Okay, first sentence and I want to get this out of the way. There will be spoilers throughout this review. I'm not here to stroke the Warner Brother's money machine and entice you to go watch this film. If anything, I might try to dissuade you from going. Yeah, I know, I'm already not very popular. This review should make it worse.
I want to go on the record with a few positive notes. Heath Ledger's performance as The Joker was very good. Of course, I also think that Cesar Romero's performance as the manic madman was very good. It's apples and oranges. Here's an unpopular thought though; Would people be praising this performance this much if he was still with us? It's a harsh question, but one I think needs answering. I don't think people would be all over this movie like this if Ledger was still alive.
I liked the Batman Begins flick. Very good origin and re imagining of the character. The sequel is an insult to true fans of Batman. When Joker attacks Batman with dogs and Batman kills one of the dogs I was done with the movie as a whole. So, he holds all life sacred, unless it's a dog?!? My Batman would have disabled the dog with no permanent damage. My Batman knows that it's not the dog's fault. Its the person who trained the dog.
The whole movie is long, gray and depressing. Add to this the whole Two Face thing and it doesn't really resolve anything. Batman taking the hit for Harvey Dent and making it look like Harvey is normal is crazy. Anyone looking and talking to Harvey would realize that the man has slipped into the depths of madness. Of course, the bonus for me was the scene with the reveal of Two Face. Seeing the side of Eckhart's normal face with that edge of burnt flesh made my stomach roil. I do not do well with burn effects having seen them in real life. And just that edge with what looked like a face disappearing was much worse in my imagination than the horrific vision they gave us. I don't do well with this sort of thing so I had to go out of the theater and wait for the waves of nausea to leave me. Good effects? No, what I thought I was going to see was much worse than what I was given. For the rest of the movie if I knew that Two Face was going to be on the screen I just didn't look at him. Didn't want to have to leave the theater again.
So, let's sum up the whole thing shall we? The movie is too dark. It's supposed to be a superhero movie and superheroes are supposed to be better than us and give us someone to look up to. Killing Rachel was pointless. Harvey would have become Two Face even if she had lived. I don't think she could have pulled him from that downward spiral. Batman doesn't kill dogs. He's been bitten many times and can disable a dog with no permanent damage. Read a comic book once in a while if you're going to make a movie about a comic book character. The solution of making Batman a bad guy is retarded at best. Didn't they try all this darkness and gloom with the new Superman movie? Yeah, that went over real well. Unfortunately, I will be the sole voice of reason screaming to a public that have been spoon fed the movie for over a year before it's release and are praising a performance for no other reason than the actor is dead.
Like I said, I plan on being very unpopular from here on out and that's fine. I know what I like and do not like and don't have that dictated by public opinion. I don't need to see this movie again, I don't need to see it when it comes out on DVD. I am sad that there isn't a Batman movie for my children to see this summer. They were looking forward to it. I'll just have to make sure to get Iron Man when it hits DVD. That was the true superhero movie of the summer. The Dark Knight is just self indulgent crap.
That's all I got.
1 comment:
"I don't think people would be all over this movie like this if Ledger was still alive."
This should be a domain name all its own.
And each time I hear talk of a posthumous Oscar? My vomit curdles.
Like I've said a few times elsewhere, I liked Heath ledger much better when he died while filming THE CROW.
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