The Dark Knight: unqualified masterpiece

Cafe Society
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I just saw it tonight. I looked into tickets for the Imax, but no dice. Everything’s sold out. I was lucky to get tickets for a show at a regular theater tonight.

All in all, a very good, very rich movie. The darkest superhero movie I’ve ever seen. Ledger was fantastic. It’s really his movie. As evil and twisted as he is, there’s something that makes you root for him a little bit. There’s a hint of humanity and vulnerability underneath all the craziness. My favorite line of his to Batman:

“You complete me.”

I understand the complaints about the Batman voice, but I just bear in mind that it’s supposed to be a deliberately affected, artificial voice adopted in order to obscure his real identity.

I’m curious about where they’ll go in the next movie mow. They’ve chosen an unusual direction. Whatever they do, I think they’re going to have to find another great villain. Nolan has to be careful with this franchise, though. he’s got enough of a balancing act going on trying to maintain some quasi-realism as it is. Too many costumed villains and it can’t help but start to become silly. I think something could be done with the Penguin, but I’m not sure if Nolan’s vision could sustain a guy in a green question mark costume.

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We saw it today.

Good? Yes. Masterpiece? Uh, no.

Heath Ledger was truly great in this role.
Christian Bale sounded like Bea Arthur with a bad cold.
Of the summer films so far, I think both Ironman and Wanted were far better than The Dark Knight.

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I’m sure it’s just very wishful thinking, but when it comes to the next villain, I hope, based on


the throwaway line about the suit being safe from cats, and the fact that his love interest is dead, that the next movie with feature Catwoman.

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That does make sense, now that Heath Ledger is dead. I think he delivered the best performance in the film, with Aaron Eckhart giving a close second. That’s saying a lot considering that Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman & Michael Caine, 3 very reliable actors, were also in it. Truth is, when I saw the Joker card at the end of Batman Begins, I hoped they would get Crispin Glover for the part. I thought Ledger was too young and too handsome, not thin or angular enough to give a good Joker performance. I was glad to be disappointed. He completely immersed himself into the character. Although it was his own, I could see little bits of Brad Dourif, Murdoch from The A-Team, Crispin Glover & Jack Nicholson as R.P. McMurphy in Ledger’s Joker. I hope he gets nominated for an Oscar for it.

I was really blown away by this film. It surpassed Batman Begins. Definitely surpassed The Incredible Hulk, Hell Boy 2, and Indiana Jones & the CGI crapfest. If Nolan makes the standard 3-film series, this is one of the rare trilogies in which the second film outshines the first.

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I loved it.
I loved the allusions to The Killing Joke,(everyone can be insane. Given the circumstances. The yin yang nature of the relationship between Batman and the Joker, the joker telling his origin and then making it clear that he is not a trustworthy narrator in that story.) Batman Year 1, and various other books. The references were there, but they weren’t just there to be there. They were interesting story hooks that they managed to put into the story and make them work really well.

The action scenes were terrific and horrible. They did a good job of cutting away right when the horrifific violence was about to hit. Ledger’s Joker was spot on perfect. I am one of the few who still admits to enjoying Nicholson’s take on the character (except for the end of the movie. And, thats the story’s fault not the actor.) But, Ledger’s take was far closer to something that would jump from the pages of a comic book.

In fact. Watching this movie I was impressed by how well they told a story exactly as well as they could in a comic book. So often in comic book movies I find myself saying “They could have done a much better job of this on paper.” I didn’t say that once with this film. I have read a couple of reviews that talked about how Dark Knight has surpassed it’s comic book roots and told a story that could be appreciated by everyone. But, I think it’s a movie that is able to replicate the depth, fun and action of a comic book while remaining a very good film.

Great stuff. I cannot wait to see it again at an Imax theatre.

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In my opinion, the second film is most often the best. Superman 2, Spiderman 2, Godfather 2, Empire Strikes Back, X - Men 2. All proved to be the best of the series. Or at the very least close enough to atleast be an argument.

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Wow. That was the most Republican movie since Red Dawn.

Helluva film, though.

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Cons: The sonar-eyes thing was goony. Movie felt a tad too long. And I was weirdly disappointed that a ferry didn’t blow up.. Got no damn clue how they can do a second one.
Pros: Heath Ledger was amazing. Damn scary. And he won in the end. Made Dent into a weapon; he wasn’t going to last the movie. He just wanted to make people into animals and he managed to destroy two of the three good people against him. And who really expected the big convict to blow up the boat when the recognized him? I did, I’m sorry to say. A nice little touch.

I liked that we never found out where the Joker came from, made him the dark mirror of Batman even more. Don’t think I could watch it again anytime soon then. The Joker made people turn on each other. That was his motive and his plan.

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Yeah. He even gets a line and shows up in one trailer.

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The Joker didn’t win. Destroying Dent is what would ultimately introduce chaos in Gotham and let anarchy loose–which the Joker told Dent was his purpose, or his endgame. If the city ever learned that Dent was responsible for several murders and for turning his back on the law, then they would believe that everybody is corruptible and nobody can stand up to the evil in the world. Batman told Gordon to turn on him and hunt him down precisely because they couldn’t let Gotham lose faith in its heroes. If they had played the Joker’s game the way he thought they would (or should have. I think Batman had his number on expecting the worst of people because of his own derangement) then he would have won. He wouldn’t have counted on Batman sacrificing himself for Dent’s legacy and memory, or for the good of the city. So the ending is a little bleak but it’s a victory. The only way to beat the Joker is to step outside of his game–the way Gordon saved all the patients in the hospital without sacrificing the lawyer

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I’m calling it. Page two. Unboxed spoilers from here on. If you haven’t seen the movie go and see it and then come back here.

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Yeah, so… despite the hype, this was a pretty great film. Had it’s flaws to be sure, but parts of it were astonishingly great. Random thoughts in no particular order.

Trailer for Watchmen! I am very psyched.

Batman’s voice is awful. I don’t remember it being like that in the first film.

Scarecrow? I really should have rewatched BB. I don’t remember what his final fate was.

Nestor Carbonell as mayor! Richard Alpert! Batmanuel!

I generally despise when they change actors playing the same character (the disappearance of Rachel Weisz from The Mummy being a key example) but I actually liked Maggie better as Rachel than Katie Holmes. And she wasn’t that much of a stretch. I could imagine her as Rachel, a few years later.

Joker was fantastic. Both as a character and as played by Heath Ledger. I love that he had multiple conflicting backstories. The sheer glee he had as he conducted his business. The fearsome threat represented by the way he portrayed that if Batman killed him he would still win, by corrupting Batman in the process. His various “social experiments”. The Joker is no longer a surreal cartoon character. This Joker is the real thing. Well written, well played.

Very long movie. Not that that’s a bad thing. But there were several times when I thought it was ending only to have it keep going.

Harvey…great story line, great character, well played as both Harvey and Two Face. And brilliantly rendered (I don’t think they can get a makeup Oscar for that, I’m pretty sure it’s cgi) But…they shouldn’t have killed him off. He only got to play the villain for like 10 minutes. And in that time he was only killing bad guys and people he thought did him an injustice. They easily could have found more for him to do for a whole other movie. Meanwhile, they left the Joker alive, but the actor passed away so they can’t use him again. Or at least they shouldn’t. Katie Holmes you can get away. No one else is going to do Heath’s performance justice.

I’m not sure ultimately what the point of Rachel’s letter was.

Why did Batman lie and say he was going after Rachel?

Gotham is a lot bigger and shinier than I’d imagined it to be. I’ve always imagined it looking more like the Bronx or Brooklyn with one or two skyscrapers.

So… is Lucius really quitting? What’s the blackmailer going to do now? Will Wayne Manor every get rebuilt?

Heh the Batpod is a transformer.

Hey, Batgirl! I wonder if they gave Gordon a son just to make him seem expendable based on comic expectations.

Hey, FICA!

So what can they do next? The movie will make a shitload of money and pretty much everyone is already signed on for a third, so it’s going to be made. But what to do?They should have kept Harvey for another round. They’ve done a good job so far of making the villians seem realistic and somewhat grounded in the real world. But they are running out of mere criminals and soon they’ll just be left with actual powered villains or bad guys with way too much cheese factor to overcome.

Plausible: Catwoman, Bane, Azrael

Difficult: Penguin, Riddler, Mr Freeze, Poison Ivy

And what about the boy wonder?

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He didn’t. He went to where Joker told him Rachel was. Joker lied to him (probably to know she’d die, and to try to tear Bats down - he DID figure out that Bats loved her, after all.

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Some of the other points:

Rachel’s letter was meant to be read by Bruce after her engagement was announced. Alfred realized it would destroy Bruce to read it after she was killed, and he still thought that she was going to wait for him.

Lucius isn’t quitting, as the Bat-Sonar surveillance machine destroyed itself after he typed in his name.

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Another critique of the screenplay: They would have done better to have shown some “alone-time” shots of Dent in the first fifteen minutes or so of the movie, of things like driving past some hookers on the street and flipping his coin (which would of course come out clean every time) or going into an interview room of a police suspect, getting angered by the suspect, standing behind his fist clenches like he wants to hit the guy, again flips the coin. Just some indicators that while always perfect and clean, he’s someone who’s strongly pulled towards baser instincts and he has to remind himself and re-remind himself to stay clean in an outwardly visible manner.

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Lucius did say he was quitting after the Joker was captured. He felt the machine was immoral.

The way they made Two-Face, he was a limited villain. He didn’t have a motivation to keep going, I felt. After he had killed Gordon’s kids, he would have shot himself. I found it very blackly amusing that the kid who died lived (Ekhart) and the guy who lived died (Ledger). Dent did show little flashes of crazy early on, but I agree they could have done more with him.

Yes, I was confused about the Rachel/Dent thing too. Joker switched them (and kept a clock running in his head long enough to make sure only one got caught. He was a genius, after all.)

I didn’t buy that Gordon died at all, though.

Gotham is supposed to be one of the biggest cities in the US, next to Metropolis.

I got the feeling from the Gotham Tonight “news” bits that the reporter guy might be Riddler. Maybe not. But please God, no Azrael. Don’t really know who they could get. Wonder if they’re thinking of having Nolan do Superman now if there’s no third one.

And The Spirit by Frank Miller? Gag puke gag.

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Naw- Lucius ain’t quitting.

I’m not sure Two-Face is really dead.

I’m pretty sure that the Scarecrow we saw at first ISN’T The Scarescrow- either some common criminal in Scarecrow disguise or just maybe The Joker himself.

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I did not realize that was him!

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I’m pretty sure that was him. Cillian Murphy is credited as Dr. Jonathan Crane / The Scarecrow on The Dark Knight imdb page.

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… and in the film’s credits as well.

as for Leahy…