The Dark Knight Review

A fantastic movie ! I must say a great review as well.How many of you watched The dark knight?? To be very frank i really liked watching this movie !

it was ok, not great though

I saw it opening night, and 10 more times in theaters. Incredible movie.

__________________

One of the best movies that will be made for a while, just the cast alone makes it a great movie the rest of it just takes it over the edge. Character transformation are crazy.

__________________
Trailers and Reviews

I finally saw this film on TV last night. It's obviously made for a younger generation. It was too long, too dark, and I quickly tired of the Joker who was more irritating than threatening (I couldn't help wondering when they had the guy in custody, could they have turned him around simply by washing off that make-up?). Then just when I thought we were finally nearing the end, they pull in Two-Face, kicking and screaming. (I don't for a moment buy him not killing the Joker when he had the chance--it may have been in the script but it was totally out of human character).

I liked Nicholson's version of the Joker best--more in keeping with the original comic. What can I say? I'm a traditionalist.

Anyway, that's just my opinion. Other folks in this forum have their own opinions and I'm sure they're different from mine. Fine. I happy for those who like this film and think it's the greatest thing since sliced bread. I'm not trying to put you or your film down, just expressing an opinion. I'm not trying to convince you not to like it, so please don't feel you have to write back to convince me to like it. We can simply agree to disagree and let it go at that. Besides, it's differences of opinions that make horse races.

Out of curiosity, ruffy, who do you think have given the best performances from movies released in the 2000s? I really liked Ledger but we'll let that slide...

__________________
It's what you learn after you know it all that counts. - John Wooden
My IMDb page

I have a problem remembering which movie was filmed in what year, but performances I've enjoyed in this decade that I can recall at the moment are, in no particular order:

Collin Firth, Geoffrey Rush, Helena Bonham Carter, and Michael Gambon in The King’s Speech (2010)

Also liked Rush, Johnny Depp, and Bill Nighy in The Pirates of the Caribbean series

Also liked Nighy in Love Actually (2003): Also liked Firth, Hugh Grant, Alan Rickman, Emma Thompson, and Laura Linney in that film

Also liked Thompson and Firth in Nanny McPhee (2005)

Forrest Whitaker in Last King of Scotland (2006)

Robert Duval and Michael Caine in Secondhand Lions (2003)

Keisha Castle-Hughes in Whale Rider (2002)

Helen Mirren in Gosford Park (2001), Calendar Girls (2003), and The Queen (2006) I also like James Cromwell in the latter.

John Turturro and Tim Blake Nelson in O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) Clooney was the best I’ve ever seen him in that film but not in the class of Turturro and Nelson.

Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood (2007)

Tommy Lee Jones in The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005)

Billy Bob Thornton in The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001)

John C. Reilly, Renée Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Richard Gere in Chcago (2002)

Gere in Shall We Dance (2004) These are the only 2 films I've ever liked Gere in--go figure.

Zellweger in Bridget Jones's Diary (2001) and Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004) Also liked Firth in those films.

Nia Vardalos, Richard Dreyfuss, and Alexis Georgoulis in My Life Among the Ruins (2009)

As for the best performers, I agree with George C. Scott--let 'em all play the same role and we'll see. That said, I was very much impressed with Firth's performance in The King's Speech, and I thought Helena Bonham Carter was absolutely dead-on in her portrayal of the Queen Mother in her youth--you could see her interpretation of the young wife maturing into the Queen Mother we so often saw on TV. (It's amazing that this film received so many Oscar nominations, yet if there has been a review of it in this forum, I missed it (which is very possible, even likely.)

Forrest Whitaker was amazing in his award-winning role as an infamous real-life dictator in Last King of Scotland.

Tommy Lee Jones, Robert Duval, Helen Mirren, Emma Thompson, and John Turturro are always a pleasure to watch in any role they take.

But if I must pick an overall champ it would have to be Mirren.

(I've got nothing against Ledger. I hear he was great in Brokeback Mountain, which I've never seen. He was good in his role as the Joker although I didn't enjoy his performance as much as you, obviously, but then I'm sure you disagree about some of the people listed above. I simply think Nicholson is the better actor and that the Joker he and his director created was closer to the comic book original and easier to understand his motivation. The Dark Knight seemed to me awfully talky for an action film. And it often was predictable--I mean when the big guy from central casting first complained about a stomach-ache in jail, didn't everyone realize he had a bomb inside him that eventually would explode?)

I'll be brief. I put this movie int he same boat as "Taken". I did enjoy it but I feel it was way over-hyped by the typical movie-goer. Happens all the time though. A movie this good without the notoriety could easily have been a sleeper hit like "Taken" was. I've been a fan of all of the work Christian Bale has done so I expected it to be as good as it was.

same boat as taken

You agreeing with me? or shocked that I said that?

I did enjoy both movies for the record and have watched them both at least twice.

Yeah, this is where I am on the other side of the fence. Nicholson is a great actor, and I am still a fan of his and Burton's interpretation of The Joker, but I don't see how making the character closer to the original (and I use the term 'closer' loosely and as a way of quoting you, because, you know, Joker didn't kill Batman's parents in the comics ) or having his motivations more understandable makes him anymore effective than Ledgers. In fact, the fact that Nicholson's Joker HAD a motivation is sort of the reason why he isn't as interesting as Ledger's.

I've said it before and I will say it again, you give the enemy reason, then he loses some, if not all, of his threat. Ledger was unsettling because his Joker was absolute. There was no logical explanation to why he sets out killing and toying with people, there is no method to his madness and that is simply far more frightening than 'understanding' Nicholson's creep. Christopher Nolan even takes a sly dig as well as reference The Killing Joke when Joker keeps on telling outrageous stories about how he got his scars.

As film goers, I find that we tend to forget that there are people out there in the real world who do things for all sorts of weird and seemingly trivial reasons. Why did those sick parents of Baby P do what they did to him? Where was the motivation in that? Why did somebody kill Joanna? You can't find a logical explanation for that, can you? Well, Ledger's Joker is no different.



I also wouldn't reduce The Dark Knight to simply an 'action film'. I'm not gonna sit here and tell ya it's art and stuff (although I tend to think of all films are art, and this one has a lot of artistic merit imo) but I do think it has much more going for it that just action scenes, so the talky bits were very interesting to him. The nature of duality between Wayne and Dent, the observation that society needs to forever not succumb to bad no matter how things get (corny, but hey, it's pretty true). In some ways, the ending is unconventional even if it is inevitable because of what happens in the comics. Dent starts of a pretty tough but ultimately good protagonist but because corrupted by the end of the film to the point where you can say that The Joker won. It's quite dark..hence the title, I guess.

Prestige pretty much took the words out of my mouth: I don't think staying closer to the source material is inherently better. It often is, but not by definition; it's usually just because whatever was good enough to cause someone to want to make a film adaptation in the first place is probably good enough to not be tampered with much, but it's not a rule. I found Ledger's interpretation to be a far more compelling one.

You must have missed the part of my original post where I said, "I'm not trying to put you or your film down, just expressing an opinion. I'm not trying to convince you not to like it, so please don't feel you have to write back to convince me to like it. We can simply agree to disagree and let it go at that."

But since you did write back, I'll try to respond. First in saying Nicholson's portrayal is more traditional, I simply meant I could immediately recognize his character because he looked like the character in the comics. It has been decades since I read Batman or any other comic, but I think I remember his parents died accidentally (car wreck or maybe falling off a mountain like Auntie Mame's husband) and that Joker got his clown face from exposure to chemicals while escaping Batman (although what concoction of chemicals would do something like, god only knows, but hey, it's a comic book). Therefore, Nicholson's Joker didn't have to go around making up reasons why his face looked that way. Chemicals, check--let's move along with the plot. The Joker in the remake on the other hand, talked, talked, talked about his face, his parents, his outlooks, his philosophy, his observations of human nature, etc. What a Chatty Cathy! Even his bit flicking out his tongue after each pronouncement started to get on my nerves.

Plus either it was my aging eyes or my aging TV, but I really couldn't see any scars under his makeup. Hence I wonder if they could have brought him down at least in the eyes of his gang had they simply washed his face when they had him in custody (like the CIA trying to make Castro's beard fall out). His painted face is a scare tactic--washing off that face says they ain't scared. The face on Nicholson's Joker on the other hand was permanent.

You said, "there are people out there in the real world who do things for all sorts of weird and seemingly trivial reasons," and that the Joker in the remake is "no different." I agree, but that sorta negates your earlier claim that Joker has no particular goal and performs randomly. I know from years of covering courts and cops there's a motive for every crime. You may not understand it, but it triggers the criminal action. Even so-called random killings are motivated. I remember one from some years back where a teen girl killed a man she had never seen before. Her motive? "I wanted to see what it felt like." Nicholson's Joker's motive--he's disfigured and is going to take it out on everyone. Check, get on with the movie.

Incidently, I referred to the fillm as an action movie because I don't know what other category would fit it. Didn't mean it was "only" an action movie (action movies seem pretty popular in this forum) or to dis the movie in anyway.

But the weakest link in the whole film, in my opinion, is how the Joker manages to shift Dent from good to evil with 15 minutes of kookie talk. He wants Dent to believe people he has worked with and trusted for some reason wanted to be late in rescuing him and his girlfriend. But they wouldn't have needed to be rescued if the Joker hadn't put them in danger to begin with. Regardless of the the failure of the rescue, Joker was directly responsible for her death and Dent's disfigurement. Yet Dent passes up a chance to kill Joker and goes after others instead, some of whom had nothing to do with the rescue. It doesn't make sense to me that Joker could barely strike Dent's surface and find so much hate and evil inside, none of which is directed toward him. (Question: if as you say this new Joker had no goals, how then could he "win"?)

But like I said it's simply my opinion. Doesn't mean I'm right and you're wrong--in fact, I don't see any right or wrong in it, just different opinions. Maybe Dark Knight will be the Citizen Kane of the future--fine, I wish it well.

As I replied to Prestige, a Joker who looks like the Joker in the comics and is disfigured by the same method doesn't take up much of the script about what happened--it provides a sort of "shorthand" of exposition. I liked it for that reason. I wasn't saying they had to stay close to the original material--nobody has to do anything. That's why we have freewill. Besides if they had done that, they would have printed it on paper instead of on film.

I really can't explain this, but Ledger's portrayal of Joker as a "real" person with a painted face was to me less believable than Nicholson's embodyment of a cartoon character. Why I don't know. Maybe Nicholson's a better actor. Or maybe because even the most outlandish things are possible in a comic (as shown in Who Framed Roger Rabbit). But I'm not trying to down Ledger or his fans. I'm just expressing my personal opinon, which has nothing to do with your enjoyment of Black Knight. It's not like I'm gonna steal all the copies of the film and reedit it or something.

Nicholson may be the better actor, but I just don't like his Joker. I grew up reading the comics, and there are MANY interpretations of the character. I feel like Burton was trying to pull his film up out of the camp Batman had in the past been subsumed in, only to be countered at every turn by Nicholson's Joker.

One of the things that makes The Joker so unnerving at times is how he can turn on a dime and get really dark. I don't think Nicholson got that, while Ledger clearly did. Nicholson played the character on the surface, as a sort of farce - I don't think he took the role seriously at all. He never made me feel nervous or uncomfortable (as a psycho should). Ledger delivered here in spades.

__________________

Because I'm a super-nerd - Bruce Wayne's parents were murdered in an alley but a typical mugger (originally his mother "died of shock" at the sight of her husband being murdered, but in later iterations she was also shot). The mugger, years (decades?) later, was revealed to be named "Joe Chill." An even later take altered the origin to have the Joker kill them, taking its cue from the highly successful film.

The Joker does not have a difinitive origin. He has been given multiple origin stories over the years, mostly told by the Joker himself. Being completely insane, no one knows if any are to be believed. The consistant thing, until The Dark Knight anyway, is that the clown face is not make up. That is just how his face looks.

Personally, I think Cesar Romero was the best Joker.

__________________
Family DVD Collection | My Top 100 | My Movie Thoughts | Frank Capra

I haven't the slightest clue whether Nicholson took it seriously or got it or played it for laughs or if Ledger played it as a psycho. I suspect both played the role as the director directed them to play it. I personally liked the comic approach--Joker is a comic book character. All the angst Ledger pumped into his performance isn't going to turn it into a work of literature. But its all a matter of opinion or of taste any way you slice it. Nicholson's character interested me, certainly more than Micheal Keaton's Batman. I couldn't work up much interest in either the Joker or Batman in Dark Knight. Not aware Ledger did any dime-turning; he seemed forever dark to me. Which left me waiting for Freeman and Caine to show up in their bit parts. But if you liked it, Sedai, I'm sincerely happy for you. Apparently you saw more in it and got more out of it than I ever will, and that's OK with me. There are probably films I like that you would rather crawl through broken glass than go see, but that's OK, too. This sure would be a boring web if we all liked and disliked the same thigs.

Nope, I didn't miss that part. I simply decided to respond to it because, you know, I wanted to. Also, I am so not trying to convince you to like it, just expressing my own opinion, if that's alright?? :/


His parents were killed by a bloke called Joe Chill, and I think it was just a random street killing in the comics, not sure.




Hmm not sure what you mean here tbh. One of your other gripes with Ledger's Joker in The Dark Knight, (which is not at all a remake btw), was that his dialogue appeared to hinder the plot development or something? Well, I would argue it's the contrary if that's the case. Nicholson's Joker had a little bit of a backstory before we got to the meaty parts of the film, and I think that ends up taken a good half hour of the film. Ledger has 2 scenes in which he tells bull stories about his scars, and they are no more than 2-3 mins each.

It's also fair to say that unlike Nicholson's Joker, which, as fun as it was, seemed more like a vehicle for Nicholson to sink his teeth and have as much fun as possible rather than help drive the narrative the way Ledger's Joker does. Ledger's Joker serves as a catalyst for almost all of the events in The Dark Knight whereas it almost feels like Nicholson's Joker is supposed to be as interesting as it gets, which imo is a flaw considering he is playing the antagonist. The fact that his Jack Napier killed Wayne's parents feels like an after thought.





Well I should have said that I consider weird and trivial reasons to be no more a motive than one who doesn't have a agenda. I feel the fact that Ledger's Joker is random and that his only 'motive' is pleasure in the suffering of others and turning peoples beliefs in themselves and the system 'on their heads'. Now I, and I think most people, wouldn't even consider that a motive despite the fact that on paper it seems like a reason.


I can respect your experiences and I am sure that there are cases where a motive may be hard to detect, but then how would you explain the motives of, say, somebody who is mentally unwell? From what I understand, those who are unstable have little to no motives in their actions, and I think you can easily argue that Ledger's Joker isn't all there. He may articulate himself well when it comes to discussing the nature of people, but he is clearly messed up. He's an unreliable storyteller with messy clown make up convering his scars and his lack of motive allows the film to just go on without forced moments of exposition. Personally, I quite like that we are left to ponder just what in the hell his deal is.

.

I would say it's a hybrid of genres. I don't think it's an easy film to categorise into a single one, so I suppose I can understand your confusion there. I did think you were trying to have a dig at the film by only referring it to an 'action movie', but you've cleared that up so it's cool. For future reference though, I would call it a 'graphic novel/comic book adaptation, which automatically invites a broad range of genres


But the weakest link in the whole film, in my opinion, is how the Joker manages to shift Dent from good to evil with 15 minutes of kookie talk. He wants Dent to believe people he has worked with and trusted for some reason wanted to be late in rescuing him and his girlfriend. But they wouldn't have needed to be rescued if the Joker hadn't put them in danger to begin with. Regardless of the the failure of the rescue, Joker was directly responsible for her death and Dent's disfigurement. Yet Dent passes up a chance to kill Joker and goes after others instead, some of whom had nothing to do with the rescue. It doesn't make sense to me that Joker could barely strike Dent's surface and find so much hate and evil inside, none of which is directed toward him. (Question: if as you say this new Joker had no goals, how then could he "win"?)
[/quote]


This is where I can understand your frustration with the film a bit. Some people say The Dark Knight is too long, but Ihonestly would not have minded another 20-25 mins concentrating on Dent's descent. THAT said, I think given the time frame it's achieved in, I didn't find it TOTALLY unbelievable. To buy Dent's transformation you have to buy his love for Rachel and his frustration with the justice system. Add in that his physical pain due to the burns he suffered would have affected his mental judgement, you've got a recipe for disaster. Dent was at his lowest both mentally and physically, and as mad as The Joker is, like I said, he can articulate himself. So yeah, I guess it depends on how you buy the build up to the event itself.

I do agree we will have to agree to disagree though.

Yet we keep typing

Always glad to hear someone's opinion. Enjoyed yours, although as you point out we come at this film from two different directions.

Not to turn this into a big debate or argument, but I did want to respond to your following point:


I would never say something never would happen because almost any concept is possible at some point, so there actually may be such a thing as a motiveless crime, although I've never yet encountered one. There was a one guy who seemingly for no reason murdered a young boy--but his reason as he explained to police was that he himself had a tough, unhappy life, and here was this kid with his whole life ahead of him with all the good things in life to enjoy, so he killed him out of a weird kind of jealousy.

There was a man from Vietnam who had come to this country and had mental problems his family was trying to get treated, but he didn't like it here in the US and wanted to go back to Vietnam. So at a bus stop on a busy street in full daylight he stabbed to death a boy he had never seen before who was on his way to school that morning. Reason: he thought he'd be deported to Vietnam.

Then there was a young mother who put her baby in a stove oven and cooked it because she was convinced there was a demon possessing it.

Another mother killed all of her children because a voice told her they were evil and must die.

There was a man who killed his wife and kids so they wouldn't be embarassed and shamed by the fact he had lost his job and squandered his savings. Just couldn't face them with his failure.

There was a mom who was upset because her son was clowning around at the breakfast table instead of hurrying to get ready for school. So she literally blew his head off with a shotgun. One of her daughters got the gun away from her and was calling police for help, when the mom made her give the gun back. "They're going to kill me anyway," she said, just before fatally shooting herself.

Then there's the famous case of the Houston area mom who hired a hit man to kill the mother of a young lady with whom her daughter went to school. The reason was to upset the daughter so much by her mother's death that she wouldn't perform well in high school tryouts for cheerleader, giving her own daughter a better chance of getting on the team. Fortunately the hitman was an undercover cop.

Down in South Texas another mother got a fortune teller to hire someone to kill the young man who had broken up with her daughter just prior to the senior prom. (in this case the young man was murdered)

Some years ago in a Mexican border town across from Texas, a student on spring break from a Texas university was kidnapped in front of his friends. His body was later found in a mass burial site on a remote Mexican ranch that was the base of operations for a drug cartel whose boss fancied himself as a "holy man" skilled in Voodoo who slaughtered several people in sacrifices to provide magical protection for the gang members. Police broke the case when one of the gang ran right through a police road block on the Texas side because he thought he and his car were invisible. In the case of the student, the head of the gang had specified that they bring him someone smart for the next sacrifice because all of the victims supposedly became his "helpers" in the afterlife and he needed one with superior intelligence.

Even the most homicidal maniac does not kill everyone he encounters. Just like a "normal" killer, there is a reason of some sort that results in the seemingly random death of one person and not another. In one case I encountered, it was because the victim had a defect to one of his eyes which the killer interpreted as "an evil eye" and so killed him "in self defense" to prevent him from casting a spell on him.

They don't come any nuttier than this bunch of killers, yet in every case the killer had a specific motive for his crime. If anything, the crazier the killer, the more specific the motive in most cases. I mean, you can't get more specific than God told you that person was evil and had to die (as has happened in various versions many times). If you can't trust God, then who can you trust?