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Comment RSSThe Dark Knight Reviews – It’s Spectacular
26.06.08 # News # 20 Comments
The Dark Knight reviews are pouring in thanks to early screenings. And they confirm it is the classic we were all praying for.
Let’s get the negatives (for some) out the way first: It is dark – the Joker is a boundless sadist, Two-Face horribly disfigured – so don’t take the family. And it’s over 2 hours long, so if you’ve got a short attention span then, well, you won’t have read this far anyway.
No Spoilers Included:
Heads up: a thunderbolt is about to rip into the blanket of bland we call summer movies… How can a conflicted guy in a bat suit and a villain with a cracked, painted-on clown smile speak to the essentials of the human condition? Just hang on for a shock to the system… Bale is electrifying as a fallibly human crusader at war with his own conscience… Ledger is mad-crazy-blazing brilliant… It’s typical of Ledger’s total commitment to films as diverse as Brokeback Mountain and I’m Not There that he does nothing out of vanity or the need to be liked. If there’s a movement to get him the first posthumous Oscar since Peter Finch won for 1976’s Network, sign me up… It’s full of surprises you don’t see coming. And just try to get it out of your dreams.
AintItCool Scooper:
The Joker is almost more of a terrorist than criminal. He is not motivated by money. He wants to see people suffer. Its a damn shame that this was Heath Ledger’s final major performance as it shows a whole different side to him as a performer and I now know that he was endlessly talented… The film feels more like a crime drama in a grand city scape than a typical comic book movie. It feels like Heat except Batman is Al Pacino and The Joker is Robert De Niro and just like in that film we have a great scene between Heath Ledger and Christian Bale across a table. There is also an element of a Greek Tragedy… Batman has inspired the city officials particularly Harvey Dent. The DA for Gotham city. This is really his story. The rise and fall of the white knight. He is Bruce Wayne’s hope for Gotham City. A hero who doesn’t have to wear a mask. A man who can inspire hope in the masses. If BB was about fear then TDK is about hope and is relevant in today’s times.
Leave your own Dark Knight reviews in the comments.
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Here is my advice. If you are going to watch this movie, the first time round will probably not be pretty. DO NOT DESPAIR!
Watch the movie a second time – I did. And all of a sudden, it WILL be that awesome movie that you wanted it to be.
Why?
Because the second time round, you knew what to expect. And on that, the film delivers. It is single handedly the film of the year with regards to ACTION scenes and an awesome villian. It has a good plot that you WILL understand the second time around. It will all come together the second time you watch it. And best of all, you won’t be expecting The Dark Knight to single handedly cure cancer, fight AIDS, and at the same time, take up the mantle of ‘Greatest Film of ALL Time’. No, you’ll actually go in like a normal movie-goer, watching a normal movie, and only THEN, will you be blown away, I promise you.
Let’s be honest folks with the unfortunate death of Heath Ledger there how’s been a lot hype about ‘The Dark knight.” This movie is a good movie, but to say it’s the best movie of 2008, I’m not sure about that. Everyone loved heath and I’m taking away from his performance, because I think he stole show. He brought something darker to the Joker character than Jack Nicholson, but I was expecting a much darker Joker. I wanted to see more MAYHEM and CARNAGE brought on by the Joker and that wasn’t delivered, but that’s okay. Once again Heath did a magnificent job with the character and I would have to say that Heath played a better Joker than Jack. Overall the movie was great, but don’t create this illusion around the movie as if this is the “Messiah” of the 2008 summer movies. The movie was great, but that’s it.
I truly enjoyed Batman Begins, it has rich story lines, great development, etc. I went last night at midnight to see dark knight and seriously….WHAT WAS THAT????
Blown away? YEAH RIGHT! Was anyone else NOT SAD when people started dying, I normally bawl my head off(!!) but, since we didn’t get to see any development and background on ANY person in the film, it was just like random death.
THIS MOVIE WAS AND IS TOTALLY STUPID!!
I hate to say it! The movie was rank. Heath L was a very good joker. It worked because his Joker was darker and more demented but I think he had less charisma than Jacks Joker. I am a fan of this genre, but the movie was jumbled and confused, Batman seemed as though he was a prop for the Harvey Dent character. Not enough character development, not enough Batman gear ( his great toys ). Too much ambivalence.
Weird, not the reactions from the theater last night. Standing and cheering the whole way through the movie. This flick stands with the greats and Christopher Nolan has carved his name into the tree with David Lean, Spielberg, Hitchcock … The Dark Knight isn’t just the best film of 2008 so far, it stands to be the best film of a decade. It’s that good. The audience reaction last night from multiple theaters was complete and total awe and clapping. Amazing.
“Not enough character development”? Are you kidding me? This movie was a real stand-out in a summer of depressingly superficial super-hero movies. Movies like Iron Man and The Incredibly Hulk dwelt endlessly on the romance and excitement of being a super hero, and in doing so they completely ignored what it really means to be a hero. Not so with the Dark Knight. This movie clearly displayed a hero who was not in it for the costume, the glory, the praise, or even the warm fuzzies that come from helping others. The Dark Knight was a hero even when it hurt. This movie finally lived up to the opportunity for deeper exploration of the goodness of the human character that the super hero genre provides. Yes, the plot may have been a little hard to follow at times, but at least this movie had the guts to dig deeper, in more ways than one.
“He brought something darker to the Joker character than Jack Nicholson, but I was expecting a much darker Joker. I wanted to see more MAYHEM and CARNAGE brought on by the Joker and that wasn’t delivered, but that’s okay.”
Did you even watch the movie? If you truly think that, I have only one question for you; what could the Joker have possibly done to be darker to the point you would be satisfied? The Joker had no bounds to his homicidal tendencies. This was hands down the best action movie we will probably see this year, as well as the best movie in 2008 thus far (got some big ones coming up at the end of the year).
It’s simple, this movie is a breath of fresh air in a sea of poopy movies…
Seriously though, regardless if Heath were dead, alive or up on mars… His performance as the Joker is everything you want in an action movie, memorable and unique. He delivers this part so well that when you realize that he won’t be doing it anymore, you will get pissed, YOUR PISSED METER will be raging. Why? Because he destroys this role, utterly demolishes it, strikes that perfect balance both in his chaotic sadistic mannerisms and his spur of the moment, sometimes risqué comical transcendences.
However there will be one thing that will piss you off at least one point in this movie…. and this isn’t a spoiler, it’s just truth… Batman’s voice, is the most annoying thing ever. Other then that this movie is absolutely, undeniably the best action movie in a good few years. Batman’s voice literally dropped my rating down 5%, just because he was seriously THAT annoying.
95/100% – SEE THIS MOVIE, THEN SEE IT AGAIN… AND THEN BE SAD THAT HEATH CAN’T NAIL THIS PART AGAIN IN A SEQUEL…You went out with one hell of a bang Ledger.
~Neacey
Eons better than any previous Batman movie … and the true heroes were the citizens of Gotham …
Wow TDK is an amazing film. With all the hype surrounding the release i expected to be let down…even just a little.DIDN’T HAPPEN, NOT EVEN ONCE. Ledger’s performance was fantastic, but create’s my only issue with the film.
I should correct myself. My issue was not with Ledger’s performance, it is with the comparison to other Joker performances of the past. Being a Batman fan for some time, I can’t understand the comparisons. The character of Batman has evolved since it’s beginnings in the 40’s and so has the Jokers. As Batman became darker, so has the Joker.(the two characters are truly linked for all time.) So why the comparisons?
Nicholson’s Joker in 1989, if you all remember, was so well done that Keaton’s character of Batman was considered secondary. In that era the Joker was more flamboyant and charismatic. Only in the comics were the Joker and Bat’s beginning their journey into the darkness.(thanks Frank Miller).
To say that Ledger really captured the sadistic maniacal Joker in all his glory, should be prefaced with the Joker of this genre and not the past.
This being said, all those who criticize TDK for not having enough superhero triumphs of good over evil, should watch the movie again. I went to Paris to see the Mona Lisa, at first glance it seemed like a painting. As i looked more closely i finally realized the mastery of the work.
TDK is not a film…it is a work of art…a masterful one at that.
This movie wasn`T as good as iron man. i came in expecting a better movie experience than i did with iron man, what i left with was a movie experience that was a little bit worse than iron man, and a little bit better than spiderman 3. the only thing that stood out of the movie was heath`s performance as the joker. other than that, the characters from the previous batman movie didn`t add anything extra to what was already there. the foreshadowing in this movie made everything as plain as day. so it wasn’t hard to see where some of the plot was going because you saw it twice in the movie. this movie could have easily ended a bit earlier than it did, but because it didn`t the movie ended up being longer and towards the end just dragged out. so boring that my friend fell asleep in the last 30 minutes. i was nearly there myself.
This was a work of art not a film. I agree,Im 53 years old and i have seen alot of batman in my life and this by far was the best.
I was talking to my wife on the way home from the movie and we
spoke of one thing that bothered me about the film. It was like someone stated earlier,Batmans voice. It seemed to mechanical.
Then I thought and correct me someone if im wrong,it was done to hide his identity which the earlier movies didn’t do. Does anyone
know who will be the next villian? The way this movie ended they
could if they wanted never have to make another Batman movie. Because
frankly,I WOULD HATE TO HAVE TO FOLLOW THIS ONE.
Hey Robert, We’ve done an article on who the next Batman villain is rumoured to be here
Thank you Sheridan, I could say this villian over this villian but,
I don’t think it would matter as long as Nolan is directing. To even come close to the Joker Nolan would have to portray a more sinister
Riddler then ever created before. I like the Riddler because like the Joker in his own way its his psychopathic behavior. I dont know why but the Riddler just seems to be as close of a clone to the
Joker than any other villian. What do you think?
Perhaps the most unsettling aspect of the film was that there seemed to be some conflict with Batman and his taking out (killing)the joker. There seems to be some warped idea that permeates society that if evil is destroyed by good that somehow the good is evil’s moral equvalent. Thank heavens the generation that destroyed imperial Japan and Nazi Germany never felt the need for such psychological machinations. The two atom bombs that brought the terror of imperial Japan to a close were necesarry. The bombing of Germany and the subsequent death of hundreds of thousands of German civilians was also necessary. The allied forces were not the bad guys We need to grow up in this society and realize that as the philospher Santayana once said ” Evil succeeds when good men fail to act.” There is a very clear line between good and evil and it pains me that so many in todays society can’t recognize the differnce. Just because good men may resort to extreme measures to defeat that which is evil..does not make them evil’s moral equivalent.