Iron Man is better. And it IS a piece of crap. So go figure.
@Roscoe –
>a lot of nattering about What Batman Means
But that stuff didn’t stick with me at all—let alone bother me. For me seeing The Dark Knight – just an entertainment, after all – was like going to see Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban in the theater, going in naive re the series’ plot & characters, but having a hell of a time. These things are all just entertainments, after all, no matter how earnest they seem. (I didn’t even make it through Batman Begins: the first time I couldn’t hang with a Nolan film.)
Wit, sorry, but there’s a grotesque pretentiousness about THE DARK KNIGHT that I found unmistakeable and oppressive. It didn’t bother you, okay, opinions will differ. I don’t for a minute believe that Christopher Nolan intended THE DARK KNIGHT to be just an entertainment. He lays on the High Moral Earnestness with a shovel, and I think the “entertainment” is suffocated under it. There’s more entertainment in Auschwitz footage.
>>Well, I certainly wouldn’t expect a film like the Dark Knight to be well liked in this atmosphere, but I feel that everyone is giving it too much credit. It’s not a masterpiece, but it IS the best comic book adaptation released so far. Detractors need to realize that this film is based on a comic book and if you’re expecting the insight of Ingmar Bergman then you need to learn the meaning of context and genre.<<
I’m getting so tired of this reaction I could scream.
Hey, guess what? Some of us may have judged TDK on its own merits and found it lacking. We measured it against other comic book movies and found it not as good. Don’t automatically & defensively assume that those who criticize TDK are doing so because it’s not THE SEVENTH SEAL. (Though I might reasonably ask, if it’s as fantastic as its adherents claim, why can’t it be compares to TSS?)
(In my case I judged that after seeing BATMAN begins I didn’t need to see another Nolan/BATMAN film.)
The best comic book movie, btw, is BATMAN RETURNS.
Like Roscoe i found it extremely oppressive. It’s not about being some arty-farty snob, that’s just how it affected me.
I’ll agree with everyone who believes that Batman Returns is the best Batman film so far.
@witkacy “These things are all just entertainments”
Ouch! You make entertainment sound like a loathsome sexual deprivation ;-) Hee hee!
I do believe the movie was over-hyped. But, what did you expect! It was a big budget studio movie based on a comic book. The word ‘context’ was mentioned a few times on this thread. At least in Hollywood, studio and budget are definitely part of the ‘context’. But the hype notwithstanding, TDK still is a fun, pop-corn movie that’s far smarter than typical Hollywood fare. I don’t know about anyone else, But I do like to have just plain, simple entertainment without feeling insulted by a dumbed down movie (Hi, Michael Bay).
Regarding Heath Ledger…I did not find his performance special. IMHO, it’s easier to play a lunatic, flamboyant character and such characters also attract quite a bit of adoration because they tend to be flashy. On the other hand, Gary Oldman’s character is so underrated it makes me sad.
As for references to Alan Moore’s Watchmen, the story of TDK is uncannily similar to the popular Batman book titled “The Killing Joke”. Guess who wrote The Killing Joke! Yes, Alan Moore.
“The dark” what?
@Ayon: i’m not sure i see the similarities between Alan Moore’s book and The Dark Knight. if anything, Burton’s Batman took more from “The Killing Joke” than Nolan’s film, or Nolan’s view of Batman and the Joker as figures. although i haven’t read “The Killing Joke” in quite a while, so perhaps I’m forgetting some important points in it. could you explain a bit? thanks.
also, i disagree with you on Ledger’s performance—i thought he did a great job giving us a new kind of Joker. i DO agree with you on Gary Oldman’s job as Gordin. he makes him less of a backup character, and pushes him front-and-center, making him one of the most important characters in the film. more important than Bruce Wayne, even.
@Marqs : One of the main themes of The Killing Joke was Jokers obsession with batman and his efforts to prove that without Joker, Batman doesn’t stand for anything. On TDK, think of the final conversation between Joker and Batman where Joker evokes the same logic. I hope that helps.
@Ayon: it does help, thank you. i certainly want to re-read Moore’s book as i was impressed with it as a teenager, but i haven’t read it in over ten years so i think its definately time for a revisit.
My biggest beef with TDK wasn’t its aspirations or anything, but that it was just sloppily made. At a number of points I stopped caring what was happening because I couldn’t tell what was happening. And while Ledger was very good, it was a performance that required much more in the way of effort and discipline than it did soul. And with so much attention paid to Ledger, most of the other actors got pushed aside, especially Oldman, who was one of the best things from Batman Begins. Actually, I’d go ahead and say in my opinion BB was much better than TDK in just about every respect.
But, TDK isn’t a nadir or anything. It’s just kinda bad.
“Hey, guess what? Some of us may have judged TDK on its own merits and found it lacking. We measured it against other comic book movies and found it not as good. Don’t automatically & defensively assume that those who criticize TDK are doing so because it’s not THE SEVENTH SEAL. (Though I might reasonably ask, if it’s as fantastic as its adherents claim, why can’t it be compares to TSS?)” – Harry Long
I’m just curious as to what you (or whoever) could’ve been so disappointed by? I get the feeling that its criticism is akin to Bond fanatics and Daniel Craig, is there really any reason beyond a displacement of what they’re used to? I think it’s more important for people to say what they feel makes a great comic book movie as opposed to “this sucks because I say so”.
And it can’t be compared to the Seventh Seal because its simply a completely different film. I wouldn’t compare the merits of The Pink Panther to the Taking of Pelham One Two Three – it would just be pointless.
Roscoe
Ben, I really hated Nicholson as the Joker. He’s completely immobilized in that plastic makeup, a completely by the numbers JACK AS JACK performance. Ledger’s performance is much more frightening and amusing: his little turn in Harvey Dent’s hospital room, when he removes the surgical mask with that embarassed “Hi…..” was infinitely more interesting than anything Nicholson’s done in decades.