The Dark Knight

[Sabin]

WHOA!

I think you might want to put some distance between BEWARE SPOILERS! and the actual spoilers. If I hadn't seen the movie, my eyes would've inadvertently wandered down half an inch to the Spoilers. And those are big ones.

[jsmalahy]

Well, count me surprised. While my level of dislike for Batman Begins didn't approach Sonic's (speaking of which, where is he these days?)

There was an argument in an American Idol thread about a gay stripper, and he hasn't been seen since. It won't make any more sense -- or sound any less lame -- if you ask for details.

[OscarGuy]

There are two issues that prevent me from giving this film 4-stars. But they are SPOILERS, so don't read if you don't want anything ruined.

RE-WARNING SPOILERS




1. The ending part where Batman says that he will take the fall for what Harvey had done seems illogical when they could have just placed the blame on The Joker and left Dent's name out of the matter. It seemed like some strange attempt at catharsis.

2. The moral issues are very heavy-handedly approached, most of which was the warrantles eavesdropping issue. That it was even in the film was unnecessary IMO and it only gave the republicans more ammunition to use to say "see, Batman even employed counter-terrorist measures if it meant 'saving' people". It made me very angry because it seemed antithetical to the premise of Batman fighting crime without stooping to an invasive level.



Edited By OscarGuy on 1216667012

[rain Bard]

Just wait until David Denby remembers to add HIS imdb vote...

[jack]

Shocked I'm not.

http://www.imdb.com/chart/top

Just watch it drop.

[jsmalahy]

Um, yeah, pretty normal except for the millions that allow him to utilize these skills and utensils--something which he never (at least in the films) acknowledges--the story has built-in class issues which are routinely ignored in favor of simplistic good-vs-evil ideologies.

This is very true, and very well said penelope, but...it's not as if soap operas deal with class issues and don't offer a fantasy away from real life that's devoid of economic reality and responsibility. Just saying.

[Eric]

Shocked I'm not.

http://www.imdb.com/chart/top

[Eric]

For what it's worth, I'm sure The Dark Knight and Mamma Mia are equally terrible.

[The Original BJ]

Well, to be truthful, there is no moment in The Dark Knight as perversely entertaining as "Dancing Queen." I can't WAIT to watch that repeatedly on YouTube. :p

[Penelope]

Dear God and Jesus and Allah and The Great And Glorious Goddess Known To Mere Mortals As Kate Winslet and all else that is good in the world: The Dark Knight could very well be the most life-suckingly awful 2 and 1/2 hours I have ever spent in a movie theater. It makes Momma Mia! look like Citizen Kane and La Strada and Fanny and Alexander all combined by comparison. Y'all are seriously on some nasty crack.

Chicago looked good. Ledger was great, in a limited way. But why has nobody yet voiced the glaring truth: Christopher Nolan's direction is like a child plunking the same key on a piano over and over and over and over...and that Christian Bale deserves a Razzie nomination for Worst Actor...?

Awful, just life-suckingly awful.



Edited By Penelope on 1216520919

[barrybrooks8]

I agree. There's not too much to be critical about. For the first time in a long while, I actully want to see a movie again in the theater.

[Zahveed]

I thought The Dark Knight was amazing. This was the first time in years I vocalized my excitement during a movie and my jaw literally dropped during some scenes, not all of them were even action scenes but some twisted revelation or the brief second everything went terribly wrong (or wonderfully right).

[Damien]

Even the legendary Spencer Tracy was ignored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which gives out the Oscars, after he died in 1967 just as "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner?" was coming. And he was the front-runner, O'Neil said.

Spencer Tracy was in no way the front-runner in 1967. Rod Steiger, who won the NY Film Critics, National Society of Film critics and Golden Globe awards was the heavy favorite in a year of highly impressive performances by lead actors.

[Sabin]

I haven't yet decided how to respond to the 'Mamma Mia!' thread, whether a short or lengthy response is necessary but I've no doubt that my take on 'The Dark Knight' will be greeted by jeers from the (how shall I put this?) pro-'Mamma' crowd on this Board who will snicker at my immediate assessment of the film. Johnny Guitar's assessment of the rich billionaire being capable of leaving everything for Tibet is shrewd and Batman is essentially an 'Into the Wild' fantasy of having everything in order to throw it away as commentary on the lower class. This is why 'Batman Begins', which I saw beforehand for maybe the third time, is such an unsatisfying picture. It's full of faux profundities and speechifying all sound and fury indicating nothing as the film moves along like a self-important though admittedly stylish montage. It has moments of fun all involving pros old (Caine, Freeman) and new (the hilarious Murphy), but what is really at stake here? Gotham? Hardly.

'The Dark Knight' lays it all on the table in the opening dinner after an intricately choreographed heist scene. Harvey Dent, Rachel Dawes, Bruce Wayne, and Wayne's Russian Ballet Dancer there to invoke jealousy from former paramour Rachel (who got way hotter in this one) in discussing 'Julius Caesar'. What does The Bat Man mean to the city, what does it mean to endorse him, and when we can find a time when we don't need him. Before (or after; forgive me, the film is long and intricate), The Bat Man and Lt. Gordon will discuss the prospect of Dent being the possible replacement for Gotham's shadowy figure as a white knight figure who inspires hope and has the fortitude to lock away the seedy underbelly of Gotham. These three figures (Bat Man, Dent, and Gordon) will act as co-conspirators in taking down the Joker and pay an incredible price.

I'm going to try and be brief in my assessment of this film having just draw allusions to 'Julius Caesar', and say simply that 'Spider-Man 2' is the best comic book movie ever. Because the only area in which 'The Dark Knight' feels like a comic book movie is that one has to A) accept Joker's plan, as intricate as it is, B) accept Joker's presence, like a merrier, less profound Anton Chigurgh dancing about the city, and C) that once in a while, there is a guy who dresses up like a bat and fights crime. Wayne's alter-ego is less superhero that gothic figure, the ethics of which are constantly challenged throughout. As one could expect from Nolan, this is a densely complex screenplay and one that is almost relentlessly dark. Armond White is wrong in saying that the film is nihilistic. That's clearly untrue. 'The Dark Knight' makes it very clear that it believes in something, but in spirit the film gets off on taking the current white knights of a corrupted town and running them into the ground.

This would make for an unbearably self-important film if the damn thing weren't so twisty, always keeping you slightly off your footing. Nolan's skill as a visual director have improved some since 'Batman Begins' but he still basically makes movies about philosophers standing around. In 'Memento' and 'The Prestige', I am fine with revelations standing up or sitting down with the occasional indelible image to return to. With 'The Dark Knight', he finds enough ways to shock us without action sequences, with introductions, re-introductions, background astonishment, and sheer audacious spectacle. He finds this in Ledger's Joker which is, quite frankly, terrifying, funny, and canny. Nolan mocks our need for answers and much like Anton Chigurgh, he exists without a past as a force of nature; admittedly, because he's the Joker, he's more prone to laughable explanation as his origin story changes on camera. In the comic books, The Joker is an insane genius who survives by being ruthlessly psychotic and following a queasy logic to its inevitable conclusion. At one point he asks of us, "Does it look like I have a plan?" and there really is no answer.

At its heart, 'The Dark Knight' is fanboy porn in making a self-serious, somewhat alienating epic of vigilantism and black leather; however, as an act of fanboy porn, 'The Dark Knight' exists par excellence in tackling myriad themes with incredible complexity. Like Original BJ, I resist the notion to liken this movie to something Dreyer-esque, but the sheer volume of this narrative is astonishing in set-up and payoff.

My two favorite movies this year thus far are likely to make a combined gross of two billion dollars. Yesterday, audiences spent $66 million and the night prior on only midnight, 3AM, and 6AM screenings pulled in an additional $17 million. If talk has been incessant for weeks, wait. Probably unlike any movie since 'The Lord of the Rings', 'The Dark Knight' has simply arrived. It's touched down, it's what people want, and it's here. Whether or not it's good could invite some great discussion.

EDIT - I think what keeps 'The Dark Knight' from being the great film that so many will laud it as is the distance I mentioned earlier. This movie suffers from a bit of sequelitis that is especially egregious in a film of such strengths. Neither Bruce Wayne nor Batman come especially into view and are circled around curiously, nor Harvey Dent and Two Face. The schism between Wayne/Bat should start off the film and conclude with Dent/Two Face but Nolan perhaps has just bitten off a little more than he can chew. Were 'The Dark Knight' a truly great film, no apologies would be needed; but as with his inexpressive action sequences, Nolan inspires apologists left and right for his shortcomings. It's a shame that the key shortcoming in 'The Dark Knight' is true duality and character depth, which is the one thing I expect from a Nolan film.



Edited By Sabin on 1216499212

[The Original BJ]

Well, count me surprised. While my level of dislike for Batman Begins didn't approach Sonic's (speaking of which, where is he these days?), I still didn't much care for that film. But I think The Dark Knight surpasses it on every level, and seems to have corrected a lot of the problems I had with the first film (though I still despise Christian Bale's ridiculous Bat-voice.)

For starters, while Batman Begins was widely seen as a strong visual achievement, I wasn't all that wild about its look. The cinematography seemed to shrowd everything in that underlit, "turn-on-a-light-in-that-room" look that prevented you from understanding exactly what was happening. The editing was even more problematic -- the action sequences felt over-spliced to the point of incoherence, and even the pacing of the film felt off, with numerous scenes cutting a beat too soon, when it would have been more effective not to rush to story along.

I don't have any such issues with The Dark Knight. The brighter visual palette lets the film look sleek and appealing without being so literal about its "darkness," and the action sequences seem structured for maximum understandability. I also thought Nolan juggled his numerous story elements very cohesively, and the overall pace is neither too manic nor too sluggish (though, as the film entered its third hour, I thought maybe one less set piece might have tightened things up considerably.)

Also, much of the praise heaped on Batman Begins had to do with Nolan's skill at turning a superhero movie into a character study. I thought that was a lot of baloney, its "meditations" on fear and heroism mostly empty, but treated with such seriousness so as to be utterly pompous. Dark Knight, on the other hand, plunges us right into its rather tightly wound plot, (which is certainly the best approach for these kind of films) its ideas tied effortlessly to its very suspenseful, at times even scary narrative. (Though it is a bit of a bummer that the film's heads-you-live-tails-you-die coin toss motif comes right on the heels of No Country for Old Men, and can't help but feel stale.)

Like Bourne Ultimatum, this film features one knockout set piece after another -- the opening bank heist, the aerial-assisted adventure in Hong Kong, the Joker crashing Bruce Wayne's party, Batman's dash to save Rachel/Harvey, the tunnel chase, the final ferry sequence -- all of which are propelled by the story, none of which seem to exist merely for showman's sake. (And can I have a Bat-bicycle, please??)

Despite my positive feelings on my film, I will admit that my initial reservations didn't disappear entirely. It's interesting: while critics are often dismissed for their negative reactions to "popcorn" entertainments, I'd argue that, as evidenced by this (and Iron Man), when popcorn fare is a lot better than average, critics tend to go overboard with acclaim. It's true that the violence in The Dark Knight is treated with weight; it's also true that the film has some interesting and timely ideas about the nature of terrorism and how best to combat it, giving the film extra heft. But the way some critics have been in awe of Dark Knight's willingness to be "dark," "disturbing," and "complex," you'd think they were watching the next Breaking the Waves or something, not heavier-than-most escapist fare.

As far as Heath Ledger goes, I'd rank his work alongside Depp in Pirates: it's a very entertaining performance, that takes a fun character and really runs with it, adding more to the role than was necessarily on the page...but not rich enough to really be what I'd consider a great performance. Given the bird-in-the-hand-rule, an Oscar nomination seems likely, though I feel like an actor in a more award-bait role will nab the trophy. (As far as wins go, the best precedent I can think of would maybe be Palance in City Slickers, but even he had the veteran make-up factor going for him. I guess Heath has the posthumous factor, but, as the article posted below articulates, that's never been much of one.)

After WALL-E, the most enjoyable summer film thus far.