the large wordbubble claremont style supplied in accuracy by XMEN’s original director who left for the superman franchise. which gets away from why comix book movies actually were a draw in the first place.

The DARK KNIGHT, completely picks up in detail, and lineage, where XMEN III lost and sucked all the steam outta the comix book genre, and literary conversion. In this film nolan sticks to miller’s noir literary style and bolstered it for the film. whereas rattner, completely stifled the genre of comixbook movie making, by reeling in large receipts which justified, the compromising of comix book source material. After, the godawful XMEN III, movie. i became almost an eternal skeptic to comix movies once again, and feared the genre would be dead by other franchises looking to make a buck in the boxoffice. while giving us compromised gateway fan products which lacked the initially uumph, which made the franchise a draw as a comix to become a movie in the first place.

let just say the darkknight’s box office receipts should eliminate comix movies from straying away from the source material.

THANK THA LAWD,…HALLEJUAH!!!!

with that said,..i welcome anyone to go see and enjoy: THE DARK KNIGHT

this movie is completly moving, and does every component of comix book filmmaking justice from compromise, and attention to detail from the source material.

you not only get an incredible joker, but you also finally get a BATMAN, who really is BATMAN for all intent and purposes in every possible way.. The batman, in the comix who is so confined, is able to spread his WINGS, so to speak in every way possible. While also,…taking a note from the compromise of spiderman’s, movie franchise component of the natural webshooters. This component is played out expertly in batman’s relationships, and his gadgetry. This Batman, played excellently, by the lisped Bale. acts as a complete foil, and character to all the comix movie franchises. supplying a character that although listed as the main attraction doesn’t lose his steam, or uumph in the wake of the incredibe performances offered by everyone in this movie. People are raving about ledger, but the contributions of all the other actors are left out unjustly. the performances in this movie are incredible. From the lighting, the makeup [especially of harvey two face, and the performance is inspiring, and just a psychological journey as the joker's performance as well.] even gary oldman, as commissioner gordon, is riveting, and makes me want to see him play:

SOLID SNAKE, in a metal gear movie..yes, you heard it here first.

GARY OLDMAN = solid snake, young and old

konami,..make it happen.

but anyway,…i didn’t want to give away any spoilers for people who haven’t seen the movie, in my review. As, i am also…trying to make ground and work on reviews that tackle the gateway, to issues that create skeptism in an educated fan. without, giving away the premise or any of the detail for someone who hasn’t seen this film. for details and discussions i will take to the message boards, or when the forums.sohh.com, are back and running i will tackle the discussion there.

so till then, movie goers and fans…

signin out, and most importantly…GO SEE:

THE DARK KNIGHT

ART BARR

i didn’t watch sex and the city because it aint my type of film i guess you’d have done well to steer clear of this type of film in future!!!I really liked the Dark Knight i felt it did cut short some scenes somewhat as forementioned. Then slowed off strangely about 80 mins in! although I can’t see what warrented a whole negative novel on it!

Its just a superhero movie you know the kinda plot its fast paced, loose, far fetched etc etc. I dont get what you were hoping to get from it? i felt it was alot less far fetched than any other superhero film that i have ever seen, It was Dark eerie and the Batmobile rocks – in tank form especially. Ledger was un-nerving as he was formidable and equally threatening. The set was dark and “looming” the action was loud and fast without being over the top! all you could want from a film of this genre. The real bonus being that beneath it all was a terrorising observation of how mass hysteria and mayhem could be created, works and executed. With batman stuck between moral dilemmas it worked and suprised people on that basis making it so well recieved (with the odd exception of course). Also i think its the contrast between the imaginary and the very real moral and human phsychological issues that make people warm to it so much.

Seriously dude, it’s just a movie. Say it with me. It’s easy to pick apart any film even one as great as the godfather. Every movie is flawed, get over yourself. You seriously just wrote an entire novel on why you didn’t like the movie. I stopped reading about half way through because you were just repeating yourself. You need to get over yourself man. I bet you really liked the movie but your on of those guys who likes to go against the trend just to be different. It was a great movie, your entitled to your opinion but honestly you just spent two weeks of your life writing about something you hated. Really? If you didn’t like the movie and thought it was too dark and wasn’t fun enough pop in batman and robin. It was colorful not dark and probably has a plot more up your alley.

It?s easy to pick apart any film even one as great as the godfather. Every movie is flawed, get over yourself.

Ok. Every movie is flawed. So what’s your point, because every movie is flawed, we can’t criticize any movies from now on? Or point out how some movies have significantly more flaws than others. Also, on the flipside it’s easy to focus on the positives of any movie, too even one as bad as Batman and Robin. Does that mean that since anyone can praise any movie we should also refrain from praising any movies? I don’t get your point. So what if any movie can be picked apart for flaws? Why does that mean I’m not supposed to pick apart this specific movie for ITS flaws? If people can praise it to the high heavens all day long, why can’t I respond and criticize it also?

I can find the flaws in any company in the stock market. Should no one critique stocks in finance magazines? I can find flaws in any politician. Guess political punditry needs to be eliminated too! You really need to come with something better than that.

honestly you just spent two weeks of your life writing about something you hated.

Okay, I guess it didn’t come across clearly in the written form, but I didn’t actually spend two whole weeks writing this. That was supposed to be blatant hyperbole.

you know you spent a lot time writting a lot of hate towards a movie that has actually tried to make the average comic movie something that can follow the source material and actual characters and make it work.

you have so many damn comic movies out there that ignore everything there is about the characters soul that i almost lost faith in these movies in general. i too could write a novel like blurb on how much xmen didnt pay attention to the source material and ignored it’s characters, i can say the same about every single super hero movie except for The Dark Knight.

the problem with your arguement is that you are complaining about tiny things that if you knew what you were talking about wouldnt matter at all. for example, you mention how come joker can not have permawhite skin, why does he have to look so evil and not like just a happy clown like in the comics to that i say have you even picked up and of the graphic novels like hush, the killing joke, the long halloween? what are you talking about??? NEVER has the joker seemed like an harmless clown that kids whould approach. yeah they changed his look but, he was never this happy looking clown to begin with.

what did they do right? they captured who the joker really is in the comics, insane, witty, very intellegent, an anchor of chaos. read the comics my friend. they stayed very true to the jokers sadisic, unsympathitic nature.

same goes for all the other characters in the dark knight.

if anything this movie is a testament as to what a movie can be if stay true to the source materials character.

NOW if you don’t like that, then fine, if you enjoy the more campy, fun, batman, then ok. thats your opinion. but dont go on and on how lame a movie is and how they totatly ignored what batman is if you yourself have ignored over two decades of the darker batman graphic novels.

nolan knew what he was doing, and this movie was great, and i’m glad it did so well, because now we can maybe finally see more comic movies actually staying true to the actual characters and not dolling them up so they can no offend someone, or please kids or what not.

stick with your batman and robin’s and fantastic 4 films then.

and one more thing.

your little piece on spiderman 2…how you said you ignore that plot holes in that film because raimi wasnt trying to make a film realisic or based on reality, well raimi himself said in his first interviews for spiderman that he intended spiderman to be a bit more based on reality, thats why he got rid of the web shootters the crazy but way better original green goblin suit and chose that lame soilder suit. so where does your logic go there?

bottom line, this movie stayed very true to the nature of what is batman like the grahpic novels themselves, the action and everything isnt all fantastic and what not. and like i said if you like that then fine, clearly shows why you liked spiderman and ignored it’s flaws. just dont jodge another movie for being different.

you know you spent a lot time writting a lot of hate towards a movie that has actually tried to make the average comic movie something that can follow the source material and actual characters and make it work.

How does this movie follow the source material? Joker’s origin is different, 2 Face’s origin is different, how Gordon became Commissioner is different, Joker’s look is different, Batman’s look is different, he can fly/glide, his fight style is different (that is, more “realistic”), the portrayal of Gotham City is different, Joker’s origin being tied into a fight with Batman and falling into a vat of chemicals is different, there’s an invented love interest, no Batcave, Joker is portrayed more as an ideological terrorist than the heist guy he is in the comics…this strays from the source material a LOT. I personally don’t care if it steers away from a lot of the specifics of the source material as long as it captures the overall tone, and this movie didn’t do that for me. But don’t pretend this is close to the source material. It’s not.

the problem with your arguement is that you are complaining about tiny things that if you knew what you were talking about wouldnt matter at all. for example, you mention how come joker can not have permawhite skin, why does he have to look so evil and not like just a happy clown like in the comics to that i say have you even picked up and of the graphic novels like hush, the killing joke, the long halloween? what are you talking about??? NEVER has the joker seemed like an harmless clown that kids whould approach. yeah they changed his look but, he was never this happy looking clown to begin with.

The way Cesar Romero looked in the Batman TV show is pretty much how the Joker looked in over 40 years of Batman comics. In Batman The Animated Series he looked like a clown kids would approach too. Unlike most modern comic fans, I don’t act like Batman came into existence with the writings of British writers in the 80s. Joker existed before Alan Moore’s Killing Joke and before Morrison’s Arkham Asylum. I personally think Killing Joke is horribly overrated and pretentious and Arkham Asylum is the same. And Hush and Long Halloween? Both by Jeph Loeb, so they fall under “automatic crap” category. No such thing as a good Jeph Loeb book. Long Halloween is just the best parts of Godfather 1 and 2, Presumed Innocent, Silence of the Lambs and classic Batman stories, except with bad dialogue and stupid plot holes thrown in and a mystery that makes NO sense. Perfect example of everything wrong with modern Batman books.

go read the dark noir ABSTRACT source material, THE DARK KNIGHT. penned and penciled by the legend, FRANK MILLER. See, what his aim and scope was that helped to usher realism into comix, and make them evolve, and stand in the context of time. then go tackle, the rest of miller?s classics including the runs on sincity, and most importantly daredevil. get educated on what you are missing, because you are missing a lot.

I’ve read every single one of those things you mention. What does Frank Miller have to do with Nolan? Frank Miller’s Dark Knight? You mean the series that has a wacked out cyberpunk vision of the future, complete with monstrous mutants that spoke in a wacked out special slang, 8 foot tall Amazon musclebound shirtless women villains with swastika boobs, ridiculously fun scenes like Batman wearing an old lady disguise over his costume, a fat assistant to the Joker called Milkbaby that smelled like milk, cranky dolls that talked smack and self-destructed, a knockdown fight with Superman where Batman wears a giant, kryptonite powered robot armor, laugh out loud trash-talking speeches by Batman to crooks that were incredibly awesome and over the top, a Joker that actually has white skin and not facepaint…basically a graphic novel that unlike Christopher Nolan’s approach is TOTALLY WILLING TO EMBRACE A LACK OF REALISM AND THE OVER THE TOP RIDICULOUS NATURE OF SUPERHERO COMICS?! THAT is the book you want to use to prove your point about why Dark Knight is so good? The book is the total opposite in approach from Dark Knight the movie. Sure it has grim overtones, but it is bombastic, fun and totally embraces the craziness of superheroics and fantasy rather than trying to be a cop film meets Silence of the lamb meets snuff film while having the bare minimum of superheroics needed to call the movie a Batman movie.

If Chris Nolan was willing to put in half the outrageous craziness Frank Miller puts into his Batman comics like Dark Knight, Dark KNight Strikes Again or All Star Batman and Robin, I’d have LOVED this movie. Using Frank Miller hurts your case, it doesn’t help it.

well, if you read all of that source material, and didn’t find anything rewarding in this film and triumph in cinema..then you are one of those people who is hard to please. honestly though, i think you are just listing the material from wikipedia. seriously, because if you were around when the dark knight was initially released as well, as other miller departure from the norm in staple books. you would have noticed that this film lived up to that departure from the norm, and also upheld all the previous moments in batman’s history and lineage, excellently. your opinion on the joker, and the events, plus downplaying his scattergorical genius is a very big indicator. you are one of those people faking to have read, and also were not initially around to comment on tone of the material you said you read. i mean seriously, your review goes into places, this movie initially tackled and upheld in the first batman begins, and then translated that same fervor into the sequel and magnified it. i think you are just a toy poser, when it comes to actually reading any comix.

as a matter of fact, please list your favorites comix, and their creators, and i don’t mean graphic novels. i mean you were there to get them every wednesday, or thursday. plus had a stack waiting for you to not miss the first printing. please list your favorite creators, and why. i honestly think you are making things up as you go, and just tryin to save face, in the wake of looking like you don’t understand or comprehend what you are talkin about.

art barr

plus, and most importantly you did not read my entire offering. which also makes me think you just skimmed to below my posted username, and thought that was the wrap up to my rant. i read your entire rant, re-read mine, and my review then answer back.

by not doin so, you definately cosign you don’t pay attention to detail as your intial review shows in plain english. if you know so much about comix, why just harp on my dark knight frank miller comment, and not the entire bulk of what i discussed. including the review, which i put there to give you some insight to a topic you honestly and consistently prove you know nothing and were never really apart of. anyone, can go get a few reveiws from the back inset of the frank miller books. you let me know you definately didn’t read the comix because in a round about way you try to bash those works as well. it signals to me, you are just tryin to falsely claim something you didn’t really experience, as well.

art barr

oh, like batman kickin superman’s a55 was a detractor. the most important arc in that comix, is superman’s failing relationship with wonderwoman. not the fight between, supes and batman.

T.

Great post and one i’ll be passing on to many of the spoon fed opinion, media sanctioned “films you should go see” loving sheeplike drones i call mates.
Many points made (and some i hadn’t really noticed) are made with more applomb than i could muster but i feel there is still a glimmer of a slot through which to push my 10 pence/ 10 cents (depending on your state approved method of economic lubrication).

And it is thus!

Much has been made of Batmans moral triumph in not killing the Joker when given a perfect opportunity to do so but many, i feel, fail to grasp the true bat castrating tradgedy of the situation…..

Your enemy is standing helpless and ineffectual in the middle of a road you are presently gunning down on an armed vehicle at a fairly high rate of knots…….. what does your heroic instinct tell you to do?

Is it?

A

SLOW DOWN

PULL OUT A WEAPON

COME TO A CONTROLLED STOP BESIDE SAID ARCH ENEMY

TWAT ABOUT HEAD UNTIL RENDERED UNCONCIOUS

Or is IT!

B

Speed up.

Scream like a girl

Crash bike

Faint

If you answered B to the above question then you are in fact not a superhero but a dithering twat in a gimp suit who cant defend himself against DOGS, for gods sake, TWICE in the same movie.

Batman- YOU FAIL.

Dude. Seriously? Did you not watch the movie? First of all, the Joker had a machine gun so a controlled stop could have dire consequences not to mention the fact that the Joker is not going to just sit there and let himself be beat over the head. Secondly, it was a plan by Gordon and Batman to catch the Joker. He didn’t faint, he pretended to faint. You, sharethecake, are the weakest link. Good-bye.

Dude. Seriously? Did you not watch the movie? First of all, the Joker had a machine gun so a controlled stop could have dire consequences not to mention the fact that the Joker is not going to just sit there and let himself be beat over the head. Secondly, it was a plan by Gordon and Batman to catch the Joker. He didn?t faint, he pretended to faint. You, sharethecake, are the weakest link. Good-bye.

Batman did not pretend. He was knocked out. Gordon even tells his son later that he actually saved Batman’s life. Sharethecake is right, sorry.

And it also leads to another criticism of the movie…if it was part of the plan by Gordon and Batman for Batman to pretend to fake, how on earth could they plan that so perfectly? “Okay Gordon, you ride in the truck in disguise with Dent, then we wait for Joker to kill a few innocent people and attack us with an RPG and destroy tons of property while I remain nowhere in site for ten or so minutes while the carnage ensues and innocents are at risk. Then I show up after so many people have been shot at and almost killed just to crash my car beyond repair. You get the paddywagon stalled out on the corner of Kane and Finger while I show up with my Batcycle and turn the truck over, but then I’m going to crash it and end up right at Joker’s feet and pretend to faint. THEN you get the drop on him.”

I think it even gets DUMBER for Batman if you try to use the excuse that it was a plan all along.

most importantly you did not read my entire offering. which also makes me think you just skimmed to below my posted username, and thought that was the wrap up to my rant. i read your entire rant, re-read mine, and my review then answer back.

Art Barr, I didn’t respond to every single point in your post because honestly, I didn’t care to. I made my points, you made your responses, I felt that was enough for the most part. It’s my blog, I respond to the points I want to and don’t respond to the points I don’t want to. Most of the stuff you wrote was your opinion versus my opinion, which is fine. I let you give your opposing viewpoint. But you can’t come on my blog and start demanding I give you point by point responses to everything you write. Get your own blog and bark orders over there, okay? The only thing you posted that I felt I wanted to respond to was your claim that I read no Frank Miller books. I read them all, and gave you a laundry list of specific reasons why Miller’s Batman work is very different than the spirit of Nolan’s interpretation, and what do you say?

honestly though, i think you are just listing the material from wikipedia…as a matter of fact, please list your favorites comix, and their creators, and i don?t mean graphic novels. i mean you were there to get them every wednesday, or thursday. plus had a stack waiting for you to not miss the first printing. please list your favorite creators, and why. i honestly think you are making things up as you go, and just tryin to save face, in the wake of looking like you don?t understand or comprehend what you are talkin about.

dude, why the hell should i care if you, Art Barr, specifically believe me about being a comic fan? and also, why would i even bother to lie about such a thing? it’s not like being a comic book fan is going to impress people or get me chicks. i gave you a point by point description of Dark Knight Returns and you just accuse me of getting it off wikipedia. So what, now I’m supposed to give you a laundry list of creators and titles I like because you, Art Barr, don’t believe me? Who are you? And why bother? You’ll just claim I got it the names off of DC or Marvel or Diamond’s website or something. because obviously in your world no one can possibly like comic books and still dislike this movie. It’s simply impossible. So fine. Think what you want to think, believe what you want to believe, but don’t expect to come to my blog demanding I give you point by point responses to your comments or demand that I jump through hoops to prove things about myself to you. Just doesn’t work like that here.

Sorry, Ricky Raw, but you are wrong here. If it wasn’t a plan, then why would Gordon be disguised in the truck at all? Also, just so you know, part of a plan could involve saving someone’s life. *sigh* But here you go back to your “not 100% real” criticism again. Is it so far fetched (even in a fictional story) that there could have been a plan to transport Dent with Batman as back-up (the kind of back-up where only him and Gordon know) and Gordon disguised on the truck as even more back-up and that they were expecting Joker to attack at some point but they weren’t exactly sure so Batman remained behind the scenes until the Joker attacked and then joined the fight against him? If you can’t, I pity you. Also the plan clearly wasn’t perfect as it provided the Joker to carry out his plan of having the bomb in the police station and killing Rachel as a punishment for Batman for being “selfish” and saving her despite Gotham’s need for Dent.

….. Batman PRETENDED to faint in order to allow Gordon to bag the Joker? Please.
This is of course not true- he did in fact faint like a giant girl (im beginning to think that bat cycle should have been pink and had stablizers), but your missing my point- He’s meant to be BATMAN i.e A totally brickshithouse, baddy arse kicking, gigantaspartan hardcase. He SHOULD have shrugged off a few bullets from a machine gun like it was a water pistol, parked the bike, strode up to Mr smiley and KNOCKED HIS FUCKING TEETH IN. Keep him alive, yes, it keeps the plot moving, but where does it say he cant kick him about a bit before sticking him in jail?
Would the brothers Nolan PLEASE stop turning my once favourite of Superhero’s (because this DOES come from the fact that something i like so much is being screwed with in such a horrible way) into something totally ineffective. In fact why dont you take the ears off the suit and call the next film “Totally non bat related crime fighting vigelante man”……….. or “The Punisher” for short……….

Wrong. Do you have any reason why you think that he really fainted? Nope, but I can’t wait to see what you come up with. Why SHOULD he have done that? It would have been stupid and overly unrealistic if his new armor that made him more vulnerable to bullets was able to take point blank machine gun fire. Also, if you remember, he beat Joker’s ass in the interrogation room. So how exactly is he totally ineffective? The fact that the themes in the movie are deeper than past Batman movies mean that him being effective can mean more than just beating up on the Joker, him being effective means that people won’t succumb to the whims of the Joker just so that he can prove his theories about human nature.

hey t,…Ricky Raw,

why don’t you come off, of it.

seriously, you are skimming, and it is completely obvious.
first and case in point in your original review, you mention and hark back to the original batman tv show, and the image of the joker. plus mention, that image as being this fun loving character. when as early as the mid 90’s and the death of robin, the handicapping of oracle, and the frank miller alternative reality batman, and batman year one. this franchise, and this series joker is based on, directionwise. you fail to mention, any of that initially in your original review. you don’t mention, that relevence once. then, act like you were completely unaware of the joker and his character traits globally as a character. plus, you also retreaded that, the joker never did this or that. when if you read any frank miller graphic novels or any batman titles, like you claim to have. material, which has been available for close to fifteen years almost. since the mid nineties, for shezus christsake. then when i confronted you on, having any knowledge of the source material used for this batman franchise. you act like this expert, all of a sudden. when your initial review didn’t include any of this knowledge of the source material. plus, i posted my review which chronicles, that psychology and character development, and the reason why this batman is more gritty. Except in the case of DC, it still retains the softness, of DC characters.
honestly, if you previously knew of the source material you should have listed that. plus, your disapproval of the direction the joker character had taken, at that point. you did not do that. simply, because you couldn’t have done that because the joker has always been a psycho character. not some fun loving jokester. even on the batman character in two incarnations, the joker never even acts that way. that is why i questioned your knowledge. honestly i still feel you don’t know any of the material whatsoever, at all. as a matter of fact, this source material is so profound, that even todd mcfarlane in the spawn/batman crossover, found away to stylistically include tidbits from the frankmiller darkknight series. just as a cosign of its legendary direction, for the character, batman just for beginners. honestly, i feel you are full of crap, like your review and not familiar with the source material at all..you should just say that you weren’t familiar with the character and that is you shortcoming when reviewing this new batman franchise. which initially was relaunched to follow batman: year one, and the darkknight franchises in tone and premise since they first pr’d the re-release of the franchise to film, after they destroyed the first franchise appeasing clowns like you, with the direction of joel schumaker.

so please spare me with your posturing and just man up. stop tryin to act like you are so on the ball. that you can not be read like the graphic novels, and comic character evolutions, you did NOT read. nor, not even once go about tryin to correlate the magnitude of those storyarcs, and characters.

Art Barr

be real, homie….cause you are not real…

you just want something to complain about because you probably feel left outta the loop. cool, go to your neighbothood bookstore, and pick up the graphic novels. lawd knows, you don’t care enough to actually plop down the money to have the first printings, of the original comix. let alone, the resources, or savy to actually track them down, and purchase them either. just you absence, of knowing anything about the evolution of batman, and the characters, in his universe signify that.

stop skim’n,..and pic’n. you can’t fully appreciate a thing, till you sit through it in full as well.

Beating up an unarmed man in a locked room does not make you an effective hero my friend, it makes you a bullying dick. End of.
Im talking about pitting your wits and pugilistic chops up against a worthy enemey and coming out bruised and battered, yes, but victorious.
I think back to the action in this film and all i can recall are a few murky, overly tight shots of interchangeable uniformed stuntmen getting punched then thrown to the floor. Christ, even Tim Burton (an unapologetically stylecentric, wildhaired art school type) shot fight scenes in the first two that i still remember to this day, and i cant remember the last time i watched either of them.
At the end of the day its just a matter of opinion, and i get the feeling Phil that (to your credit) your the type of man who’ll stand by a conviction until your dial beams azure, so we’ll just have to agree to disagree.
Its the first Hulk movie all over again- i loved that film to death and almost everyone else hated it. There’s just no understanding popular opinion some times…

What gets me is that batman is being treated like a complex true to life thriller, its a fictional piece of work in every way it was bound to be choppy and have its faults. It has been made darker but accessable!! its just fun, Most of you guys are far to intellectual to be taking this so seriously you just cant over anylyse it. it wasnt made to be studied as a piece of art. if you dont like it then i wouldnt bother watching a comic book film in future you are far to cynical for such genres. try non fiction maybe or porn? hey its worth a try it might just be the only thing to satisfy you

Art Barr, get it into your head: I don’t care if you believe I am a “true” comic fan or not. I’m not going to waste time trying to prove it to you. All the proof I’ve given, you’ve accused me of getting by skimming or looking on wikipedia. So fuck it, believe what you want..

Paul:

What gets me is that batman is being treated like a complex true to life thriller, its a fictional piece of work in every way it was bound to be choppy and have its faults. It has been made darker but accessable!! its just fun, Most of you guys are far to intellectual to be taking this so seriously you just cant over anylyse it. it wasnt made to be studied as a piece of art. if you dont like it then i wouldnt bother watching a comic book film in future you are far to cynical for such genres. try non fiction maybe or porn? hey its worth a try it might just be the only thing to satisfy you

Paul, I agree with everything you said here about how stupid it is to take Batman so seriously. Problem is, instead of addressing it to me, address it to Chris Nolan. I’m not the one treating Batman as a complex true-to-life thriller, Chris Nolan is. It is not “just fun,” it’s anything BUT fun, it’s ugly, depressing and cynical. Chris Nolan is the one that’s far too intellectual and taking the subject matter too seriously, I am just analyzing the movie by THE STANDARDS OF WHAT NOLAN OBVIOUSLY SET OUT TO DO. You don’t judge Sophie’s CHoice by the standards of Zoolander, you don’t judge Zoolander by the standards of Sophie’s Choice. You judge a movie by the standards of what the creators intended to create. I don’t judge movies like Kill Bill, Burton’s Batman and Raimi’s Spider-Man by these high standards because they are the ones actually trying to create movies that are not intellectual, that are “just fun,” that are not meant to be overanalyzed, etc. Nolan, on the other hand, with this pseudointellectual, bloated pretentious mess had a reach that exceeded his grasp.

This is the big problem with Dark Knight fans, they want to have their cake and eat it too. Everything fun, boisterous, larger than life and outlandish has been removed from Batman and all these lofty themes and allegories and manifestoes and enough squeamish violence to make parents think twice about bringing kids to see the movie are all over the film. So you can’t turn around and now claim that this film is just a kid’s movie, just fun, not meant to be taken seriously or judged by an adult standard when they’ve made every effort to make this a serious, adult, deep movie that is not friendly to kids.

as someone who enjoyed the movie as a visual narcotic designed to lull me into a welcome stupor, i give you props for this beautiful evisceration. perhaps the batman as envisioned by nolan is the culmination of an artistic trend that society (the West) claims to love because it validates our total embrace of nihilism?

meh, i had more fun watching superman 2. zod was cool.

First there?s the comic fanboy hysteria that feels the more serious the source material is taken, the better the movie automatically is because it helps them achieve personal validation for the fact that they are reading it well into their 20s and 30s.

this made me lo… but not l. i’m in public.

roissys last blog post..Universal Truths Day

Go watch Batman and Robin for less realism. Sounds like you hated it because you wanted to. And that’s fine. I just feel sorry that you couldn’t enjoy an obviously awesome movie.

I didn’t say that Batman was effective because he, while unarmed, beat up an unarmed man in a room that he locked. I said that he was effective because he managed to get the people of Gotham to not give in to the Joker. I’m not even sure what the point of you making that statement was, but regardless we can agree to disagree. I actually liked the Eric Bana Hulk too and I often get ridiculed for that by my friends who all claim that it sucks.

Sorry mate, i just was saying that you would argue til you were blue in the face, which is why we are having this discussion- a bit of banter.
I find it heartening that you found the original Hulk to be a good film becuase i kind of use that particular film as a barometer upon which to gauge a persons filmic aesthetic stance. Although it will never happen i wouldn’t mind seeing his take (Ang Lee) on the Bat lore…… No doubt everyone would die in a Greek tradgedy type stramash of death and betrayal….. wait a minute……
Anyroad.
All plot holes, bad direction and scripting aside the general thrust (and takings) of the film can only lead to a more adult, darker and better depiction of the Bat lore in general come the next installment.
What about a Tarantino effort?…………Hmm maybe not eh?

Hey, you’re entirely entitled to your opinion. I’m not about to flame someone who’s opinion on a movie differs from mine, hell I don’t even flame people with different opinions on human rights issues. Still, I do wonder about some of your points. I loved the action, and I wish more movies would shoot their action sequences more brutally real like this instead of less so. Not that the fights weren’t well outside the realm of humanly possible, but that most fights are over as quick as they start, and while not particularly spectacular are horrifying to behold. I’m also not saying that every movie should use this exact format either, but for this movie it worked. My biggest fear is all the imitators to come. People who think that because it worked for Batman, it’ll work for the new re-imagining of H.R. Puff ‘N Stuff.

go watch george clooney’s batman movies, then, if you want unrealistic, silly action. i remember a shitscene where he and robin fight arnie’s goons on ICE SKATES, and do pirouettes, and another scene where uma thurman sexily pops out of a huge furry gorilla costume to a dance number while stepping on a bunch of prone men to show how *seductive* she is. i’m sure thats the kind of quality filmmaking that keeps u gleefully clapping and squealing with your mouth full of popcorn, you tasteless lil rascal you.

T. I do understand what you are saying to a certain extent nolan covered alot of different fronts in the film moral, emotional etc that coupled with everything else there was alot going on and there was maybe to many things to take in making the film feel forced and stretched at times? but it didnt get confusing which kept people watching, i think you had a pretense and was dissapointed maybe?

I think overall the joker part and darkness was what made the film and the batmobile was pretty awesome too. there were some good moral points and the chaos theory came accross well, it was more edgy than its predecessor which did come accross. I do understand why some might not have liked it though, some people can take the good points from a film and ignore the bad bits others just dislike bits and sway themselves completely…

was i just me or has no-one mentioned bales batman voice was a bit stupid??? oh my god your turning me into a hater!!!! aaagghh

I actually liked Bale’s voice. I thought that it was a nice touch that no previous Batman had done but makes sense in consideration of the fact that his Bruce Wayne persona is a different personality from his Batman persona.

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Paul – come over to the dark side, hahahaha! Honestly, I thought Bale’s Batman sounded like robot pedophile with laryngitis, which is a shame because his Bruce Wayne was so good. I didn’t bother bringing it up in the review though because it just seemed like too easy a target.

Actually I think the best thing for Bale to have done would be to change his voice more when doing Bruce Wayne than when doing Batman. He can do his Bruce Wayne with a lighter, more foppish and pompous voice and then do his Batman in a slightly deeper and raspier menacing version of his real voice. He actually accomplished this already in American psycho, where he had one voice for when Patrick Bateman spoke out loud and another for Patrick Bateman’s internal monologues. If he just slightly exaggerated both he’d have the perfect voice for both characters.

i dunno. i’ve been reading these posts with alot of interests because i loved the movie but i also respect T’s opinion when it comes to alot of things. So while I can appreciate his thoughts on the movie and might even agree with some of his criticisms, I STILL ENJOYED THE FUCKIN MOVIE!

Basically what it comes down to is the fact that T didn’t like it for the reasons he outlined. And many of us loved it for the reasons we have or have yet to outline. The murkiness of the gordon-dent-joker gambit did not mitigate my enjoyment of that scene. Now if i thought hard enough i can problem come up with a plausible explanation for the ploy. But why? i got what i needed out of it. This isn’t a movie i’m going to meditate on for long after it ends.

i just think its silly that everyone is getting worked up over someone else not sharing their opinion.

Worked up?

Well I finally saw the movie and my wife and I both thought it was crap. But it was such a mess of a movie that it was hard to put my finger on exactly WHY I thought it was crap. Thanks for clearing that up The only thing I would add is that I think I would have liked the movie better if I hadn’t been hearing from everyone for the past month how great it was – sometimes I feel like an alien. I see several of your critics say you are hard to please – personally I am constantly amazed by how low everyone else’s standards seem to be.

Thank God, I’m not the only person in the world who hated Dark Knight! I’d been looking forward to it since Batman Begins, and from the moment it started I had this uncomfortable feeling that my expectations weren’t going to pan out. And I was right.

I could find no redeeming feature for the film, not one. And I can’t work out why I’m still so annoyed, it is just a film. Perhaps I feel like someone stole the mythos of ‘the Bat’ and screwed around with it for no good reason.

If I’d been told beforehand I’d be watching a toned down version of Saw where the bad guy is king, or if they’d called it ‘Joker’ I might have got the impression that it wasn’t a film about Batman at all. I was so steamed when I got home I posted a review on the UK Channel 4 website.

I’m sure there wil be a third installment – given this catastrophe I’ll probably steer well clear.

Thank you for this. I can see most comments don’t agree with your take on the film, but I do. I hated it. Plot holes and nastiness and you do nail the realism / lack of realism problem completely – “realistic” fighting (dreadfully shot by the director – the action scenes are awful, though most reviewers don’t note this), “unrealistic” plot devices and all-out holes elsewhere. There were at least three four points in the film, for example, where The Joker escapes, where we were not shown how it happened, Nolan simply cut from the suggestion of an escape to BANG! He is out. More than once did I find myself going “huh”?

A load of nonsense, basically – and I was really looking forward to this

Hi T – Long time, no read!
(I don’t think you would have charged people up as much if you’d declared yourself Jesus – man, don’t get between people and their batman – !)

If someone else already mentioned this I apologize, I read something like 30 of the 50 comments and had to take a breather from all of the…EMOTION you’ve incited…

Robert Downey Jr agrees with ya:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26255675/

my favorite little snippet:

?I’m like, ‘I get it. This is so high-brow and so f—ing smart, I clearly need a college education to understand this movie,’? the actor ranted before adding, ?You know what? F— DC comics. That’s all I have to say and that’s where I’m really coming from.?

heatheradairs last blog post..Will women please learn to stop dating John Mayer….

This seems to be a rant blog so I will jump on the unstoppable train. I too was annoyed when I left the cinema. It wasn’t until I read some posts above did I realise why.

It is because *some* of us were robbed of the the real essence of Batman. I like a gullible idiot joined in to watch this movie at the cinema instead of 6 months down the track on a DVD.

This one did it for me – NO MORE CINEMA!!!!!

I loved The Dark Knight, and I’ve never enjoyed a comic book in my life. I’m just a hardcore film buff, and I’ll try to retort as best as I can (not point for point, just generally).

It seems like any part of the movie that’s dark and serious is slammed by you, claiming the movie should be lighter and more fun. Then any part of the movie that relies on suspension of disbelief is slammed by you because it isn’t realistic enough.

It is a movie, it’s a movie about Batman, it isn’t going to be able to fit every last thing in realistically. What it can do is start with something realistic, and build upon one realistic thing with something less realistic, and so on and so forth. One film that has been discussed in this way is Jurassic Park. I believe Spielberg said that if you can buy the premise (a mosquito sucking blood, encased in amber, getting the DNA out in present time, etc), then you can buy the unrealistic concept of dinosaurs existing in modern times.

In my opinion, Nolan managed to build on realistic concepts (which are less specific than in Jurassic Park, it isn’t a premise but more of a tone throughout the movie) in order to make you believe in the things that are less realistic (such as a man who has half his face burned off not screaming in agonizing pain, or succumbing to horrible infection).

Yes, it is a comic book movie, but I like to think it stands for something more. These movies about larger than life heroes make filmmakers able to tell stories about morality and present-day issues, but they can bring forth these ideas in stronger ways because the canvas they’re painting on is so large.

What this whole argument boils down to is that my disbelief was suspended, and yours was not. But half the things you mentioned in the article seem to only bother you because you hated the rest of the movie. It doesn’t bother me that you hated a movie that I loved, it just bothers me that you seem to think your opinion is absolute.

Perhaps you should’ve had an intelligent debate with a friend who loved the film, and presented your arguments back and forth before just writing down every last thing that came to mind about the film, and belittling what may be the most mainstream attempt at real art this decade.

Wow, so instead of trying to enjoy the film for what it was you instead decided to pick it a part JUST because Nolan went a different rout by trying to make it more grounded in reality? Dont get me wrong, I am still one who thinks Burton’s 89 Batman is better than both of Nolan’s but that one made no qualms that it was a comic book film. I mean the sets, costumes, gadgets, etc all screamed COMIC BOOK which was cool. I also thought TDK was cool to because there was a new approach being taken with it and that is that it was trying to seem like it could happen and I think it did a good job.

I will say though, after watching TDK, Batman Begins looks even more like a comic film then initally you would think, especially with a comic plot of “Stop the bad guy before he uses a military weapon to vaporize water and make people go crazy,” is as comic book as you can get.

I will say that the fanboys do go to far, but you should look at it for what it is and not judge it based on the fact you are annoyed by the fanboys.

It seems like any part of the movie that?s dark and serious is slammed by you, claiming the movie should be lighter and more fun. Then any part of the movie that relies on suspension of disbelief is slammed by you because it isn?t realistic enough.

No, my problem is that the whole movie loses any sense of fun in the name of “realism.” Because of realism, we can’t have anything fantastic or fun or over the top, only dull, depressing stuff that’s supposedly grounded in real world physics and science. Yet when it’s time for ridiculous plotholes, THEN the creators and the fans want to suspend disbelief. So the basic message is, we’re going to use selective realism and suspension of disbelief. Anything unbelievable that can make this movie more fun, exciting and visually wonderful, we must take away and ground in realism. But the important stuff like ridiculous plot holes and gaps in logic? Yes, THAT’S the stuff we absolutely must suspend disbelief for.

I have no problem with suspension of disbelief. I just want consistency. When you criticize this movie for taking away all the cool, larger than life elements of Batman, fans say it must be done because of the need for realism. If you agree to the rules of these fans and judge this movie by realism standards and point out the plot holes, these same fans now say “Hey, it’s only a comic book movie, why do you expect realism?”

It is a movie, it?s a movie about Batman, it isn?t going to be able to fit every last thing in realistically. What it can do is start with something realistic, and build upon one realistic thing with something less realistic, and so on and so forth. One film that has been discussed in this way is Jurassic Park. I believe Spielberg said that if you can buy the premise (a mosquito sucking blood, encased in amber, getting the DNA out in present time, etc), then you can buy the unrealistic concept of dinosaurs existing in modern times.

I’m not the one with a problem about demanding too much realism, Chris Nolan and the fans of this movie are. My whole point in this critique is that trying to adhere too strongly to realism is stupid because in the end a movie about a billionaire who dresses as a Bat to singlehandedly punch all crime in the face is always going to ridiculously unreal. Your example of Jurassic Park actually supports my point better than it supports Nolan’s. I can paraphrase it to apply to Dark Knight perfectly:

“Dear Chris Nolan. It is a movie, it?s a movie about Batman, it isn?t going to be able to fit every last thing in realistically. What it can do is start with something realistic, and build upon one realistic thing with something less realistic, and so on and so forth. One film that has been discussed in this way is Jurassic Park. I believe Spielberg said that if you can buy the premise (a mosquito sucking blood, encased in amber, getting the DNA out in present time, etc), then you can buy the unrealistic concept of dinosaurs existing in modern times. Likewise, if you can buy a movie about a billionaire who travels the world to become a high-tech superninja master detective that trains with monks around the world and returns home to drive a minitank through the streets and punch all crime in the face all by his lonesome, then you can buy the unrealistic concept of a man with naturally white skin and green hair, ridiculously over the top bombastic fight scenes and a lot of the other more unrealistic aspects of the Batman mythos.”

Thank you for the Jurassic Park example, it supported my argument perfectly.

What this whole argument boils down to is that my disbelief was suspended, and yours was not.

No, what it boils down to is that your belief was selectively suspended. Anything that made this look too comic booky couldn’t work. But plot holes and illogical sequences and poor research? That’s okay. I can suspend disbelief with the best of them. I just don’t see the point of being unable to suspend disbelief when it’s something exciting and cool, but suddenly being okay with suspension of disbelief when it’s time to excuse plot holes and poorly thought out story developments. Either you want realism or you don’t.

But half the things you mentioned in the article seem to only bother you because you hated the rest of the movie.

I can ascribe motives too. For example, I can say you excuse half the things I mention in the article because you loved the rest of the movie. Either way, my motives or your motives don’t matter, it’s whether the content of my points make sense, and I think they do. It doesn’t matter what my mindset is when writing this article, what matters is the content of my argument.

It doesn?t bother me that you hated a movie that I loved, it just bothers me that you seem to think your opinion is absolute.

Oh come on. So if this was a pro-Dark Knight post that presented its opinion as absolute, you would have taken me to task as well? What bothers you is the presentation of my opinion as absolute? So all those sites relentlessly praising this movie have also gotten comments from you taking them to task for this faux pas of presenting their opinions as absolute? Get real now. Somehow I doubt that. I have a feeling that you only have a problem with “absolute opinions” (whatever that means) when they are anti-Dark Knight. And personally, I feel I just presented my opinion as exactly that: my opinion.

Perhaps you should?ve had an intelligent debate with a friend who loved the film, and presented your arguments back and forth before just writing down every last thing that came to mind about the film, and belittling what may be the most mainstream attempt at real art this decade.

Or perhaps…just perhaps…this is my blog, I choose what I want to write and I can put whatever the hell I want on it, like a post called “Why I hated The Dark Knight” complete with a laundry list of why I think it’s one of the most overrated movies I’ve ever seen. If people can post all over the internet about how this movie is the best movie since Citizen Kane, why can’t I do the same about why I don’t like the movie. Why must I be forced to discuss my dislike in private with a friend like some kind of intellectual fugitive? It’s funny how the people who keep telling me I take this movie too seriously make extreme suggestions like this, like I’m committing some major thought crime on par with disparaging Martin Luther King or defending NAMBLA.

Wow, so instead of trying to enjoy the film for what it was you instead decided to pick it a part JUST because Nolan went a different rout by trying to make it more grounded in reality?

No, just the opposite. I did try to enjoy the film for what it was, and it failed by its own standards I believe. For example, Spider-Man 2 was a movie that did not try to be realistic or totally grounded in reality. It had tongue in cheek elements throughout and played fast and loose with realism. Did that movie have tons of plot holes? Yes, but I applied the standards the filmmakers were going for and forgave them, because hard realism was obviously not what they were going for.

Nolan’s Batman movies relentlessly try to be realistic. Batmobile can’t look to Batlike because that’s silly. Every piece of tech or costume change or new gizmo must be relentlessly explained by Morgan Freeman and Bruce Wayne so that it can seem more realistic and plausible. Fights must be dull and plodding so that they look more realistic. No crazy Batcave, just a dull, sterile room. Joker uses face paint and is not a genuine freak with white skin and green hair because that’s too unrealistic. And so on and so on. Obviously, I’m not the one with a problem with suspension of disbelief, it’s Nolan. He’s the one who has trouble suspending his disbelief as he feels the need to suck the outrageousness out of almost every aspect of the Batman mythos. Well, if he’s going to cut out all the fun parts in the name of realism, then I’m going to judge him on said realism, because that’s the tone he’s set from the outset, that’s what he was going for.

So I’d argue that I actually judged the film EXACTLY by the standards of what it was going for.

And I would argue that this is a case of nothing more than you not liking the direction the film took. I will say though, to make it seem as bad as you say, is a pretty tall order. I mean, how can $500 million worth of ticket sales be wrong? Or are you one of those oh so lovely types that pick things apart just because it is popular?

Dark Knight was awful. It should not get an Academy Award. It should not be nominated for anything.

In fact, the producers, writers and the director should be sent to jail for life. Their wives, partners, children and parents should be sold into slavery to the Taliban. Their bank accounts, real estate and all their money and property should be confiscated by the State of California. Furthermore all the people who made money investing in the film should pay it back tenfold. All the theaters that showed it should be burned to the ground and the ashes should be raked under the Earth.

That’s how much I hated it. I hated it. I hate that I had to sit through it. Because I can’t check on everything. I can’t research every move I make. There’s no time. I trusted the Batman name. I’ve been seeing it all my life and I trusted it to purvey a certain amount of WIT. In this there was not a single glimmer of wit. Only sadism.

I’m not surprised Heath Ledger died. It’s a crime against humanity, a serious crime, to even like this movie.

Some good points here. The major problem of course is a ridiculous combination of guys in tights and clown costumes discussing would-be philosophical issues during brakes between (totally illogical and almost impossible to follow) action scenes.
The hero is dull and impotent. The villain is a sad junkie whose ability to control half the police and bomb hospitals and boats is baffling (make no mistake, the joker IS a JUNKIE, attempts to add psychotic-philosophical depth to the character make little difference).
As for the motivations of the characters, I could never understand them. Apparently everyone is facing some serious moral dilemma and at the same time trying to outwit each other. I only wish I could know what it’s all about. By the time the film reached its climax and batman was facing the somehow still alive man with holes in his head I couldn’t even bring myself to try and understand why he was trying to kill that kid, who he was angry at, or whether or not he had a good reason to be angry at anyone. And frankly I don’t want to find out.
This is comic book film-making gone terribly wrong.

Thank you! I hate this film as much as you do… but you have expended so much more effort than I am prepared to, on explaining your contempt. Maybe I’ll just give people your url when they ask me why I hate it. Hehe, it’s displaced The Passion of the Christ on my vitriolic criticism charts. That, at least, was laughable in (many) parts (all the parts that didn’t make me cross or intellectually nauseous).

I was really disapointed with the film. Sadly, the emphasis on the philosophy and moralizing hurt this film, not to mention the disapointing ending which would pretty much KO any hope of a decent sequel.

I just saw a movie with Woody Allen called “Love and Death.” In one scene, Woody Allen questioned the morality of assasinating Napoleon for the good of Europe. the point, He made it work.

If this movie is going to deal with philisophical viewpoints, they should have hired Woody Allen to write the screen play.

Sarcastic commen aside, (yes that was meant to be sarcasm.) This movie fell victim to the old problem. Great idea, great potential piss poor excecution. The writer should concider getting a job writing instruction manuals for products nobody buys instead of screen writing.

I’m probably going to get Sh*t for this, but I think “Batman Forever” and “Batman and Robin” are far superior to the “Dark Knight.” God bless Joel Schumacher.

Excellent Movie. You are probably just one of the 23 people that disliked this film. Not everyone can like it of course. Opinions vary. Numbers have meaning, and numbers show that most of the viewers enjoyed this movie.

What a fantastic article and it sums up most of the things I disliked about this movie. Most people I know liked this movie very much but I do think it’s just because they’ve been told to like it and don’t want to stand out.
I don’t hate this movie at all, but it’s getting way more credit than it should in my opinion. It’s probably above average but not by much.
I’d also like to add that the pace of the movie in the middle was terribly slow in my opinion, being an action movie rather than a superhero movie, which is basically what it’s become, it’s really unacceptable.
And for the reason for ranting on about this movie is because it’s getting way too much credit, if it hadn’t gotten all this hype I wouldn’t have cared less.
And lastly I applaud you for the article and I’ll make sure to forward it to my friends.

Oh yeah, I have to add one thing. The fight scenes were just awful as well. It seemed like he was standing by a assembly line and all the mobsters were just sliding into melee range while they all had guns. I wanted to see Batman do some wicked jumps and spins and rolling on the floor. As I said it was more of an action movie and as such it was actually pretty bad.

you are right in the majority of what you’re saying but nevertheless the movie (mostly due to ledger’s performance) was very entertaining

You may have some valid points, but let me lay down some counter points.

The last couple of Batman movies were terrible specifically because they had lost all base with reality. They had become more comic like in their art, and they were fucking awful. If you go back to Tim Burton’s Batman, it was fairly grounded in reality. The Joker was closer to a comic book character than Ledger’s portrayal, but he was still just a demented mobster. His plot was fairly realistic too, he was hurting people with chemical weapons. People liked that. Move on in that serious and the plots got less and less realistic, as did the villains, and the movies got worse and worse. You say you hate Dark Knight, have you seen Batman & Robin?!!

I think you made many good points in your post. Normally, I would not watch such a film, but I was indeed attracted to watch it because of the hype surrounding it and the glaring critic reviews.

I was expecting a good action movie with a dark edge/feel to it. I enjoyed the movie “The Crow” which I rate a much better film. The fight scenes and action scenes were completely incomprehensible. The “machine gun type” editing during such scenes looked like it was done by MTV twenty-somethings who had overdosed on some bad Red-Bull mixed with No-Doze.

The soundtrack was also poorly done and over done. In a nut shell, I hate action movies that take themselves too seriously. This is not Citizen Kane for God’s sake! It’s Batman.

I felt terrible watching great actors like Bale, Ledger, and Eckhart being reduced to psycho-babble. Bale sounding like a bad Clint Eastwood/Dirty Harry wannabe and carried on in a “make my day punk” voice for two and a half hours. And as much as I admire Ledger, I was not too impressed with what he came up with as far as the Joker persona, including the obnoxious and fake sounding voice/accent, ugly suit, and creepy washed-out make-up.

Once again, I did not expect to see a Kurosawa, Bergman, or Kubrick film here. I wanted action and entertainment, and I feel I was badly let down in that regard. What I found was a complete train-wreck and disjointed-mess of a film, with pretentions of being in the category of such directors and world class cinema that I mentioned above.

I very much liked Nolan’s previous work such as Memento and my only explanation of what happened here with Dark Knight, is that it was a brave and bold experiment in film-making, that just went horribly wrong for a myriad of reasons.

The dark Knight felt more like a marvel movie then a DC movie

What do all marvel movie and the dark knight have in common Too many ploy hole and made for EMO

No, it felt like a modern DC comic. If it was like a Marvel movie it would have at least been good, and even if it was riddled with plot holes would not have taken itself too seriously. Also, Marvel movies only have emo heroes when the hero really has a tough life, either because they’re poor, disfigured or a monster. DC movies have pretty boys and millionaires like Superman and Batman moping around even though the world is at their fingertips. When a Marvel character is remotely as rich as Batman, for example Tony Stark in the Iron Man movie, he is nowhere near as emo and angsty. Let’s keep it real, Marvel is the shit. No need to hate on them.

T. AKA Ricky Raws last blog post..My European Tip, Part 5: Amsterdam

Do you just like being different or something? Or can you not enjoy a movie unless someone dies every three seconds. The reason everyone in the entire fucking world liked “The dark night” is because it had good writing, fucking great acting, and every bit was entertaining. I am a total pessimist and I hate the entire human race but for once they got it right and miserable pricks with way to much fucking time on their hands got it wrong.
Reasons “Dark Night” kicked ass:
1. Bat Man is the coolest super hero ever
2. Joker is the coolest super villain ever
3. Heath ledger delivered the best acting I have ever seen in my interring life. If you disagree just die
4. It was the only time I have ever been in a movie theater and needed to pee but thought “Who cares if I wet myself I can?t miss any of this”

Reasons “The Dark Night” was not the greatest movie ever
1. it’s not “Pulp Fiction”
2. Some of bat man’s dialog was sub par
3. It wasn’t directed by Guillermo Del Toro.
4. That part with the boats was bullshit. I would a pushed that button. Fuck the convicts they were stupid enough to get caught.

See i liked the movie but yah it had some problems. fuck you get a life.

I am a total pessimist and I hate the entire human race…

Well then that explains why you would love such a pessimistic and misanthropic movie. You were the target audience apparently. It’s hard to picture any audience member better suited for this overrated tripe than a total pessimist that hates the entire human race.

Most overrated movie ever. *Coughs* Heath Ledger.
To me he was a great actor, but ”The Dark Knight”
is being loved for The Joker, in fact the real
name is ”The Joker!”

”Get a life?” What are they
doing reading you then?

It was really boring, I only liked Harvey Dent.

Are you criticizing the fan base or the movie? By the way… you strike me as a George Clooney fan. Sorry this comment isn’t dreadfully long..

NOOOO!!!!! YOU BEAT ME TO IT, WHITE VOID!!!!!!!!! YOU DIDN’T CONSIDER IF HE WAS VAL KILMER FAN TOO!

More proof that the most zealous fans of this movie are also among the most brain-dead.

OH MY GOD!!! SOMEONE GET THIS GUY A HUG! I think you are the type that is miserable in life and wants to take others down with you.
Your arguments are horrible. Boo friggin hooooo the tumbler doesn’t have a Bat symbol
Yes there are holes in the movie. Good job buddy. Let’s ignore that there is a lot going on and in making a movie, clips need to get cut. Especially when making a 2 hour and 36 min movie, that’s the way it goes. Most of your argument stem purley from semantic disagreements. Those can always be argued so SHUT YOUR MOUTH!!! I’ve seen the movie 19 times. This is my favorite movie of all time. Ya talk crap saying I don’t know what a good movie is or whatever, but IMDB agrees in it’s greatness so I believe you are the one without taste. My main MINOR problems with it are with some lines in the script. Batman, using the voice he did, should not have had such long sentances. Also when the guy on the boat says, “We’re still alive. That means they haven’t killed us yet either.” NO SH1T!!!! He should have said, “We’re still alive. That must mean they don’t want to kill us either.” Regardless, you need a life….or a girl….or maybe a boy…..
Keep crying. I feel the more tears you dish out, the more dollars The Dark Knight will make.
Please tell me you want to talk about this outside of this post. I’d love to point out every retarded point you made that shows lower level brain activity on your part. I just don’t feel like wasting time typing. I have a life.

I thoroughly enjoyed your review.

I also, however, enjoyed the movie. I left the theater exhausted and mostly satisfied. One viewing will be enough for me.

“One viewing,” perhaps, is my secret! Were I to hand you a short essay and have you check it for spelling and grammar, but do so while falling down the stairs, I bet you’d miss quite a bit.

Never did read the books. Sorry. And Brokeback Deadguy was, even if a bit blatant, a more effective villain than Jack Whatshisface or Caesaer Romano. (pecking order would be, brokeback, cezanne, THEN jack).

Dude…

…be glad you’re able to watch movies.

if ya don’t like go make one yourself i say

As a comic book/graphic novel movie it completely failed to capture the creativity that goes into batman, as a realistic vigilante action-thriller it works perfect, take the ears off batman and you could probably keep joker the same and you got a vigilantly movie with all of the batman stuff as a good marketing tool.

I didn’t like this movie it wasn’t made well at all except for the glorious effects of the explosions and chase scenes this movie wasn’t made to good to many jump scenes, to much cliche romance, the fighting is hard to watch(what happen to still shots from a distance?) and batman and joker both sounded dumb. I honestly thought ledger was the worst joker and maybe even batman/bruce was maybe the worst though christian bales looks except the chin fit well for a young Bruce.

the biggest thing I missed is how gotham looked.

Great article. The hostility from the fanboys who can’t understand why on earth you may have not found this to be the BEST MOVIE EVER MADE astounds me.

I’m a huge comic fan, have been for 20+ years, and this movie just didn’t do it for me either. Boring, over-long, self-important and dull…I never thought I’d say that about a comic book movie, of all things.

If I understand it correctly, Gordon faked his own death (even though it?s edited to make it look like he got shot for real) to protect his family. Batman then decides to announce who he is but Dent takes his place. The Joker intercepts the Dent convoy but is himself intercepted by Batman. Carnage ensues including the destruction of large parts of the Gotham road system and various buildings and, seemingly by fortune, Batman, the Joker and, the driver of the convoy who is, of course, Gordon, reach a point at which the Joker is captured. Unfortunately for them that?s what he wanted all along.
So: doesn?t make very little sense when you try and add it up from characters? POV. Why would Gordon legitimise such a ridiculous plan: there?s no guarantee it would work and he?s placing the lives of his men and Dent in very real jeopardy because he knows the Joker is coming for them. Batman may suffer from incredible pride but there?s no way he could have planned, forseen or even imagained such a successful scenario as him flipping the Joker?s truck, faking his defeat and Gordon?s reappearance because it all happened just metres away from his vehicle. The Joker needs Dent for phase 2 of this particular plan os his attempt at killing him is self serving. He needs to be caught AND he needs the guy with the phone in his stomach to make it with him otherwise he?s got no way to get Lao or the money. He surely should have walked into the station with his men a la Se7en!
I put this to a friend and he suggested the whole ?agent of chaos? angle which doesn?t work for me because Dent, Gordon and Batman ren?t agents of chaos and that?s the force they?re fighting against. If the Joker had initiated this then, yes, I could agree. But this is their party which the Joker crashes.
___________________________________________________________________________
This is a glaring example of why you don’t either get (and I mean understand what happened and made a limited guess). The Joker didn’t plan on getting captured but he did have it set up just in case. Dent, batman and Gordon were all working independently of each other, knowing the Joker would come after Dent. Batman didn’t know the Batmoblie would be blown up, Gordon didn’t know Batman would flip the truck. Dent didn’t know Gordon was alive and Neither did Batman.
I’ve read this post several times and I’ve watched the movie four times. What you call plot holes are called Scene transitions. Do we need to know what happened after Batman saved Rachel from being thrown out the window? No more than we need to go back and see Belloc after Indiana Jones escapes from the Natives in the beginning of Raiders. it doesn’t advance the plot, you know what happened. The Joker threw her off the balcony as a distraction to make his escape.
Batman isn’t able to do any thing technical, except hand Lucius the designs for the new suit he designed( you know those papers he handed him), reconstruct a fragmented bullet with his high tech equipment amongst the other technical things he did in the movie.
So, you’re either just hating to hate or really simple minded.

I agree, this reviewer is cleary a huge nerd with no life.

I think there is something seriously wrong with this review or whatever you want to call it. it is said that you want to make batman fucking gay. I’m sorry but I think I would vomit if i saw that bright yellow bat symbol on the bat mobile. And it is apparent that you have never made a movie so what give you the right to judge something you probably have never done. Batman was never a superhero and it would be a shame for that to change now. it seems that you would like Adam West’s gay version of batman, and I’m pretty sure you can find them all at best buy. ( I would gladly give you the money to purchase them so you stop writing shitty reviews.) But most likely you are a over weight forty year old mamas boy trying to pay her rent. I recommend u get off your fat ass, find a job, and get a life. Oh and by the way I think they are writing you a batman comic called “COMING out of the bat cave”, and its got rubber nipples on the bat suit and I heard that rather than having a bat tank they are going to a custom make a 98 ford pink fiesta with the bat symbol.

You say that the scene where Joker is looking for Harvey Dent during the fundraiser makes no sense. I was a bit confused at this as well, but my theory is that it is explained later in the film when Joker says “for a while I really thought you WERE Dent, the way you lunged after her…” If he felt that Batman really was Dent, then that would explain things.

Plus, after their fall, Bruce tells Rachel that Harvey “is safe”. Weren’t the police on their way at that very moment? It wasn’t explained fully to the audience, but if Batman/Bruce knew that Harvey was safe, then we should probably trust that, even if my theory above isn’t correct.

I read about half way through, until you yourself forgot what you were trying to prove with this huge waste of yours and my time. Get a life, tell your wife to smarten up and leave your bitter ass. That section where you went off about district attorney and what not was comical and revealing. You are a sad man in your lonely little world full of hate. Go find an abandoned house and die in it.

So I got bored reading this. I enjoyed the movie.

I feel sorry you wasted so much time dwelling on it. A sad life you live. I pity you.

i have to say, for someone who hated the film so much, u spent an awful lot of time writing about it.
seems kind of sad to hate something so much, that u would spend so much time bagging it.

The comment about the bus is retarted, what says the other bus driver werent working for the Joker?
I got to admit that plot hole where Batman saves Dawes is annoying.

I agree, but not %100. I do hate how people are saying that this is the “real Joker”. Joker is not an anarchist, first off. He was once offered to be a Nazi and attacked the them who gave him the offer, all while shouting his love for America. And I’m guessing all who think he is an anarchist have never read the issues where he decides to seriously run for Commander-in-Chief. Not to mention the fanbase is an other reason I don’t love this movie. They all go on how Joker made so many plans, and I’m guessing they were all in the bathroom, or ignoring the actual movie only to say they loved it when Joker said “Do I look like a man with a plan?” His plan WAS the joke. All in all, I think Ledger did a better Carnage than Joker. I really don’t mind if they recast.

Absolutely correct! I for one actually like the movie, but the heights to which it is being elevated is absolutely ridiculous! How can anyone give this 5 stars when they consider all the things said here?! In a way I wish the movie wasnt so successful, critically and at the box office, because then I could just like this movie in my own way. Now I’m torn between having to love the movie, because of the fanboys, and having to hate the movie, because I dont want to be associated with the fanboys. Also, in a strange way, I want to love the movie, I really want to think this is a 5-star movie, because that is what everyone would have me believe, and I’d feel much better if I understood why it was so great. But I dont.

They may have been working for him, but how the hell do they time it right so the bus crashes through the wall at exactly the right moment. He could feasibly have done this, but remember they get delayed by the mobster in the bank. Also, the traffic is bumper-to-bumper when the bus comes out of the building. Are we meant to believe that he somehow escaped in a hefty bus in bumper-to-bumper traffic? Are we meant to believe that no one saw the bus come out on to the road and call the police, who would have gotten there ages before the Joker could have escaped in bumper-to-bumper traffic. Or are we meant to believe that everyone on that road was working for the Joker, and they had all perfectly timed it to be there at the right time? Per-lease!

[...] Why I Hated The Dark Knight [...]

Whatever points you may have are lost in your inability to puncuate or capitalize properly. You just prove the point by a sloppy defense.

I’d like to mention, as my first counterpoint, that Bruce Wayne was always tech savy in the movie. Honestly, this has no basis in your negative review in the movie. Nruce DESIGNED the new suit, FOX didn’t, Fox went through the changes on the suit so THE AUDIENCE would know what the designs were.

In Batman The Animated Series he looked like a clown kids would approach too.

Did you watch Batman: The Animated Series? He looked like a clown, yes, but he sure as hell wasn’t one anybody’d approach.

No, my problem is that the whole movie loses any sense of fun in the name of ?realism.? Because of realism, we can?t have anything fantastic or fun or over the top, only dull, depressing stuff that?s supposedly grounded in real world physics and science. Yet when it?s time for ridiculous plotholes, THEN the creators and the fans want to suspend disbelief.

The movie’s realistic, it’s not total realism. You mentioned BTAS earlier, as I quoted. Batman: The Animated Series was considered “realistic” by Bruce Timm and Co. now did that take away and fun or fantastic things from happening in the series?

This movie is the same. It’s realistic, but at the same time does allow for a suspension of disbelief.

parents think twice about bringing kids to see the movie are all over the film.

It was rated PG-13. If they want their kids to watch a movie about Batman there are plenty all ages Batman movies. This one was never intended to be a movie for kids to see.

I don?t act like Batman came into existence with the writings of British writers in the 80s. Joker existed before Alan Moore?s Killing Joke and before Morrison?s Arkham Asylum.

You do act like Batman came into existence before Adam West and the comic book code of authority came into effect. Before then, Batman was a dark vigilante who killed people.

No crazy Batcave, just a dull, sterile room.

Because Wayne Manor was being worked on during the course of the movie. I think somebody’d notice Batman’s activity during construction, don’t you. The reason it was empty in Begins was because, he literally, just found the cave. He didn’t have time to find a dinosaur or a giant penny to put in it.

Joker uses face paint and is not a genuine freak with white skin and green hair because that?s too unrealistic.

It also didn’t fit this version of the character, who was supposed to be scary. Ceasar Romero or Jack Nicolson’s takes on the characters don’t scare me.

Also, Marvel movies only have emo heroes when the hero really has a tough life, either because they?re poor, disfigured or a monster. DC movies have pretty boys and millionaires like Superman and Batman moping around even though the world is at their fingertips.

I guess your parent’s getting shot and killed in front of you at a young age doesn’t qualify as having a tough life. I guess believe the woman you love being killed because of a man standing up against what you fought fore doesn’t count as well. I agree though, SUPERMAN shouldn’t be mopey, however I believe Batman should.
—————————————-

Well I’m done posting my counter points, they’re not going to change your opinion, which you’re entitled to, as well am I and the other (most) people who enjoyed the movie.

I would like to turn your attention to the current BRAVE AND THE BOLD cartoon airing on Cartoon Network. It’s the fun, more campy Batman you seem to enjoy more.
—————————————–

what in the fuck is wrong with this guy ? he needs to kill him self ! well maybe not , he just needs to shut the fuck up !

everything he wrote is just fucked , its blasphemy !

OH MY GOD, YOU ARE AN IDIOT!

First of all, I can’t believe I even UNDERSTOOD half of what you wrote, you illiterate moron. LEARN HOW TO TYPE!

This may come as a HUGE shock to you, being the total choade that you are, but Frank Miller NEVER wrote a graphic novel called “THE DARK KNIGHT”!

The name of Frank Miller’s ground-breaking graphic novel is “THE DARK KNIGHT *RETURNS*”!!!

If you really believe that Nolan’s loaf of butt-vomit is actually “BASED” on Frank Miller’s book – then it is abundantly clear that YOU never read ANYTHING by Frank Miller.

“The Dark Knight Returns” is set almost 25 years into the future, after Bruce Wayne has RETIRED from being Batman. Gotham City has turned into a war zone of gangs, murderers and thieves and Bruce himself has become jaded, lazy and hollow. When he finally does put the mask back on (the “Returns” of the title), he becomes the grim, ultra-violent hero which was typical of Batman stories in the late ’80’s.

Nolan’s film had NOTHING in common with either Frank Miller’s “Dark Knight Returns,” or Miller’s “Batman: Year One” (except for ONE scene where Gordon hands Batman a Joker playing card on the top of the GCPD bldg. That’s it!), and it has absolutely NOTHING in common to Alan Moore’s “The Killing Joke.”

You, you chump, have clearly fallen for all the bullshittery that Warner Brothers and Nolan himself have pumped out for MONTHS before the film was released.

Maybe you should know what you’re talking about before you start hammering away at your keyboard, illiteraly typing up comments about Sherlock Holmes and such. I happen to be one of the foremost EXPERTS on Sherlock Holmes in this room at this moment (meaning I’ve read every single one Conan Doyle’s books, and have seen every single episode of the Granada TV adaptaions with actor Jeremy Britt (the BEST adaptation of the Holmes stories EVER). I can assure you, you mental midget, that MANY film versions of Sherlock Holmes have included the Great Detective’s drug use in it’s presentation. Even Basil Rathbone’s very first film starring as Sherlock Holmes (he was FAMOUS for the role) ended with Holmes turning to Watson and saying, “Watson – the needle!” and then exited, followed closely by Watson with his medical bag. And in NONE of the Conan Doyle original stories is Watson ever killed or is Professor Moriarty EVER referred to a “crazy”.

Again you clearly do not know what you are talking about. You have NEVER read a Sherlock Holmes story. You have NEVER seen a Sherlock Holkmes movie. (“Veggie Tales” adaptation do NOT count.) You have NEVER read a Frank Miller Graphic Novel.

But – you HAVE seen a really, really BAD Batman movie. And it’s called “The Dark Knight.”

Idiot.

You are so obviously on crack.

GET HELP.

Don’t kid yourself “DarkOne” – there are MILLIONS of people who hated this film. Not just disliked, or that it was bad – but HATED it.

The difference between us and you is that we don’t find it necessary to piss ourselves when people disagree with us. That and the overwhelming sense of denial you all seem to be in.

The “Dark Knight” sucked. It sucked as a Movie. It sucked as an Action Movie. It sucked as a “Crime” Movie. It sucked as a Dramatic Movie. It sucked as an Adventure Movie. It sucked as a Fantasy Movie. It sucked as a Comic Book Movie. And it most definitely and above all sucked as a BATMAN Movie.

The cinematography sucked (Flourescent lighting? Who told these dicks flourescent lights looked good on film?).

The editing sucked (Was the Editor called out of the room a lot? Did they have Attention Deficit Disorder?).

The Production Design sucked (Giant rolling metal turd. That sure speaks “Batmobile, doesn’t it?).

The make-up sucked (The “cut” on Christian Bale’s arm? The cheesy prosthetic was AN INCH AND A HALF THICK! If that had been “real,” he would have to have his arm aputated for gangrene! And those stupid, cheesy “scar” prosthetics on poor Heath Ledger’s cheeks – HOOKED into his mouth, mind you – made it impossible to talk clearly without that weird tongue thing he kept doing!).

The writing sucked (This pretty much speaks for itself. Lame-ass dialogue, plot-holes galore, endless continuity errors, ridiculously lame “capers” and a “love triangle” that is only believeable if you believe a billionare playboy and a ruggedly handsome lawyer both find a frumpy, frowing spinster attractive).

The acting sucked (And that’s saying ALOT. Considering the caliber of performers in this Cast, it should have been MUCH better. Michael Caine sounded like Dick Van Dyke out of “Mary Poppins,” Morgan Freeman’s motivation for anything he said or did was NONEXISTENT, Gary Oldman just looked uncomfortable throughout, and CHRISTIAN BALE IS A FUCKING RETARD. “Corky” from “Life Goes On” is a better actor than this cheese-dick! Aaron Eckhart, on the other had, did a fine job, considering what he had to work with. Shame he doesn’t get much better roles).

And above all – CHRISTOPHER NOLAN SUCKS.

There. Learn to watch movies.

Grate post. I agree with everything you said. This movie has more plot holes than a french cheese. Nothing makes sense. Here comes another big hole.
Harvey dont shoot the joker in the head in the hospital scene, and believes all the dog-car stuff. WTF. The man has losed his girlfriend and his face is half melted, but he stills throwing his money…
And all the sonar thing… it remainds me to the bat-computer of the 60s series.
Cheers.

I refused to watch “BATMAN FOR DUMMIES!”

I ask these kids in the comic shops, “do you enjoy going to work, is it exciting, the most thrilling thing that happens everyday?” they look at me confused. Well you want realism, there it is! And I don’t want it in my Batman movies. I’ve enjoyed the first Batman enough to get over that “soldier of fortune” suit Bale wore, but now it’s getting to be regodamndiculous! Yes, the unimagitve young fanboys can’t stand it when they make fun of their “Golden Globe weiner” but have the audacity to make fun of the stuff that came before it.

I’m glad that the francise is coming to a grinding halt, sad to see Health Ledger die so young, but f*#k the Dark Knight movie.

Blasphemy? I thought the movie was to the Batman universe!

LOL! Are you referring to BATMAN? CAPTAIN AMERICA team up by John Byrne? Greatness!

i am heath ledger and i love pillz om nom nom nom

Duse, whatever… I loved it, the best movie of the f*cking decade!!!

This is a lot of writing without saying almost anything
You yourself show how hypocritical you are yourself in this post
First blasting the movie for being too “realistic” to then criticizing it for not being realistic enough
What a fucking joke you are.

While i will have to concede certain plot points to you (like the scene where joker was in the jail and no one bothered to remove his damned make-up), you bring up the argument that you don’t like seeing how he got all these “little toys”. If you think back to the first Batman movie (the michael keaton one, not Batman Begins) it starts out with Bruce Wayne already being batman. We never get to hear or even glimpse at the backstory to the mentality of bruce wayne until that failed comedic abortion called Batman Forever. You say that the fighting was bland, and that Nolan used select realism to make it so. If you can remember the movie moment when Morgan Freeman (GOD) told wayne that the seperation of the plates on his new suit would make him more vulnerable to gunfire. If you think about it, why would he dance around the room when the next shot could kill him? (please be aware, i know this is a very fanboy-ish answer). Nolan’s movies are meant to be the backstory of Batman, the visual form of Frank Miller’s graphic novels that brought out an entire sense of realism to the Batman atmosphere that was destroyed by the former casting mistakes of Val Kilmer, George Clooney, Alicia Silverstone, and Jim Carrey.

Wow, just Wow.
That was intense, much more intense than the film.
I agree with everything you’ve just said. The way you explained yourself was truely epic.
I think in the end, “The Dark Knight”, will become the polar opposite of “Blade Runner”.
Where as “Blade Runner” was the most underated film of all time, that finally recieved the praise of masterpiece through decades of analysis.
“The Dark Knight” will be the most overated film of all time that will finally recieve it’s just hate through many decades of analysis.
The thing with films and all art, is in the end the truth will always prevail. It may take a few decades but, “The Dark Knight” will eventually out live it’s hype and the generations after us, will laugh at how the entire world was swindled by Nolan’s ego.

Well said sir. In fact it shall be known by future generations as… “The Dark Shite”
“Never in the field of human movie going have so many paid so much to see so little….”….. The words of Sir Winston Churchill after seeing the towering pile of bore that is The Dark Shite.

Although I believe you are trying WAAAY to hard and looking WAAAY to deep into this movie, I agree with some of your points. I agree that in the movie you never feel like Batman ever wins, as well as some other points.

But I do have a problem about your comments about the ending of the movie. Nobody ever said that Batman wouldn’t kill. At the end of movie, when Harvey is holding the kid hostage and about ready to kill him, Batman does just flat out murder Harvey in some kind of rage, as you are trying to imply that his character did. Batman did what he had to do to save the little boy’s life. Harvey was about ready to pull the trigger, and so Batman stepped in and did what he had to do to say the kid. If you have a choice of whether to save a child, or the pshyco who is about the kill the child, then I think the choice is pretty obvious of which one to save. Also, it’s not like Batman didn’t try to talk Harvey out of it, because he did. Then Batman saw that there was just no saving Harvey, so instead, he went and did the right thing and saved the boy which also happened to kill Harvey.

Lots of other things I disagree on as well, but this was the biggest of them.

EDIT: In my previous post I say that

“Batman does just flat out murder Harvey in some kind of rage, as you are trying to imply that his character did.”

I meant to say “DOES NOT” where I say “DOES”

You said The Long Halloween was shit, therefore your opinion doesn’t mean shit. The way you talk about the Joker, it’s like he is supposed to be all happy and a likable villain. Joker IS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE A LIKABLE VILLAIN! This is a guy who gassed a kindergarten, who fed poisoned cotton candy to boy scouts, who was about to massacre dozens of orphaned babies. And you complain that Joker in TDK was too dark? HAHA you need to read more comics mate. And Nolan didn’t make Joker wear make up because it was “realistic” he chose to interpret him with make up for creative reasons. Whats scarier and more disturbing. An unfortunate soul who fell in a vat of chemicals which bleached his skin? Or a schizo, ex stick up guy with a hideously slashed face who DECIDES to wear make up to HIGHLIGHT his disfigurement?

Oh and Ichi the Killer IS NOT THE REAL INSPIRATION FOR THE JOKER. You have got to be kidding me. The scar on his face isn’t called a “Japanese smile” it’s called a “Chelsea grin” or “Glasgow smile”. I’ve seen a few people with it where i’m from. You just seem to be stuck in your ways, you don’t want the films to deviate from the comics at all. That’s just narrow mindedness.

It has NOTHING in common with The Killing Joke? Have you seen this film? Have you even read the book? The whole film is basically an adaptation of The Killing Joke and The Long Halloween you moron! The Joker was trying to tip Jim Gordon over the edge in TKJ, in this it is Harvey. That is what Joker is trying to prove, that when something bad happens ie. your fiance dies. Anyone, no matter how good or noble can go crazy. He basically says it. “When the chips are down” (when everything goes wrong) “these civilized people will eat each other” (these good people will go crazy). I suggest you re read The Killing Joke and re watch The Dark Knight. You haven’t got a clue.

You said The Long Halloween was shit, therefore your opinion doesn?t mean shit

Anything written by Jeph Loeb is shit, plain and simple. Sorry. Long Halloween was simply ripped off scenes from The Godfather, Silence of the Lambs, and Presumed Innocent, slapped together nonsensically and used poorly. Then he used a bunch of nonstop villain cameos as fanservice to distract from the weak plot. The “mystery” has almost NO CLUES, every clue is dedicated setting up red herrings the whole time with no effort of setting up clues that actually work out the true solution to the mystery. It’s riddled with plot holes like every Jeph Loeb work. Maybe you are easily pleased, but no such thing as a good Jeph Loeb story to a thinking fan.

The way you talk about the Joker, it?s like he is supposed to be all happy and a likable villain. Joker IS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE A LIKABLE VILLAIN!

The point is not that Joker is supposed to be likable, it’s that he has a dichotomy that creates a cool cognitive dissonance. He looks like a bright and happy dapper clown and has a certain charm to him, but is actually a psychotic, sociopathic, mass murdering loose cannon. Nolan’s Joker just looks every bit as psychotic and dirty and depraved on the outside as he does on the inside, which is a lot less interesting.

Another cool thing about the classic Joker/Batman relationship is that on one side you have a dark, demonic looking, horned grim character that is actually the angel on the side of good, versus the bright-looking, multicolored day-glo smiling clown that is actually the demon on the side of evil. Brilliant. Under Nolan’s unimaginative, cliched perspective, you just have to demonic and dark looking guys on the side of good and evil in a race to the bottom.

I don’t mind deviations from the comics as long as they’re IMPROVEMENTS. These however we’re not.

Tha Dark Knight rules!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

gramaalmaagguuamphffgulch

HAHHHAHHAHHAHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

I watched Goodfellas- it was a great film.

I watched The Godfather- it was a great film.

I watched The Invincibles- it was a great film.

I watched the fucking animated Disney Peter Pan film- Awesome

7even- Ace

The Blues Brothers- Amazin’.

Aliens- Astoundin’.

Amelie- Superb.

The Dark Knight- A
Total
Pile
Of
Shite.

I used to measure a persons movie taste on the original Hulk- You love it- You realiise super hero movies are not just fx laden toy selling franchises but proper modern tales of human emotion told with wit and comical verve.

You dont…wellllll……….

You like The Dark Knight…

Nuff said.

Thank you for writing this. It is a cogent, intelligent expression of the many problems that I – and a lot of people I know – had with this movie.

The Dark Knight is basically a mediocre action movie with a lot of plot holes, a rather good performance by Heath Ledger and a portentous tone. It didn’t deserve the praise heaped on it and I’m pleased to see more and more people realising this. Why? Because maybe it will encourage the powers that be to make genuinely intelligent films, rather than “dark”, philosophically and morally incoherent ones with poor dialogue and adult characters who seem surprisingly naive and ignorant.

Thank you for keying in on the “realism” issue. You nailed it on how hypocritical and selective the fans of this movie are. Forget about Superman/Batman team up in this universe…it would be preposterous.

So you’re suggesting that Chris Nolan should’ve just picked up a really good Batman comic book and filmed it exactly as it was drawn out? This is the way to follow the source material, right? Get real buddy, that’s retarded. The whole point of movies is to entertain and give the audience something they’ve never seen before. Don’t hate on the Nolan for being original and expanding on the source material. Do you really think that TDK would have been as successful as it has if it was just a remake of Batman ‘89? Would Heath Ledger have gotten all this praise if he was an exact carbon copy of Jack Nicholson? Would people continue to read Batman comics if new artists and writers just kept rehashing and rewriting Bob Kane’s original material? The answer is no, no and no. Yet that’s all you seem to be bitching about. You make it seem like everything “new and original” is lame and imply that they should just take the classic stuff and keep redoing them. Sorry, but not all of us want to see new versions of the same thing over and over again, no matter how great they are. One last thing, for as many “flaws” as you see in TDK, I’d sure like to see you make a film that would top it. What can you offer, besides biased complaints?

Actually, it’s BATMAN he’s trying to tip over the edge you complete tool. TDK is a bad parody of The Killing Joke and bears NO RESEMBLEANCE WHATSOEVER to The Long Halloween.

I agree 100%,this movie was all over the place, it lacked any structure and I had to force myself to finish watching it. There’s 2 1/2 hours of my life I can’t get back. I had just watched Iron Man and The Hulk and they were head and shoulders above this movie. As a matter of fact I have always enjoyed the Marvel comics heroes more than the DC comic heroes. I really hated Batman The Dark Knight, Batman had the personality of a piece of toast in this movie. I can’t believe all the hype!

About the boats….. The first thing I thought was that the detonators were wired either to their own boats or both (It’s the Joker, so why wouldn’t he lie?) So not pushing the button vs. pushing the button should not have been a clear moral choice (although it was presented that way in the movie).

I didn’t enjoy TDK that much, either. But Burton’s Bat-movies were utter GARBAGE, and if people didn’t have such a big bias for them (since many of them were introduced to Batman throught them), they would realize the truth.

“Batman doesn’t kill. So that makes Batman morally superior to the Joker and also proves the Joker wrong again. Yay. Except Batman kills Two-Face about five minutes later with no problem!! What’s the point of putting so much value into the fact that Batman won’t kill, presenting his inability to kill the Joker (and even going so far as to save him) as a moral victory over the Joker ONLY TO HAVE HIM KILL ANOTHER CHARACTER FIVE MINUTES LATER. And if killing is okay after all, then why does the Joker not deserve it more than Harvey?”

I hate defending TDK, but DID YOU FUCKING WATCH THE MOVIE?? BATMAN ONLY KILLED HARVEY BECAUSE HE WAS SAVING AN INNOCENT LIFE, THERE WASN’T OTHER OPTION! BATMAN DOESN’T KILL AS LONG AS IT CAN BE HELPED!

Um….did YOU see the movie Ese? BECAUSE INNOCENT LIVES WERE AT STAKE THE WHOLE TIME THE JOKER WAS AT LARGE AND BATMAN STILL REFUSED TO KILL HIM. EVEN WHEN TWO BOATLOADS OF INNOCENT LIVES WERE AT STAKE. That was what the Joker applauded the Batman for when Batman apprehended him and had him hanging upside down; that he couldn’t get him to break his rule, no matter how many innocent lives were at stake, even two boatloads of people. So he had plenty of opportunities where ending Joker’s life could conceivably have saved lots more innocent lives, yet he couldn’t do it. Even to save innocent lives he can’t kill supposedly. Yet 5 minutes later he does exactly that, kill to save an innocent life. And did he HAVE to tackle him off the roof and kill him? Given the skill he showed in the incredible things he did in other parts of the movie to break falls, like shoot a grappling hook around Joker’s leg to save him from a fall to the death, I’m not convinced he HAD to go for the nuclear option of tackling Dent off a building to stop him.

Also –

“Batman” can dive off of a 50+ story skyscraper, grab Rachel in mid-air, flail about for a few hundred feet and then crash into a parked cab, denting its steel surface more than 12 inches deep – and only wide up just a little out of breath and neither of them have so much as a SCRATCH?

And yet he can’t fall ONE FLOOR with Harvey Dent – onto DIRT – and keep him from getting killed?

And this after having established in the scene with Sal Maroni that a fall from TWO STORIES wouldn’t be likely to kill Maroni, but it would hurt (and he does, indeed, break Maroni’s ankles doing so). So, if a two story fall on his own onto hard concrete WON’T kill Maroni, why does a single story fall into DIRT – while in the shelter of “Batman’s” rubber-encased arms – INSTANTLY snuff Harvey?

The answer? “The Dark Knight” was a bad movie. That’s why.

Nolan’s made it clear both in “Begins” and “TDK” that he has no freaking clue what the hell he is doing.

No, Bruce Wayne would NEVER pick up a gun with the intention of killing someone (not even the murderer of his parents). No, Batman would NEVER consider either letting someone die or killing them outright as an acceptable solution.

If either of these movies had actually been BASED on any pre-existing work from DC (as Warner Bros. Marketing CLAIMS they were), then Nolan, Goyer and the rest of the morons involved with these films would have known how to avoid these utterly stupid plot holes and moral ambiguities. All the character development and story arcs are already there – over 80 years of work – if only they had had the humilty to rely on them instead of arrogantly trying to “improve” them.

Your an idiot.

While I can’t say I disliked the movie for all the same reasons (far too gruesome for my tastes), I’ve definitely been frustrated just trying to get an “agree to disagree” deal with people who did like it. I seriously felt like these people thought I was damned and I needed saving from hell:

“For God loved the world, he gave The Dark Knight that whosoever likes it will not perish and have eternal life.”

I didn’t like it, but apparently that wasn’t enough for some people. I know plenty of of people who don’t like my favorite movies, but I don’t see something wrong with them, or question their tastes.

I suppose the next time I get condemned for not liking this movie, I’ll draw on some of your points (and rebuttals to rebuttals) to just give them a hard time.

and I’m sure the Chinese would let an unidentified C-130 fly right through downtown Hong Kong unchallenged….sucked blew, awful…I teach film that film was crap and how many innocent people, cops, etc were killed by Batman’s f-ed up rescue plans?

It was an ugly movie, which is why I didn’t like it. I personally found it depressing, sadistic and cruel. I don’t like the hype, either, and it reinforces why I never liked it in the first place. I also find it slightly perplexing the hero-worship the Joker is getting. Are we that far gone as a society that we embrace his obvious cruelty and sadistic persona as ‘cool’? Ugh. Don’t get me wrong, I think Heath Ledger is great, and his performance merited all the praise it got– but at the end of the day, I hated the Joker. I thought I was supposed to. He was a villian. He was creepy, torturous and horrific. Akin to a terrorist. Even though he stayed true to his persona (unlike anyone else in the movie) I wanted him to lose. I found it frustrating he was that damn untouchable. Obviously, “Emo Batman” wasn’t up to the task.

That’s another thing– Batman doesn’t save anyone. Anyone. Not even by accident. He doesn’t even save the love of his life, which by the way, ‘really loved him’ — not, but don’t worry, Alfred’s not telling. Had Batman not been in the movie, it probably would have been better. Just let Joker do whatever.

The film pulls in this sadistic torturous realism when it suits, the bank robbery, Rachel dying, corruption– and the fact that the hero doesn’t always win– yet it tends to forget itself in the most ludicrous moments, such as Harvey Dent’s face, Harvey Dent’s transformation to psychotic killer– (wouldn’t he be at least a bit mad at the Joker?) and stitching a guy up with a cellphone in him–so on and so forth. And I’m sorry, but back to his face… he looked like a human biology mannequin. He could stand in class and move his jaw while people took notes about maxillofacial muscle groups. You cannot make it both realistic and fantastical at the same time, and if you do, either one or both of those components will fail, like it did in this. You cannot your cake and have it, too. Just as you said.

Another thing that I hate thanks to this movie– “Why So Serious?” — people quote it like it’s the best line ever created. You’re not funny or clever when you repeat it like the other ten people before you who also thought they were a) the first ones to say it again and b) hilarious. It did work in the movie, but now it’s just annoying. I’m trying to dislike the movie, not the people that liked it, but stuff like that sure make it difficult.

I liked your post, and it makes valid and intelligent points of the weaknesses of the movie. One can like the movie ignore said weaknesses if they so wish, and that’s fine! — but in my opinion, the weaknesses added up to a bad product and the strengths weren’t enough to pull it out. That’s why I didn’t like it. And contrary to popular belief, disliking this bleak Batman movie doesn’t automatically make you a Batman & Robin fan, thank you very much.

Indeed this movie was TRASH.Boring, ridiculous, full of holes.Onle one example:Dogs chew through the bat suit??? (and Batman looked so amateurish and laughable).

Isn’t that suit supposed to be bulletproof, fireproof, what-in-hell-proof?? (By the way it looked like a cheap Halloween costume).Which idiot thought of that?

People are just sheeps.

P.S This was worse than Batman and Robin.Why? Well, that film was trash and is considered to be trash by almost everyone.
TDK is trash considered by almost everyone to be great.

This movie was striving so hard to be “realistic”, but there were many ways in which it was not. May I add one more? When the police have the Joker in custody, he’s in that holding cell, still in full makeup. The first thing that real police would do upon incarcerating a guy with a face full of makeup is to remove the makeup and reveal the face beneath it. They would photograph the non-made-up Joker, and run his mug shot through their computer to see if they can find out who he really is through the national police network, and possibly through INTERPOL, also. They’re looking to see if he’s got an attachment out from anywhere else, is a suspect in crimes elsewhere, and if he’s been incarcerated before somewhere. They do this for every prisoner that comes through their doors. A “realistic” film would not forget this basic element of police work. Point is, at the very least, they would not have let this guy sit in a cell in full makeup disguising his true face. Further, a violent criminal who is a certain escape risk would be locked down a lot more also. Common sense, and basic police protocol.

There are many reasons not to like this movie and all of them are basically undebatable. Already has been mentioned that the movie tries to be realistic, except that of course the premise definitely is not. Huge problem and it’s basically unfixable. Another thing is that the script is a complete mess. Plot holes, non-existent character development, convoluted storylines: for example Oldman’s über-convoluted B-story that doesn’t fit in at all, the Gyllenhaal love angle that leaves you complete cold and unsatisfied (ok, maybe that’s a bit debatable) but holy cow is Eckhart’s quick turn into a villain pathetic. However easily worst of all in the movie is Nolans’ shameless cannibalization of Spiderman 2’s scene where the passengers (train vs. boat) decide against their personal gain and for the greater good. In Spiderman 2 it worked perfectly and was completely consistent with the themes of the movie. In Dark Knight it felt like you were watching a different movie because it was so violently out of place and obviously copy-pasted from Spiderman 2. Alvin Sargent was like 75-years old when he wrote Spiderman 2-script with zero hype and these punks decided to “subtly” steal as much they could and tried not to get caught. Shame shame shame.

I don’t hate THE DARK KNIGHT. In fact, I rather liked it. To a certain degree. It was my #5 movie for the summer of 2008. But . . . I do believe that it was very overrated. And although I liked most of the film, I disliked the last half hour. I thought the movie should have ended with Rachel’s death and the Joker’s visit to the hospital to see Harvey Dent before being caught. I could have done without that ludicrous ferryboats sequence.

who cares if this movie was realistic, do you really want another batman series about a man frozen from a vat of toxic sludge or a woman who falls out of a building 200 ft. up and lives because cats start to lick her …NO… I think that this film was made to the best of its ability and they showed great creativity revealing how two face was “created” in a scence those who mock this movie have a false scense of power which they wish that can obtain more of by writing ludicrious arguments about a movie they didn’t even watch past 20 minutes. Im sorry if I offended anyone but I’m just giving the facts, and the facts are that the dark knight is a great movie and deserves the millions of dollars that it has recieved.

Err i liked it. Thought it was a good film. I think you all need to get lives….and err dont worry about films/movies so much. If you dont like it dont watch it……..Or maybe you could make your own version….In short what i am trying to say is that your are SAD FUCKS.

By the way, Netflix member reviews (sample taken of 500 members):

5 Stars (Loved it): 14%
4 Stars (Really lived it): 9%
3 Stars (Liked it): 31%
2 Stars (Didn’t like it): 26%
1 Star (Hated it): 20%

54% Liked it to some degree
46% of people who didn’t like it or hated it.

Now, reviews may be tilted towards the negative because many people write reviews because they hate a movie. But this is nowhere near the “everyone like this movie” feeling you get.

You are not alone if you didn’t like it, so fear not.

dark knight is not batman movie.. it’s about some rich guy who watched burton’s batman and decided to copy the fictional character in real life..in a city without gargoyles, without batcave (instead,in a stupid dull underground warehouse),fighting againt some stupid lunatic that wares makeup for no reason..it’s a movie without visual magic,with a boring story of a mid crime drama.. i appreciate batman and batman begins a lot more after this dark knight failure.and will watch it tonight,to wash out dull knight from my memory..