Did you see The Dark Knight? – Spoilers!

[Phil]

Oops, guess Ben didn’t break the “Spoilers!” trend after all! Better luck next time…YOU CLOD.

Anyway, I saw this last night. For unintentional comparison’s sake we came home after the movie and happened to catch Tim Burton’s first Batman film on television.

Have to admit that Nicholson’s Joker did and still does do more for me than Ledger’s. Ledger’s interpretation was damn good and it fit the overall film very well, but with the two versions played so differently I’m bound to have a favorite, and it wasn’t Ledger.

The Dark Knight’s Harvey Dent, however, was fucking phenomenal. I loved him. He was the real heart of the movie, if you ask me. I loved him; he could have carried the whole thing and I wouldn’t have complained.

The only real criticisms are that the movie felt like two or three movies mashed together…there were a few too many climactic peaks for my liking. The movie kept feeling like it was ending…it wasn’t a sense of a small obstacle being overcome, it was a sense of the film being wrapped up entirely. And then it continued anyway. Several times.

Also, toward the end of the film when Batman encounters Two Face, you realize how similar their “alternate personality” voice is. Basically they both just growl and grumble at each other in a really similar way that might mean something thematically (underline “might”) but really just kind of made you realize that these are two actors grumbling instead of talking. One of them should have adjusted his voice slightly, or at least not adopted the exact same attitude as the other, so that it wouldn’t be distracting (kind of like what Jim Henson would do whenever Kermit and Ernie had to share a scene…alter one of the voices or moods slightly so that they don’t resemble each other so much, but still feel natural for the character).

Personally, if I were Batman, I’d affect an Australian accent or something. That way I could talk without hurting my throat, and everybody would go looking for an Australian guy.

Topic

[Dave]

>Hellboy 2…much better than the first one

Facial gangrene is much better than the first one.

[Danny Stephenson]

I’m still going to watch this ‘facial gangrene’ on Sunday on Five…

[pfm]

> Interesting fact: Kraus (probably the best thing in the whole film) is voiced by Family Guy?s Seth MacFarlane.

I still think it defies sense how the same guy can do the voices of Peter, Stewie, Brian and Glenn (although I get that Brian is how he just talks normally. It would be funny if Stewie was his real voice!) Also, how ridiculously hot is the girl who voices Meg?? Every time I see her I feel like I need a cold shower. To wash the semen from my belly. Sorry.

[Danny Stephenson]

Cold showers exacerbate the situation. Now I’m Sorry.

[Pete Part Three]

>Also, how ridiculously hot is the girl who voices Meg??

Probably not hot enough to justify the existence of “American Psycho 2”.

[TheLeen]

The disclaimer: the movie is brilliant, I wanted to see it a second time around right the next day, I loved nearly everything about it. Now that this has been said, some of my thoughts about The Dark Knight:

I’ll start with the actors just to get it out of my system… Heath Ledger’s Joker blew me away – which I’d already been expecting after the trailer – and Aaron Eckhard’s Harvey Dent as well as Two-Face really got to me, which I hadn’t been expecting.. I don’t think I ever really appreciated Aaron Eckhard before. Gary Oldman as Jim Gordon was something that struck me as a complete miscast in Batman Begins; I literally asked myself where the hell that was supposed to go. I see now where it went. It went good places. Gary Oldman’s Gordon, once he got over his being timid and insecure, made a very fine Lieutenant Gordon. Nolan & co clearly know how to do the character development thing. Joker, Dent and Gordon were all stunning – sadly, that left little room for Christian Bale. He’d been the one to blown me away in Batman Begins. This time, I didn’t find his performance as interesting. It was really, really good (as were Michael Caine’s Alfred and of course Morgan Freeman’s Lucius Fox) but overall a bit too distant for my taste. This leaves Maggie Gyllenhaal. As an actress, I’d pick her over Katie Holmes any day. The downside is, I loath changes of cast. So I neither really agreed nor really objected to Maggie playing Rachel Dawes. I think she did alright, given the circumstances. I’ve read people complain that there was no chemistry going on between her and Christian’s Bruce Wayne. But there was no chemistry between Bruce Wayne and himself. So this may as well have been intended, and even if it wasn’t, didn’t take away from the movie, for me. Seeing them together gave me a creepy bleak feeling, but that suited the general situation in Gotham as well as Bruce Wayne’s personal crisis well. Speaking of Bruce Wayne – where was he in this movie? Ah, the focus was set on Joker, Dent and Gordon almost all of the time, and while this made a good movie, I, the Batfan, would’ve liked more Bruce Wayne, and more… general Bat-ness. To see Bruce Wayne reside in a fancy city penthouse while Wayne Manor was being restored was another one of those pleasant little surprises, but I still miss the Batcave, the Bathome, a Batmobile that isn’t a tank, and, I suppose, the bats.

I loved how every character had to take a decision. I don’t want to list the obvious ones… just want to say that I was positively surprised that Rachel chose the other hero, Harvey Dent… and I was even more positively surprised when faithful Butler Alfred decided to betray Bruce’s trust. He did in in order to protect him, and Bruce might never know, but still this will be between them forever now.

The very short little moment when Bruce Wayne and Reese look at each other – was very sweet and very worthwhile, and one of JUST TWO moments in the entire movie that actually made me feel good inside.

Let’s get back to Gordon. Some of you wrote how much of a punch in a stomach it was to see Gordon killed. And that you almost feel cheated by them pretending that Gordon was actually dead. Hm. I didn’t get that. I just didn’t buy it at all. Maybe I’m too naive for the Nolan approach (in retrospect – they well could’ve killed Gordon off!) but I just thought it a given that he was going to be Commissioner Gordon in the end and that he obviously couldn’t be proper dead.

After all the things they did to keep the new Gotham “realistic”, some things tood out to me as slightly “too much” of something. Two-Face’s face, while visually stunning and well-done, was more eaten away than necessary. And the CSI stuff with the bullet was a bit over the top as well. Neither of the two really bothered me, but I felt they didn’t completely fit in with the rest of the minimalistic stuff. Anyway…

As for the dialogues (and monologues) – some of them were fantastic, instant classic lines, such as the Joker comparing himself to a dog chasing cars. Others came about a bit cheesy and stiff, but that may have been due to me seeing the dubbed German version. I’ll see the original version next week and re-evaluate.

I guess now’s the time to comment on the Batgrowl as well. And I see it like this: it is part of Bruce Wayne’s mask. Not just psychologically. In a realistic setting, he has to hide his voice. So it’s either the growl or a vocoder. I don’t get how people laugh at him doing the growl – the very same people, I might add, that also (and rightfully so) laugh at Clark Kent’s glasses!

Someone wrote that the miracle happened: the world sees the 7th part in a series and actually wants an 8th. But of course that is bull. The Dark Knight is, rather, the glorious middle bit of a trilogy. After Gotham: A New Hope and Gotham’s Underworld Strikes Back, we must see Return of the Bat. And there’s no miracle in that!

The Dark Knight felt as authentic as a political thriller and as devastating as a historical drama. What it doesn’t give you is the feelings of triumph that you expect from a superhero movie. Once I got over that (and I had to get over it), I could enjoy the film on a different level.

What my heart wishes for and what my mind admires are often two different things. Half of me enjoyed watching the Joker do his dysfunctional thing, the other half was devastated. Half of me knows that the makers of The Dark Knight took all the right decisions, but emotionally I disagree with them. Half of me bows before them because they had the guts to kill off Rachel Dawes and make Batman an outcast, the other half wants some more goddamn romance, and a happy (or less bitter…) ending. The movie was all about ambivalence and being torn between choices, and somehow this affected me, as a viewer, more directly than I could’ve expected.

[pfm]

> Two-Face is coming back

> I also reckon Two-Face will be back

pwned

[Jonathan Capps]

After watching the film again a few more times on DVD, I have the following to say:

* I’m now even more convinced that the Hong Kong and ferry segments belong in the film and anyone who says otherwise should SHUSH.
* However, it REALLY could’ve done without that cop and his comments peppered throughout the big chase sequence. “Oh that is NOT good” – yeah thanks, now kindly fuck off and trade off pointless comments with the Water works guys from Begins.
* Everything else in the film is a wonderful as I remember it being at the cinema.
* The extras could’ve done with covered more subjects (Harvey’s face for one. Or two.) but what it does cover is great. The effort put into having as many physical effects as possible (and, in the case of the hospital, destroying a REAL BUILDING) is massively impressive.
* Fuck Blu-Ray.

[Andrew]

> the Water works guys from Begins.

I choose to see this Shane Rimmer performance as a satire of his identical ‘working Joe commenting on heroic action’ roles in approximately 300 other films.

[pfm]

The extras, while being OK, blatantly point to an uber edition to come later on, maybe when (or, more accurately, if) Nolan’s third film comes around.

I LOVE The Dark Knight. ‘Oh it’s not as good as at the cinema’ is a comment I’ve seen around a lot. Funny how these are also the same people saying it was too long, which surely would make it WORSE to see at the cinema? Whatever, I agree with Mr Capps about the supposedly ‘pointless’ ferry scenes. IMO it’s the last 20 minutes that take TDK into the realm of the extraordinary. If they had left it at *spoiler* Rachel dead and Harvey in hospital it would have felt too run-of-the-mill, too similar to other middle chapters of trilogies (if that’s what this turns out to be).

It would be interesting to know whether the Nolans ever did consider ending it there and then maybe going straight into the third film, no doubt focussing on Two-Face and ending with his death. Instead it looks like they decided the story they had for TDK was so big it deserved a proper ending rather than a simpler cliffhanger (the actual end isn’t a cliffhanger at all IMO. It’s not like in Empire Strikes Back where you need to know what happens to Han and Luke’s inevitable rematch with Vader. Things are shit at the end of Empire while things are actually quite good at the end of TDK, just not good for Batman (or Dent either, considering he’s dead, though his image has been saved in the eyes of the people) The Joker is captured and the future is bright)

I’m still giving it 5 stars. In many ways it’s better watching it at home (on Blu-ray, mutharfekar). It’s possible to miss a lot on the big screen, especially at IMAX where you have to physically move your head around to catch all the action, and you can miss plenty of dialogue due to the loudness! Especially if you’re sitting on the fucking second row because you didn’t get there early enough. That close, the characters’ faces fill your world on closeups.

The ONLY criticism is the sonar phone mapping. It’s just a little too overblown for this universe. And how the hell does Bruce manage to set it up behind Fox’s back? It’s the only thing that seems added for ‘coolness’ factor. I suppose there had to be something. OK there’s the Batpod too. Speaking of that, until I watched it today I never noticed quite how cool the Batpod ‘exiting’ the Tumbler is, with the frame of the bike literally being the axis of the Tumbler’s front wheels. The fact that it’s easy to accept something as insane as this in a film as ‘serious’, dark and character-heavy as TDK just goes to show how good Nolan is. Perfect balance.

[Andrew]

> The extras, while being OK, blatantly point to an uber edition to come later on

Didn’t happen with Begins…

The DVD editions of Nolan’s films suggest that he’s really not too bothered about that side of things.

> It would be interesting to know whether the Nolans ever did consider ending it there and then maybe going straight into the third film, no doubt focussing on Two-Face and ending with his death.

Given that the entire film is structured around the fall of Dent and the specific manner in which that affects Batman, I’m gonna go with a great big ‘Unlikely’ on this one.

[Ben Paddon]

Andrew knows NOTHING…
Didn?t happen with Begins?

It did in the States. We got a very nice Deluxe Collectors Mega Happy Funtime Edition on Blu-ray shortly before TDK came out.

[Jo]

Fuck you, fuck your blu-ray and your states :o(

I’m not jealous, not even a little bit. No.

[Andrew]

> We got a very nice Deluxe Collectors Mega Happy Funtime Edition on Blu-ray shortly before TDK came out.

I thought that was the first Blu-Ray release of the movie? Can’t really cry ‘double-dip’ if it’s the first time out on the format.

[Ben Paddon]

It was released on Blu-Ray in, ooh, 2005? 2006, maybe? At least I think it was. I certainly remember seeing it in HMV. Possibly it was all part of a fevered dream.

[Andrew]

That was HD-DVD – back then Warners were supporting that format. The Blu-Ray came out for the first time in ’08 to time with the Dark Knight release. So there’s only been one version of the movie on each format…and Nolan’s never done a bloody commentary.

[Ben Paddon]

Oh. Well I guess I’m an idiot, then.

I have The Dark Knight on DVD (I got it for Christmas, and I plan to buy the Blu-ray soonish) but I haven’t checked to see if it has a commentary yet.

[Andrew]

> I haven?t checked to see if it has a commentary yet.

Sadly not. I really don’t think it’s something Nolan’s keen to do.

Could be worse, could be David “Not even chapter points” Lynch. He’s about on par with Steven “No commentary and hide the deleted scenes” Spielberg. But without quite so much content from Laurent “Everyone was wonderful” Bouzereau.

[Jonathan Capps]

Catchy nick names.

[Phil]

“Catchy” Nick Naymes.

[Pete Part Three]

Well, I got tbe BD and it’s slightly underwhelming. The IMAX scenes look great, but jar with the regular scenes due to the aspect ratio. Audio is all over the place too.

That said, this was only the second time I’ve seen it, and I loved it just as much. A truly great movie.

[Ben Paddon]

I’ve now seen TDK five times – four in the cinema, and once in Teeny Tiny Eye Strain O Vision on an airplane.

[ChrisM]

I’ve yet to see it for the first time. ;) That was one of a number of films I wanted to see last year but never got round to it. I’ll probably buy the DVD at some point though.

[Danny Stephenson]

It’s awesome. You’ll love it.

[TheLeen]

TDK wasn’t among my christmas presents, and I secretly thought “wtf?!” – then, three days later, my boyfriend hands me another wrapped present. He was taking the piss. Wanted to see whether I’d complain or not. Sneaky bastard. :)

[TheLeen]

I’ve just seen six episodes of “Gotham Tonight” and it is clearly the best thing since brittle chocolate.

[James]

Probably the best film i have seen last year.

[Jo]

>I?ve just seen six episodes of ?Gotham Tonight? and it is clearly the best thing since brittle chocolate.

I want to sample both of these things!

[Tarka Dal]

What is “Gotham Tonight” ?

[TheLeen]

http://gothamcablenews.com/

I can’t believe I missed all this stuff… until now…

[Tarka Dal]

Oh right it’s Dark Knight viral marketing I take it? I deliberately avoided everything after Xmas 2007. It started to feel like they were giving too much away.

[TheLeen]

Yeah, I kind of did that as well… I didn’t actively avoid stuff so much as I didn’t go look for stuff, but now I wish I had. I could’ve voted and everything. :\

[TheLeen]

The scale of it is intimidating. I had NO IDEA.
http://batman.wikibruce.com/Beginners_Guide

If/when a third movie is done… I’m in for everything.

[Danny Stephenson]

The marketing for that film was nothing short of phenomenal.

[James]

The fruit and veg stall was amazing.

[ChrisM]

Ok, not batman related, but considering the mention of viral marketing earlier, I thought people interested in the upcoming Watchmen film might find this interesting:

http://www.thenewfrontiersman.net

[pfm]

I KNEW it wouldn’t get the Best Picture nom. Nolan was never gonna get the Director nom either, not for a film about Batman. If you watch the extras on TDK DVD you see how Nolan’s attitude to filmmaking is exactly what this big ol’ industry needs. For that reason alone he should get the nom. His joint British/American background gives him some sort of edge IMO. The best of both worlds.

[Ridley]

So has anyone else seen Batman: Gotham Knight, the animated tie-in? It’s okay. in my opinion.

[TheLeen]

Despite relatively low expectations on my part, it was a disappointment. I found only two of the six shorts remotely interesting. The one with the kids… and I forgot which one was the other.

After The Animatrix was excellent, this is a shame. It could have been so good.

[TheLeen]

Well, good, Oscar, congratulations.

[Ben Paddon]

I would have been happy with either Heath Ledger or Robert Downey Jr winning Best Supporting Actor, but Ledger definitely deserved it.

Still irked that TDK didn’t get at least a nomination for Best Picture.

[TheLeen]

I would have been happy with either Heath Ledger or Robert Downey Jr winning Best Supporting Actor, but Ledger definitely deserved it.

I would have been happy with either Heath Ledger or Kirk Lazarus winning it, but seeing as in both cases it probably was their only chance for an Oscar, ever, I’m glad it went to Heath Ledger. As he’s real, and stuff.

[Phil]

>in both cases it probably was their only chance for an Oscar

Ouch! Downey’s got some great material in him; it’s just a matter of finding the right role to channel it through. I wouldn’t discount him so easily for the future.

[Mr Flibble]

Ouch! Downey?s got some great material in him; it?s just a matter of finding the right role to channel it through. I wouldn?t discount him so easily for the future.

I love him in films and all that, and his recent performances have made him a “ooh, I must go and see that cause he’s in it” kind of person for me, but I never really saw him as Oscar winning…

[Phil]

>I never really saw him as Oscar winning?

I find it hard to argue with this…but I definitely feel he’s CAPABLE of winning. I don’t see this as a “last chance” at all. (Unlike Bill Murray for Lost in Translation, for instance.)

I wouldn’t discount him. In the right year with the right role, he could do it.

All of this is probably tricking people into thinking I give a crap about the Oscars. I promise you, I do not.

And probably won’t, until my beloved Wes Anderson gets some attention for his directing.

[locusceruleus]

>So has anyone else seen Batman: Gotham Knight, the animated tie-in? It?s okay. in my opinion.

I did. Found it infinitely more entertaining and meaningful than The Dark Knight.

[Seb Patrick]

I may have been misreading this, but I think Marleen was possibly making a joke about it being Kirk Lazarus‘ only chance for an Oscar.

Only a fool would say that Downey Jr doesn’t have an Oscar-winning performance in him, frankly. He’s one of the best actors on the planet.

[TheLeen]

I may have been misreading this, but I think Marleen was possibly making a joke about it being Kirk Lazarus? only chance for an Oscar.

Yeah, I was talking about Kirk Lazarus (which is why I wrote “Kirk Lazarus” and not “RDJ”), I wasn’t joking though.

I just love metafiction so much. It’s true. Kirk Lazarus ftw. And I’m really sad that I can’t watch Satan’s Alley. :P

[Mr Flibble]

Only a fool would say that Downey Jr doesn?t have an Oscar-winning performance in him, frankly. He?s one of the best actors on the planet.

Hmmm… Does he really have range though? He always plays arrogant twats, does he not? I know typecasting doesn’t mean a bad actor, but I never really see much difference in his performances (except, maybe, Tropic Thunder (the poster of which is apparently still on the wall of our office))

[ChrisM]

>Does he really have range though? He always plays arrogant twats, does he not? I know typecasting doesn?t mean a bad actor,

So true.

Take Bruce Willis for example. He tends to play much the same character in his action films. However he also played Dr. Ernest Menville the geeky henpecked husband in “Death Becomes Her”.

Not that I’d give him an oscar for the role, but he did very well. Come to think of it that’s a brilliant messed up film all-in-all.

And Marleen, your new avatar is spooking me.

[Author]

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