The Dark Knight: unqualified masterpiece

Cafe Society
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[Scattererd incoherencies follow; writing at work between slapping customers.]

I’m not sure how The Dark Knight will settle into my mind; I may come up with some qualifiers over time. But on first viewing—well, OK, barring a couple conscious suspensions of disbelief—it’s a towering achievement. There’ve been times when I’ve been totally overwhelmed by a movie, only to have it eventually settle itself into a shallower shape in my head. But I honestly can’t see that from here with this one.

I don’t want to discuss it in too much detail yet, but I will say that, just as I was thinking it couldn’t possibly get any better, I realized that the dramatic climax, the fulcrum of the entire piece, the scene that lays out the central theme and, yes, works the title into the dialog, is an homage to John Ford. (I enclose the titles of the Ford referents for those who want to entirely innocent on their first viewing.)

(Hint: refresh your memory of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and Fort Apache for extra added resonance. )

There’s even a nod to Shane. Needless to say, when I watch it for the second through the millionth time, I’ll keep a sharper eye out for such allusions.

I’m not sure how much Heath Ledger’s performance seemed to be deepened by the tragic context—this too may settle differently over time—but even so, that context is real, and therefore I’m not going to minimize its effect. If he gets a posthumous Oscar, it won’t just be an empty gesture. He’ll have earned it. About halfway through the movie, it finally dawned on me who his performance reminded me of, only way more so: if they do do a sequel that includes this “universe” ‘s Joker (as opposed to Burton’s universe’s Jack Nicholson), they would do well to set it about 20 or 30 years later on see how manic a performance they can coax out of Jeff Bridges. Ledger’s mannerisms, physical as well as vocal, kept reminding me of Bridges’ recent astonishingly effective bad guy in this year’s other great comic book movie, Iron Man. This is a double feature I will watch over and over an over again.

Anyway, more later perhaps if this thread keeps going. For now I have to clean the popcorn machine and take out the garbage.

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Oh and, the added thrill when I noticed all the exteriors that had been shot in Chicago. I hadn’t heard that before, but as soon as those unmistakable Chicago landmarks began appearing—Marina Towers, Lower Wacker Drive, Ron Dean—I knew I was in for an extra treat.

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Gaak. Missed this on my edit:

**Should be: **(I enclose the titles of the Ford referents in spoilers for those who want to *remain *entirely innocent on their first viewing.)

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Amen - I absolutely agree that this is a fantastic, incredible film. There’s a particularly great scene

Where Gordon believes the Joker has Dent in a skyscraper, and he is absolutely panicked - “I have to save Dent!” And the utter desperation in his voice is completely understandable, because by this point in the film, he likes and respects Dent a great deal - and so do we. You believe in Harvey Dent - and that makes it much, much worse to see him become Two-Face. Poor bastard.

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can’t wait can’t wait can’t wait

not reading spoilers

not

not

not reading spoilers

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Will see this tonight, at midnight.

Yes, Chicago truly is the coolest place on Earth.

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Yeah, if they could only fix that weather problem . . .

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I’m going to a midnight showing, and I think I’m more excited about this than I have been about any other movie in years. Cervaise, I’m with you on the forcing myself to stick my fingers in my ears over spoilers.

I’ve heard a number of reviews saying it leaves Batman Begins in the dust. I’m re-watching it now, and a movie that’s better than that is a damn good movie indeed.

Now I’m off to drink Red Bull and bounce excitedly until midnight.

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IMO, Batman Begins is two thirds of a great movie, but it doesn’t stick the ending. There’s plenty of room for improvement.

I think this is probably the last time I’ll be able to read this thread, because the midnighters are going to start showing up, and the spoilers will begin to creep in. Perhaps somebody could just say directly, “unboxed spoilers from this point on,” and make it official.

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Agreed - this movie got the ending right, though. :smiley:

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[spoiler]I believe in Harvey Dent.

Any echoes of The Long Halloween besides that line?[/spoiler]

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Great movie BUT a few qualifications-

the gravelly “Batman”-voice got REALLY grating;

too many things thrown at you from all directions;

no use of a certain little girl who is technically in the movie but whose face we never see & voice we never hear… first initial B.

Now for the greatness-

Heath Ledger, natch!

Maggie Gyllenhaal looking & acting fantastic! (Galaxies beyond Katie Holmes)

The Anton guy who plays Harvey Dent- AND the Two-Face makeup- that is Hellraiser-quality scary-gross!

Gary Oldman, Michael Caine & Morgan Freeman gave great support, as usual.

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Meh, movie’s greatly over-rated. I saw it Monday on imax, and was bored through most of it – and I loved Batman begins.

It felt like the director tried to squeeze two movies into one. Two-face was introduced way too late, and yet stuck around for far too long. I also didn’t find his “transformation” to be particularly believable. The pacing felt off for the entire film, and it could have ended at least at two or three different points and been a better film for it. At the least, they could have cut half an hour of crap to produce a more streamlined, and better narrative.

There were also numerous smaller issues that bothered me. The sonar phone thing went beyond retarded. Sure, the microwave emitter of Begins was pushing it, but this entered Lord of the Rings fantasy land. And as someone mentioned above, the batman voice did come across as annoying, and even cheesy in numerous scenes. Also, I fucking hate it when movies change actors between sequels. I don’t care if Katie Holes wasn’t the strongest actress (though I had no problems with her) – it’s not worth the complete break in immersion when they replace her with someone that looks NOTHING LIKE HER, yet Bruce doesn’t notice in the slightest. I also felt they had zero chemistry. And finally, while the ferry sequence was an interesting portion of the film, why the hell did no one bother to jump shit? Stupid, stupid, stupid.

With that said, Heath Ledger was fantastic as the joker, and I actually wish the movie had more of him. And though I understand the reasons for not giving him a backstory, I can’t help but feel he was a little bit too shallow of a character for it.

So, all in all, a decent, but vastly disappointing flick, that is in no way superior to the film that preceded it.

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I just got back from a midnight viewing and I loved it, so, as a response…

I don’t want to comment too much here for anyone who might accidently see, but I bought his transformation. I agree that the pacing was a little off and made it a little rushed, but I believed his motivaitons.

Yeah, that was a little hard to buy. I was at least able to buy the microwave emitter while watching the last movie, but that was a bit more of a stretch. Either way, I did like the angle they pulled with it between Bruce and Fox.

I don’t like his Batman voice as much as I like, say, Michael Keaton’s and certainly not like Kevin Conroy. Then again, he’s playing a different angle on Batman, and perhaps it’s an attempt to put a darker edge on it. So yeah, a little grating at times, but doesn’t bother me so much.

There’s really not much they can do. Granted, she didn’t look exactly like Katie Holmes, but she looked enough like her that I immediately knew who she was. I had a harder time dealing with the differences in their performances of the character than with dealing with the unavoidable fact that they don’t look the same. I do agree that they didn’t have the same chemistry that he did with Katie Holmes, but in a way, it’s hard to tell how much of that is necessarily because they didn’t have it, or because they really were growing apart as people.

Umm… the Joker did say if anyone tried to jump he’d blow up both boats.

I was wary of how he would do in that role, but he did an amazing job. He brought a very sadistic and twisted edge. Even little things like his mannerisms and movement and licking his lips.

As for the backstory, I think a character like that really works best if you just don’t understand. Very much how the Alien was scarier before you saw it in the movie Alien, if you have some appreciation for how he became what he is, his psychotic nature loses its edge.

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Did he? I must have checked out then. I’ll concede that point.

I agree – I totally understand the intent. Unfortunately, it ultimately resulted in an antagonist, that I felt, was less interesting than either of those found in Begins.

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Just got in from midnight showing, and while my two cents may not be worth much here , these are my random thoughts:
-enjoyable. no masterpiece. Heath Ledger best thing in it. (Aaron Eckhart & Gary Oldham really good too). He disappeared into the role as they say. Imagine watching this, then his performance in ‘Brokeback’. What talent.
-Way, Way, way too long. My 16 year old daughter got bored. The excited teenagers in the theatre seemed to lose interest. Enough plot for 2 movies. Why can’t anyone edit down a film to reasonable length anymore? Even Ledger would have shone more brilliantly in a tighter film.
-Many good, serious themes. Too many. Did I mention it was way too long?
-The “Lifeboat” choices; the kill one or blow up a hospital; the decision over which hostage to save. Redundant?
-I know it wasn’t his movie but I missed Cillian Murphy. Where are they going with villains next time?
-Didn’t we have a major character flipping a coin a lot in an award-winning film last year?
-“I am Spartacus…no I mean Batman!”
Note: The preview for the next Bond movie looked awesome; The kids behind thought the preview for some Russell Crowe/DiCaprio outing looked real boring, as did I.

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Well, I think it was a masterpiece. I walked out torn between “Holy fucking shit” and “oh my god, what did I just see?!” I didn’t think it was too long. I wasn’t let down by any of it.

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Maybe so, but the coin-flip has been a part of the Two-Face character for decades. It would be kind of silly to leave it out.

I loved the whistle-blower character, and his attempted blackmail of Lucius Fox - and Lucius’ reminding him of a few facts of life - like why blackmailing Batman would be an incredibly bad idea

It was a long film, but it kept my interest through the whole thing. It probably would have seemed shorter without the (approximately) 25 minutes of previews.

Speaking of the previews - cool seeing the Watchmen preview - looked a little ‘busy’, but I’m still looking forward to it.

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So who else was like me, and when they saw Nestor Carbonell immediately thought “Wow, Batmanuel in a Batman movie. That’s pretty surreal.”

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I liked it. It did get a little long after the fake ending (i.e. when they caught the Joker the first time.) But these days I’d say you’re better to cut it too long than too short. Probably they would have been better to spend the time after that point having it just be the Joker fiddling with Dent’s head to convert him over, rather than setting up a whole new attack and the two of them going separate ways. But it was alright as it was.

I loved the portrayal of the Joker. Ledger’s performance wasn’t all that impressive, but he had a script which let him and chose to play the role the way it should be played. He played it well, just not amazing. Though I must say that the disappearing pencil was excellent. Best scene in the movie for me.

Batman voice needs to be toned down twenty notches… He could also use to be a little more stealthy in his entry attacks. Much too much bullet dodging given the otherwise realistic presentation of the material.

As to the cellphone radar thing, I’ll just note that this is something actually being researched and deployed–though obviously not in such high definition and without detectors to pick up the bounced waves. So definitely fantasy, but at least not entirely made up from whole cloth.