The Dark Knight

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by vanilla gorilla on July 31, 2008 at 2:03pm

I know what your saying about Batmans face time, one of the things I was kinda looking forward to was the new Wayne Manor and to finally see a completed Batcave since they both got destroyed in Begins. The whole Rachael and Bruce and Harvey thing was kinda...not glossed over but when you see the note get torched the impact of why that was being done is almost overlooked after all the big bangs delivered by The Joker and Two face. Batman was constantly jumpin in this movie and I would have liked to have seen The Batman in daylight.

Permalink Reply by Greg on July 30, 2008 at 4:46am

Finally watched this tonight.. made the trip down to the Imax to see it with the SO, and it was worth the extortionist level ticket prices I paid. Considering I get cranky paying $7 to see a regular movie (and yes, I know I have it cheap compared to most of you. We have it good like that in NH), experiencing no buyers (watchers?) regret at $14 a ticket must mean something positive.

The movie was really and truly great in all aspects. I didn't find myself bored, nor did I catch myself getting annoyed with never ending over the top action. Maggie Gyllenhaal was fantastic as Rachel.. she was a tremendous upgrade over Katie Holmes (who I felt was the biggest let down in Batman Begins). The scenes filmed with Imax cameras were absolutely incredible. It was a bit distracting having the screen resolution switch back and forth randomly throughout the movie, but the SO didn't notice it, and none of my friends that had seen it on Imax noticed it either. It's probably one of those little things that I sort of watch for subconsciously , being the geek that I am.

Now.. I know I'm going to get crucified for this, but I didn't think Heath Ledger was as amazing as the hype has everyone believing. Yes, he was VERY good. Yes, it probably was one of the best acting roles in the past year... but.. I don't know. There was nothing bad about it, per se, but every time he was on screen talking it just seemed like he was channeling Jack Nicholson. The entire time. By the end of the movie, I was almost wishing they had just given Nicholson the role again.

Permalink Reply by ratpak on July 30, 2008 at 1:28pm

I thought the movie was fantastic. I really paid more attention to the characters than I did the action. It was very well written for each character. I was engrossed in each ones acting and was blown away by each one. to me the action was an after thought. I went in knowing the hype and came out saying it surpassed what I thought it would be. The only thing that did bother me was the Mayor and how small his office was for a city called Gotham.

Permalink Reply by vanilla gorilla on July 31, 2008 at 2:10pm

The mayor was a joke. He didn't deserve a big office he was just plot vehicle. LOL

Permalink Reply by ratpak on July 31, 2008 at 11:43pm

yep, very bad choice for a Mayor. Not sure what the director was looking for there, but it just didn't fit.

Permalink Reply by Charming Karl, Cookie King on August 18, 2008 at 10:43am

Upon the advice of Liriel and Ditchdigger (why have they not posted a review here? Hmmm.), I went to see "Dark Knight" at the IMAX theater last week. My reaction was very much mixed.

I thought that visually the movie was often stunning. There were many set pieces that looked absolutely amazing on that big screen. The acting was uniformly good, and as expected, the Joker really got a lot of screen time, plenty of time to make us laugh and make our skin crawl.

But I felt like the story was very poorly constructed. There were too many scenes that did not come to a satisfying ending before we were jerked off to the next crisis. Just to point out the two examples of this that bothered me the most:

(1) at the party for Harvey at Wayne's penthouse, the Joker drops Rachel off the edge of the building, Batman jumps after her and saves her, and then the scene just ends, leaving Joker and his henchman to prey on the well-healed of Gotham? why would the Joker have been satisfied in getting Batman out of the party, and not killed a few more rich people, since it is pointed out to us over and over again that he just likes to sow chaos?

(2) near the end, when Batman saves the Joker from plunging to his death and then leaves the Joker, once again, with no clear indication that the police have him in custody. And that is the last we see of the Joker in the movie! The tv series was smart enough to always give us the satisfaction of the supervillain being carted off to jail - with all that money, that this movie was not smart enough to do that shows a great deal of carelessness, to put it mildly.

Overall, not really disappointing, since I'm not a big blockbuster fan, and I didn't really expect too much. The movie felt a lot longer than it actually was (2 hours, 20 minutes?). If it had ended after Batman caught the Joker (well, actually it was Lieutenant/Commissioner Gordon who did so), I would have been satisfied I think.

Permalink Reply by Tony Giovanni on April 13, 2010 at 2:21pm

Possibly the greatest rebirth of a comic legend ever, Bale is unreal in his portrayal of the Dark Knight and Ledger's part as the Joker was Iconic. Even though the main bad guy should have been the Scarecrow I still loved every moment of that movie and will watch it over and over.