Heath’s performance saved the movie, the story was choppy and there where so many parts that were left unexplained. Watch it for Ledger’s performance other than that the only other redeeming quality it has is that Gary Oldman is in it, and he is the man!
i was very dissapointed first time i saw it.. second time it was OK.. highly over-rated
>>1. The Dark Knight
2. Spiderman
3. Batman Begins
4. X-Men
5. Iron Man
6. X-Men II
7. Spiderman 2
8. Hulk (Ang Lee)
9. The Incredible Hulk
10. Sin City
11. The Punisher
12. Tank Girl<<
I never know what to say abot lists like this except, “You need to get out more.”
It’s CRAP! And the dead junkie gives an awful performance in it.
The first time I saw it I really liked it. After 4 or 5 viewings, though, I’ve noticed that I’m basically waiting for Ledger’s scenes. I feel like he’s the only part of the movie that really holds up after repeated viewings.
David, that’s kind of unfair to Heath Ledger, imo.
I wasn’t just disappointed- i’d expected something darkly brilliant from all those thousands of scores that rank it so high at imdb- i got to despise it more and more as it progressed. The sort of Hollywood excess, ever more swirling camera moves and needless furious editing, that’s blighting so many films, each having to go ever further to outdo the others. Of course the sets were fine, but the characterisations and plot were grossly overrated, messy, an ever more monstrous scramble, and- dare i say it- i failed to see quite what was so Oscar-worthy in Heath Ledger’s performance.
The first thing wrong with the film is it is about a superhero, the formula is too confined, plus the protagonist being a superhero detracts from it, it’s too much about his fighting a villain and not himself. Another problem was it was used as a selling point for every product in america.
I thought it was OK as something analogous to a roller coaster at an amusement park. Lots of sensory stimulation. But as Michael Atkinson put it,
" The Dark Knight epitomizes the problem specifically not by simply being a Caped Crusader trifle masquerading as Paradise Lost, but because it failed to do the simplest things movies have always done: tell a f**king story."
Oh man.
Okay, so I’m coming from probably a very different perspective than, um, all of you. I’m really fascinated by the concept of “vigilantism” and have sort of independently studied it for some years, and simply put I have found no better movie that really wrestles with the morality, logic, and sanity of vigilantism than The Dark Knight. Batman has always been an interesting comic book hero because he is not a superhero, and ever since the 80s Batman has been deeply analyzed through and through by many different artists in terms of questioning his very sanity (The Long Halloween, Arkham Asylum). I forget which book its in, but at one point the Joker asks of Batman, “When you first came, it was only gangsters. Now there are all these crazy people, and Arkham Asylum is getting full of people YOU’ve put in here. Why is that?”
Christopher Nolan is very aware of these more recent trends in Batman, away from the campy-go-lucky fun of previous incarnations as seen to the lesser or greater extremes of Tim Burton or that televised wonkiness. His Gotham is a realism. No, “realism” doesn’t mean entirely “realistic” (I’m not even going to touch the issue of the thumbprint on the bullet, aye vay!), but it does open up the character to what is one of cultures biggest internal concerns, and that is an essay of vigilantism. The fact that he builds a thriller around it is even more spectacular.
Yes, it does suffer from having a second second and third act tacked on at the end, and Nolan severely underplays Harvey Two-Face, who could have had a lot more to do, really. The movie is long and could have become even longer, and yet I’m not entirely certain anything could have been cut out. I think it’s a very savvy movie, juggling many elements that weren’t simply on people’s expectations because they needed to be there. I thought that Batman Begins was a pretty bad movie, and it turns out that it is mostly because it’s just a prelude to what Nolan wanted to do with this movie. It seems, to me, that The Dark Knight is bursting at the seams—it’s so full of themes, characters, problems, and the world around it that it just can’t look away. This, however, I don’t think is a bad thing at all. It shows that there’s more being imagined than a simple action movie of good and evil.
People have been saying The Dark Knight is a great comic book movie (or a terrible movie because it’s a comic book movie, or good for a comic book movie, or whatever), but I don’t even consider it a comic book movie. It’s not about the fans of Batman, it’s not about presenting a hero and then giving him a badguy to defeat, it’s not about his skills (“powers”, whateva), it’s an essay on vigilantism. And I find the character of Joker utterly compelling and mesmerizing. I find the asides, such as the vigilantes at the beginning that are aping Batman, to be of serious importance to the whole point. I find Lucius Fox’s “This is wrong” statement, though bluntly delivered and a little lacking in subtlety (“Privacy is an American right! Meeeehhh!”), still nevertheless important. Every character has their motivation and none of them are exactly matched, so sometimes they work together and sometimes they can’t. It’s true from the so-called “good guys” and “bad guys” perspectives. The variables crammed into this mofo are, in my humble opinion, worth lauding.
It was a very risky thing Nolan did. It’s hard to do without weighing down the movie, which it did… It made a strong thematic statement in what most people were expecting to be a summer popcorn movie, and the necessary backlash came from that… It made the film difficult to structure, but he managed to pull it all together in the end… and it asks for patience in some really unexpected ways, which most audiences just don’t have anymore.
So, yeah. The Dark Knight is a good movie, and I stand by it. I’m not too surprised that so many people dislike it, mostly because it’s overwrought and heavy-handed in places. It’s certainly not a comic book movie for summer escapism, even though it gets criticized as being that quite often (to those critics: watch it again and tell me how much of the playlength is devoted to action set pieces, ultimately. Hint: not much). I personally find it a crime that it wasn’t nominated for a few more awards by the Academy, because it just goes to show that the Academy has a bias against genre movies—even when the apparent genre movie isn’t actually of that genre, and makes massive bank worldwide.
—PolarisDiB
Oh man.
Okay, so I’m coming from probably a very different perspective than, um, all of you. I’m really fascinated by the concept of “vigilantism” and have sort of independently studied it for some years, and simply put I have found no better movie that really wrestles with the morality, logic, and sanity of vigilantism than The Dark Knight. Batman has always been an interesting comic book hero because he is not a superhero, and ever since the 80s Batman has been deeply analyzed through and through by many different artists in terms of questioning his very sanity (The Long Halloween, Arkham Asylum). I forget which book its in, but at one point the Joker asks of Batman, “When you first came, it was only gangsters. Now there are all these crazy people, and Arkham Asylum is getting full of people YOU’ve put in here. Why is that?”
Christopher Nolan is very aware of these more recent trends in Batman, away from the campy-go-lucky fun of previous incarnations as seen to the lesser or greater extremes of Tim Burton or that televised wonkiness. His Gotham is a realism. No, “realism” doesn’t mean entirely “realistic” (I’m not even going to touch the issue of the thumbprint on the bullet, aye vay!), but it does open up the character to what is one of cultures biggest internal concerns, and that is an essay of vigilantism. The fact that he builds a thriller around it is even more spectacular.
Yes, it does suffer from having a second second and third act tacked on at the end, and Nolan severely underplays Harvey Two-Face, who could have had a lot more to do, really. The movie is long and could have become even longer, and yet I’m not entirely certain anything could have been cut out. I think it’s a very savvy movie, juggling many elements that weren’t simply on people’s expectations because they needed to be there. I thought that Batman Begins was a pretty bad movie, and it turns out that it is mostly because it’s just a prelude to what Nolan wanted to do with this movie. It seems, to me, that The Dark Knight is bursting at the seams—it’s so full of themes, characters, problems, and the world around it that it just can’t look away. This, however, I don’t think is a bad thing at all. It shows that there’s more being imagined than a simple action movie of good and evil.
People have been saying The Dark Knight is a great comic book movie (or a terrible movie because it’s a comic book movie, or good for a comic book movie, or whatever), but I don’t even consider it a comic book movie. It’s not about the fans of Batman, it’s not about presenting a hero and then giving him a badguy to defeat, it’s not about his skills (“powers”, whateva), it’s an essay on vigilantism. And I find the character of Joker utterly compelling and mesmerizing. I find the asides, such as the vigilantes at the beginning that are aping Batman, to be of serious importance to the whole point. I find Lucius Fox’s “This is wrong” statement, though bluntly delivered and a little lacking in subtlety (“Privacy is an American right! Meeeehhh!”), still nevertheless important. Every character has their motivation and none of them are exactly matched, so sometimes they work together and sometimes they can’t. It’s true from the so-called “good guys” and “bad guys” perspectives. The variables crammed into this mofo are, in my humble opinion, worth lauding.
It was a very risky thing Nolan did. It’s hard to do without weighing down the movie, which it did… It made a strong thematic statement in what most people were expecting to be a summer popcorn movie, and the necessary backlash came from that… It made the film difficult to structure, but he managed to pull it all together in the end… and it asks for patience in some really unexpected ways, which most audiences just don’t have anymore.
So, yeah. The Dark Knight is a good movie, and I stand by it. I’m not too surprised that so many people dislike it, mostly because it’s overwrought and heavy-handed in places. It’s certainly not a comic book movie for summer escapism, even though it gets criticized as being that quite often (to those critics: watch it again and tell me how much of the playlength is devoted to action set pieces, ultimately. Hint: not much). I personally find it a crime that it wasn’t nominated for a few more awards by the Academy, because it just goes to show that the Academy has a bias against genre movies—even when the apparent genre movie isn’t actually of that genre, and makes massive bank worldwide.
—PolarisDiB
Damn, double post again. This board is sometimes really difficult to post and navigate on. FYI to any of its developers out there.
—DiB
I hate the film more for the fact of how over rated it is.. The movie itself was mediocre at best.
you guys are so f’d up. if you grew up loving comic books, then this is one of the best superhero movies ever made. i love comics, and this movie kicked ass.
hmmmm, my feeling about the chris nolan and the dark knight are that i think hes a good director, i really liked the prestige, but batman begins was not great and the dark knight, had heath ledger making a bland, preachy film turn into the emperors new clothes.
First up, we didnt need harvey dents story in this the joker would have sufficed, and and give more chance to develop batman, as i felt he was a little bland and i felt he was a token character in the film for obvious reasons.
Cristian Bale, ill put my hand up and say, i don’t get him as an actor, when casting for Batman Begins was announced and his name came up, I knew he would be picked and it soured my enjoyment of the character on screen, yes he does intense well and is physical, but there’s something very unappealling about him, that when the terminator salvation rant came to light really summed up the feeling i’ve felt watching his performances over the years and dont get me started on the Batman growl he does, i can see what he was doing, but it didnt work!
I’d cast an actor ive touted since before BB as who i would have cast and thats Josh Brolin for me he has something far more interesting and holds the screen.
Michael Caine, bless! a great actor kinda, some of my fave films of all time have stared mr.caine, but as alfred i hate the father figure, cliche performance he does, alfred need to be more cynical, i would have cast Charles Dance just look at his performance in Alien 3, stunning! or I would have cast Christopher Plummer……..both of less obvious than Caine.
For me it’s just another superhero movie.
I found it boring and extense. It has some good moments (every scene with Ledger on it, of course), but that’s all.
Yes, I really did not like the film. It did not have any Mythical or even Superhero qualities, I was very disappointed. I loved Batman Begins and thought it was a great re-launch for the franchise, but The Dark Knight ended up being kind of a mess to me.
It’s more than a blockbuster. Or less, actually. It’s too unsettling to be dismissed as typical Hollywood fare. There are too many sharp edges for anyone to embrace it comfortably. And there aren’t really any superheroes in it – just screwed up indviduals on either side of the law. A bit like life really.
Are we still talking about this?
I propose we move onto complaining about how much we’re gonna hate the NEXT Batman movie that might possibly be out in the next few years – might as well get a head start!
I think that the film might be slightly overrated, but by no means is it bad, nor even mediocre. In fact, in the long line of comic book and superhero films to be released in the last ten years, it certainly is at the top. The reason for why it has such extreme reactions from both the negative and positive front is because of the hyping, especially since Heath Ledger’s death. Again, financed by Hollywood studios, the film has no intention of being an artistic achievement, although in my opinion, it has its moments. Ledger’s performance is one that is immediately engrossing to watch from beginning to end. What is most important about the performance (and why it is so very good) is that just like the great cinematic villains (Darth Vader, Hannibal Lecter, The Wicked Witch) The Joker’s presence is felt in the film even when he is not on screen. In addition to the hyping of “The Dark Knight,” the film already had the groundwork from “Batman Begins” to be considered a great film in advance. The reason there was significantly less hyping for “Batman Begins” was because the film was coming out of a franchise with a poor reputation (Batman Forever, Batman and Robin), so it was able to creep up on its audiences. "The Dark Knight didn’t have that kind of benefit.
That movie needs to be trimmed by about 30-40 minutes. It gets boring…
I didn’t actually hate it but I certainly didn’t enyoy it and left it with a bad feeling…
“hmmmm, my feeling about the chris nolan and the dark knight are that i think hes a good director, i really liked the prestige, but batman begins was not great and the dark knight, had heath ledger making a bland, preachy film turn into the emperors new clothes.”
We have a winner…
YES I hate this film because is abdolutely inconsistent: 2 stories (so without aristothelic unity of action), and an horrible end!!!!!!
I admire it more than I like it. The thing is that of course the concept of a vigilante is pretty indefensible in real life, so the more “realistic” you make your super-hero flick, the less admirable the protagonist will end up seeming. “The Dark Knight” goes pretty far on that count and there’s some courage in that (though I kinda think that you can make your movie as dark and nilhistic as you want as long as there’s enough violence, as far as the public’s concerned), but at the same time it makes the franchise less appealing. Of course all of this has been sorted out in comics for the past twenty or so years, Alan Moore and Frank Miller deconstructed the traditional super-hero in the 80’s and everything went through its requisite grim & gritty phase during the 90’s until people realised that, hey, maybe there’s enough good storytelling material within the super-hero concept that we don’t have to question its inherent morality in every fucking issue.
Heath Ledger was kinda ok but Robert Downey still got ROBBED at the oscars btw.
“Heath Ledger was kinda ok but Robert Downey still got ROBBED at the oscars btw.”
I said it on another thread and I’ll say it here… the best person nominated in that category was Michael Shannon. He deserved the award, even though he was in a terrible film.
we all know that The Dark Knight should have been nominated for best picture over the Reader
A well orchestrated movie. nothing more.
Why so serious?
Joel McLean
It’s the sort of movie Oscar deserves.
I believe Kaehl would describe it as decent trash for a summer afternoon.