No, Nathanael, this was a movie about a comic book hero.
The extreme reactions this movie still gets over six months after its release amaze me. For the record I enjoyed it. It struck me as a superhero movie that had been grafted onto the framework of an old fashioned Warner Brothers crime movie, over the top action combined with a plot that dealt with serious moral choices. You may call it dark but it was dark in the same way mainstream comics have been for the last twenty years partly because of Batman stories like Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns and Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke, both of which seem to have been heavy influences on this movie.
And the supposed 9/11 references? Overreaching much? Batman, even in this incarnation, belongs to a long tradition of lawless vigilante heroes that includes 30s’ pulp heroes like The Shadow and The Spider. The ideas in this movie were around long before the Twin Towers were even thought of.
Yes, Jerome, this movie was about a comic book hero.
I enjoyed it too. Well said.
Nathaneal, I agree with your first two paragraphs so much that I disagree with your final paragraph: the overly-complex sloppiness of the storytelling, structure, dialogue, and action choreography left me without a doubt in my mind that I didn’t need to seriously consider any deeper allegorical meaning intended by the filmmakers. And this new franchise (as with the Bonds and more re-vamped franchises to come) prides itself on being deeper and darker, whether it’s still just a comic book hero movie at its core. So, in answer to the original thread’s question. Overrated? Depends on whose ratings you’ve been reviewing and upon how seriously you take their opinions…the arguments on this thread illustrate that. But if not overrated, then promoted to death in all sorts of ways that manipulate the target audience’s moral compass amidst a growing sense of cultural obligation to attend “serious pictures”? Yes.
I don’t really see the Dark Knight as a film that is going to be in the canon of serious films. I see it as a movie about a comic book hero that overstepped its bounds and became an entertaining crime movie. I walked into the theater expecting the same thing I got from all the other comic book movies and walked out feeling like the idea of what a comic book movie like this could be was expanded into “serious” movie territory, while not necessarily excelling within that territory. I usually walk into movies based on comics, or blockbusters in general, with reasonable to low expectations. I didn’t buy into any of the hype that this movie had, because while I enjoyed the first movie I didn’t feel it was any kind of masterpiece even for its genre. When I walked out all of my expectations had been exceeded and then some. It managed to treat what could have been action for the sake of action with a somewhat convincing veneer of concern for the complexity of the moral issues and questions that were present in the film. Sure, it was a somewhat schizophrenic mess of action set pieces and the aforementioned monologues, but I thought it used that to its advantage. It never dragged and was always engaging, and for that I think its not really overrated.
I give up.
I`m pretty reluctant to watch any movie based on a comic as they tend to lack substance and aren`t overly original but really enjoyed Batman Begins. Nolan gave Bruce Wayne some depth which was helped by Bale`s performance and the action complemented the story, it wasn`t just in it for the sake of it. There were also plenty of witty exchanges between Morgan Freeman , Michael Caine and Bale. However I just watched the Dark Knight last night and was it felt pretty anticlimatic. I`d heard normally reserved movie critics go into a drooling frenzy when talking about it and it was even hailed as a kind of neo noir film which sounded really interesting. However the only darkness came from Ledger while Bale spent too much time in his mask and baffling me with a voice that sounded like he`d smoked 6 packs of Camel a day. As for the neo noir comparisons, I thought a feature of such films was intelligent, often humorous dialogue but didn`t hear a lot in Dark Knight. Cliched interrogation scene. Cliched crims. Yawn. Sigh. Maybe it`s because I`d just finished watching the final season of The Sopranos so my expectations were still ridiculously high.
how can the cinematography of the fight scenes be construed as incoherent emotionalism Nathaniel. that doesn’t even make sense.
Overrated beyond reason. It’s mass hysteria brought on by Heath-Grief.
Overrated aye. I think all the lovers of this film need to post thier ages as this is another movie made for 17-24 year olds lol. I hated Batman begins and generaly think of nolans adventure as the start of Crapman. Only people into micheal bay movies and twilight like stuff like this. batman is a police detective and the james bond of policeman, the idea he’s a ninja is like making a clint eastwood in the good bad and ugly a ninja in mexico.
bale is great at villans and has no charisma at playing badguys. I kept watching and remembering how good Jack Nicholsons Joker was over Heath Ledger. They really have messed up the batman franchise along with superman. I thought Keaton was great as batman and terrible for bruce wayne and the first film was the best and Clooney looked the most like bruce wayne. I dont think I’ll bother watching a third batman.
I also think the batman costume sucks and thiers nothing moral worthy to make him a hero worth rooting for. Im tired of dark, depressing anti hero movies. i want movies to be fun, especialy action movies, like in the 70s and 80s.
bale sucks since yelling at the intern on the set of terminator 4 and getting in a fistfight with his wife and mother in law at a hotel, ive become a non bale fan.his reasoning was he was just really into the part because sarah connor was crazy (on a interview on radio thats posted on youtube), what a dip*. American Psycho is the only bale movie Ive liked where he played himself, a rich, arrogant snide p* that gets away with everything lol.
lol @ david props.
Two years later: Jim Emerson made a masterful video dissecting one of the action sequences in The Dark Knight, showing what many of us meant when we called the film’s action “incoherent”.
http://blogs.suntimes.com/scanners/2011/09/annotated_transcript_in_the_cu.html
great film, horribly overrated.
its like nirvana or scarface. good at what it is, overrated by way too many, underrated by those trying to contradict the others.
just take it for what it is and let that be that.
“overrated by way too many, underrated by those trying to contradict the others”
Pretty much nails it.
“just take it for what it is”
I’d disagree with because it sounds like the film being de-valued due to genre and source.
“overrated by way too many, underrated by those trying to contradict the others”
True that.
The Dark Knight is a great film, as a fan of Batman and his comics – I was in total bliss while watching the movie.
Can’t wait to read…thanks for the link Nate.
Nice response to Emerson’s dissection – http://josephkahn.blogspot.com/2011/09/analyzing-action.html
Anyway, I’m kind of upset that people here (and other places) seem to think that if you like Nolan you can’t like Bergman, Tarkovsky, etc. The Dark Knight’s one of my favorite films and I’m not embarrassed. I also realize it has flaws (narrative and technical), but it’s grand entertainment (something cinephiles apparently aren’t allowed to like), with an infinitely watchable performance from Ledger, and it presents interesting scenarios and ideas along with tension and action. It’s also beautifully shot and scored and one of the best theater-going experiences I’ve had. Is it attempting to be high art? I don’t think so. Is it overrated by geeks and fanboys? Yes. Is it unfairly maligned by film snobs? I’d say so.
I’m of the “Nolan can’t direct comprehensible action” camp and tended to agree with just about everything he presented (even the part about SALT), but I’m also excited to take a look at the response which looks as thoroughly done as Emerson’s.
I think the action sequences in Batman Begins were half comprehensible/half clumsy. I also think that this was half intentional/half not (depending on the scene/context – for example, when he ambushes those guys in Begins, I’m pretty sure we, as the audience, are supposed to be disoriented). As for The Dark Knight, and Inception, I felt like the action was one hundred percent comprehensible. The question for me is – is it compelling? And for the most part, my answer would be yes, though I have my gripes with certain scenes.
If you dont enjoy the comic it is very boring.
nate451
In terms of storytelling, THE DARK KNIGHT was sloppy and underwritten, with little balance between any of the ideas it purported to be about, and little that is human or proportionate to connect any of its characters. The interrogation scene with Batman and the Joker in the middle of the film is an excellent example of how incapable Nolan was at writing dialogue; instead, we’re treated to an unending series of monologues that are jarring and fragmented.
Technically, the action was poorly choreographed and poorly photographed, creating blurs of incoherent emotionalism.
On the ugliest level, the movie is popular because it serves as catharsis for the feelings of guilt Americans have over the way they’ve reacted to 9/11. They fear terrorism as a chaotic, inhuman force they cannot comprehend, yet when they respond the way a nation HAS to respond to people who want to “set fire to the world just to watch it burn” with torture, preemptive war, and unlawful detention, they’re made to feel as if they were the bad guys! In comes THE DARK KNIGHT, which reveals what a deep necessity the world has for people willing to be as bad as the evil they face. This is not moral complexity: it’s an apology for evil. It’s a movie for cowards.