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Armond White

Well, I expected Armond White's review to ooze self-impressed prickitude, and once again, he doesn't disappoint.

This is just a great film all around. I'm normally hesitant in getting onboard with something this overhyped, but the hype is for real. Best film of the summer, if not 2008.

And I think I witnessed a first today: an audience applauding a heroic Gary Oldman.

Oh man, I SO want the DVD blurb to be "If you fell for the evil-versus-evil antagonism of There Will Be Blood, then The Dark Knight should be the movie of your wretched dreams."

I was lukewarm on it myself--pretentious, overwrought, etc. THE INCREDIBLE HULK (remember that one?) was at least shorter. I'm superheroed out.

The Dark Knight is a fantastic work, ambitious and most definitely not playing it safe. Nolan continues to impress me as one of my favorite filmmakers to emerge in this century. I hope he keeps writing with his brother! They've created a Michael Mann/Sidney Lumet crime epic of almost Godfather-esque proportions, with equal parts of James Bond adventure and Tod Browning horror nightmare. They kept me guessing from moment to moment how things were going to play out, juxtaposing concurrent scenes in the editing to keep me in knots of suspense. I never wanted it to end.

Ledger lived up to the hype. He did exactly what I wanted The Joker to be while continually not being what I expected at all. To be utterly satisfied, yet shocked and surprised... that's as good as movie-acting (or movies in general) gets for me. I hope they don't ever try to bring The Joker back, at least not until the inevitable reboot 20 or so years down the line. They've explored just about every level of the character in this film and did it wonderfully. What a sick, twisted, horrible thing he is. Bravo.

Bale is good, even if he is sharing this film as part of an ensemble. I really wish he had studied with the right vocal coach to get the Batman voice down, much like what Oldman did for his Dracula. Bale's Batman voice is a bit much, working best in small doses of a few words. When he starts growling through long speeches on morality and justice, sounding like a hungover pitbull, it's difficult for this Bat-fan to fully embrace.

Speaking of Oldman... isn't he just wonderful? He simply is Gordon, head to toe. The film allows him to do so much more than in the first film, giving us a humble man of quiet integrity and heroism. Dig the moment early on when he reports to Dent's office, looking around for a chair, literally figuring out where he sits with this guy. Beautiful little character touches.

Great to see Cillian Murphy back, even if he was given not much of anything to do. It was a little surprise that I'm glad wasn't spoiled for me. Morgan Freeman, Eric Roberts, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Michael Caine were all dependably good. And William Fichtner brought some serious kick-ass to his early appearance, great stuff.

The mayor needs to stop stealing his eyeliner from The Joker. It's just not becoming of his office.


(SOME MILD SPOILERS ABOUT AARON ECKHART IN THE THIRD ACT)



I thought the depiction of Harvey Dent and Two-Face was superb. Great casting, and Aaron Eckhart really stood up to the plate, making a believably flawed but likeable good guy. And that make-up/CGI/whatever it was.... brrr! I almost could hear hundreds of terrified and weeping kids across America, begging Mommy to take them home. As someone who made an aborted attempt to do Two-Face for last Halloween, I really have to salute the FX people who created the Two-Face for this film. A horror classic. How the hell did that get a PG-13? How the hell are they going to show that on airplanes or on commercial TV?


(SPOILERS END)


Well, there's just too much to explore here with one forum post or one viewing of Dark Knight. I loved the action (better than the first) and that they let the story play out huge with subplots spread all over. Flabby? The first film felt a little too compressed to me, so I welcomed getting lost in the Batman universe (I had no problem with the Hong Kong digression). And I am very glad they followed through on the 9-11 themes that I had gleaned from the exploding building poster. They didn't just do shallow exploitation of 9-11 imagery like Cloverfield, but used the Batman/Joker war as an exploration of how America has reacted over the past 6+ years, contemplating the moral grayness in responding to those who want to tear the world apart. The questions and answers raised by the Nolans are troubling and risky for a summer blockbuster. I couldn't be more grateful. And I'm doubting there will ever be a better Batman film, even from these guys.

At this point, I think I'll pass on enduring even a single sentence of Armond White's writing. I don't have to go through Hell twice to know the Devil is wrong.

:lol:
According to IMDB he played Bat Manuel on the live action Tick.

I'm, hopefully, seeing this again tonight (was sold out last night). It's not the hype that has me sucked in - it's the story, the characters - pretty much everything about this movie is perfect for this Batman fanboy.

William: you're right about Bale's batvoice. I didn't mind it in the first film. But several sentences don't fit that gruffness well. But if that's the only flaw in the film for me, then so what... I'd rather hear a gruff Batvoice then see a nippled-up Batsuit or a dancing and/or campy villain.

Wow... I wasn't really interested in seeing TDK, but after reading Armand White's piece of breast-pounding in the name of morality and think-about-the-children sobbing, all the sudden the flick is next on my schedule.

Hipster nihilist that I am. White makes a great anti-salesman.

It's a really good flick.

I've defended White here before; I like the way he writes and do agree with him a lot of the time. This particular piece is deeply silly though, and suggests someone partly in love with his rep as a curmudgeon speaking Lonely Truth, and someone who just doesn't get the character -- White seems floored that the movie would try to draw parallels between the Joker and Batman, for instance, although that's been around in comics since when? The Eighties?

I agree, pieces like White's will only serve to drum up business.

It's fair to say if you don't like comic book movies that take themselves seriously, full of Melodrama verging on Opera and overwrought symbology and indications to Higher Things and Grand Themes and Whatnot you won't like DARK KNIGHT. Thing is, I really really like all that kind of stuff, the comic books I grew up on were full of that sort of thing, and so this is exactly what I want out of a comic book movie.

I was a little bit leary of them tossing Two-Face in here, I was afraid they were gonna run into that classic superhero botch Too Many Villains, but Nolan and co. handle it about as well as you can handle it. If there's a flaw in this movie I think the final half hour gets a little too schematic, a little too abstract, a little too concerned with rounding off the argument. But I don't know how else it could really be handled. Not anxious to see an overcrowded field in the third, though.

The cast is superb -- I'm not sure Bale looks really convincing in the suit, but because these movies are said to be early in Batman's career that might make sense. I've read a lot of possible referents for Ledger's superb Joker but I see two -- Keaton's Beetlejuice (which I've seen others make) and one which I haven't heard from anyone, but seems pretty obvious to me -- late period George Carlin, particularly when Carlin got on his "I hate mankind" tip. Listen to some of Carlin's bits and tell me you can't imagine this Joker saying that. Nolan also brings back Eric Roberts, one of my favorites, doing a nice job as a smug Mobster.

Fight scenes and action scenes are better, with the opening heist particularly strong. Really, just an all around first rate job -- I've read some of the bad reviews and have yet to see a really interesting case against this. Again, with the proviso that you gotta like your comic book movies in this style.

THE DARK KNIGHT is, methinks, the most ambitious and successful superhero movie yet made. Is it perfect? Nah, but it doesn’t have to be.

1. Heath Ledger does what I didn’t think possible with the role of the Joker: you never see him straining for effect. Everything the character does seems natural and organic to his conception, even the occasional tossed off lines of dialogue that elicited nervous laughter from the audience I viewed it with. I’m quite pleased that Nolan dispensed with the origin story and left to the imagination of the viewer what hellhole so damaged a psyche could spring from. Had Ledger lived, this role would have allowed him to write his own ticket for years to come. By the way, did anyone think the interrogation scene between Gordon and the Joker, where the background behind the Joker was dark with his face being faintly illuminated, was a reference to Brando in APOCALYPSE NOW, as both were espousing their mad philosophies about making use of chaos and terror?

2. Unlike BATMAN BEGINS, or the previous Tim Burton and Joel Schumacher incarnations, I appreciated the character of Bruce Wayne whenever he was on screen. The character arc is nowhere near as complex as it was in BEGINS, but the balance between Wayne and the other characters, including his alter-ego, was better in terms of the film working as more of an ensemble piece. Too much Batman or Bruce Wayne doesn’t work. Good work from Christian Bale, Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman.

3. The action, while more coherent than the previous film, is still not all that well shot. The chase through the streets on the Batcycle was mostly effective, but could have been an all-time classic had it been conceived, shot and edited for maximum comprehension. The concluding sequence, which cut back and forth between the ferries and the assault on the building where the Joker was holed up, was equally ambitious, but visually dark and disorienting.

4. Comparing the character of Harvey Dent as conceived by Nolan, to the Burton and Schumacher versions, is to see what a waste those previous portrayals were. Who could have imagined that Harvey Dent could be used to infuse so much heart and soul into a Batman film? Aaron Eckhart did a really good job. It’s interesting that, for me and I think for part of the audience I viewed the film with, the emergence of Two-Face was actually less interesting and deflated the narrative momentum somewhat. I do, however, like that rather than being a “super-villain,” Dent / Two – Face is a broken man pushed beyond his limits seeking revenge against those he believes wronged him. The make-up was quite effective though, eliciting a gasp and then silence.

5. The score didn’t stand out for me and I can’t say that I missed it. The dissonant sound effect/score during a couple of the more intense Joker scenes, which sounded like violin strings being terrorized by razors, successfully turned up the tension in the scenes where it was used.


6. Some comparisons have been made with HEAT and the 70’s works of Sidney Lumet in terms of placing this film in a grittier milieu, whether criminal or otherwise. The film certainly lends itself to that, but I don’t think Nolan quite achieves the degree of specificity that Michael Mann’s HEAT does in it’s portrayal of either Robert DeNiro’s or Al Pacino’s crew in that film. Gordon (well played by Gary Oldman) and his crew are more grounded, but there’s a little depth that’s still lacking. A few of the cops needed to be developed a bit better to have the impact of their actions hit home harder later in the film. The criminals are also betrayed by too much of an air of the comic book about them to ground these figures in reality in the way that the works of Coppola and Scorsese do. Furthermore, the psychological dynamics and inter-workings of a group of strangers is much more realistically depicted in Sidney Lumet’s DOG DAY AFTERNOON than in the concluding sequence with the ferries rigged to blow. There’s not only a curious lack of mounting tension but, again, the psychology of the characters are not given the opportunity to develop and therefore are not suitably complex enough. Also, to digress for a moment, a couple of minor characters are introduced rather abruptly earlier in the film, and dispatched equally so, which hampers allowing for a truly dramatic and impactful representation that no one is untouchable. That said, the fact that those films could be mentioned in the context of a film of this nature is, in and of itself, rather remarkable.

7. Having seen CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF on Broadway not too long ago, I was rather struck by how much this film also explores the concept of mendacity. Lies are rife throughout the narrative, whether in things the Joker says to his potential victims, things Gordon and Batman are forced to do for the good of the public, or even things Alfred must do to help his charge endure the calamities that befall him. Some believe that the thread that binds civilization together is fragile indeed, and that if certain things were clear to people, that thread would unravel rather quickly. Well, so does THE DARK KNIGHT. And I’m quite pleased that this ambitious and imperfect work trusts its audience enough to bring up these and other real world topics in the form of the superhero film.

Many times viewers make the assumption that what one sees on the screen is consistent with the filmmaker's preferred conception, but in truth, I'm beginning to think Nolan may have a three-hour cut of this material. Certainly there are dramatic and editing issues that could be resolved with some material being re-introduced.

Three more reviews:

Dave Kehr

The House Next Door

The Cooler

An excellent write-up, Lenny. Apparently, Nolan does have a three hour cut that didn't fly for theatrical release. I agree that many moments and subplots would probably play out more coherently in this version. I, for one, would love to see the R-rated version of that poolhall scene. If I cannot see this three-hour version in IMAX (considering how much cash and acclaim are rolling in, such a beast isn't unthinkable at this point) then I want it as part of a super-deluxe multi-platter set by the end of the year.

I'm not generally one for such purchases, but I would get this myself.

MASSIVE SPOILERS


I think the kidnapping of Dent and Rachel might work better with some missing info, for instance. Although some of the unexplaineds -- how does Joker get his hands on all that fuel and explosive? How can Batman just appear and disappear like that -- are there purposefully, I think, to point up the mythic aspects of the story.

This is one of those rare movies I might actually pay to see again. I can't remember the last time I did that -- FIGHT CLUB, I think it was. But this is really an impressive flick, the more I think about it the more I like it. There's a lot going on under the surface -- it's arguable that the movie's really about Gotham City itself, not any character trying to impose his will upon it, for instance.

doug

Want to see some of Bill Sienkiewicz's artwork for The Dark Knight? It's pretty cool stuff:

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/37549





I don't have much to add to this discussion other than to say that I enjoyed The Dark Knight a lot and look forward to seeing it again.

William:

I purchased the bare bones, single disc version of BATMAN BEGINS when it was released, but I, too, want the fully tricked out, multi-disc director's cut, and by no later than the end of November.

As a man who likes his Batman in blue and gray and reachable by red telephone, I can't do much but nod appreciatively at DARK KNIGHT. I think it's exactly the kind of Batman movie that superhero comics fans have been begging for the last 20 years. It's dirty and bleak, nasty and tough, brutal, icky and despairing... They got the "sick f#$*" Batman picture they wanted. And if that's what you want, it's pretty good, sometimes lyrical, sometimes dumb (Batman turns into a cell phone in the climax? How much did Nokia pay for THAT!?), always too cool for school.

All Batmans being valid, DARK KNIGHT just ain't my thing, and I can live with that. But please, maybe next time we can they adapt the saga of The Rainbow Batman or have him fight, like, Man-Bat or the Penny Plunderer or something?

That WATCHMEN trailer though? I thought I'd faint.

Some more thoughts on TDK: Furious Motherf***ers All Out Attack...

SPOILERS


Anyone else think of Silent Bob in Mallrats when seeing the Faux-Bats?

The romance subplot didn't really work for me, particularly how it involved Wayne. It's just there to push the story forward, but it's rather limp. How many times were there scenes with mopey Bale asking "Rachel, when you told me there would be a day..."? The "hang up the mask and have a normal life" superhero sequel plot was nailed so well in Spidey 2, I don't like seeing such a half-assed attempt at it here with such good actors in such a good film. A couple intense and lonely Taxi Driver-style shots of a tortured Bale staring at Eckart and Gyllenhal from afar would have said more than all that dialog.

I just love Nolan for getting such low-key performances from Gary Oldman and Eric Roberts. Hell, Roberts underplays having his legs broken!

The Batpod obviously trained with Jackie Chan. Dig that flip!

In Batman Begins, hiding the Batsuit in the shadows was a great idea. Too bad it didn't take. And I'm guessing Batman has a car crash airbag hidden up his ass, the way he keeps walking away from incredible falls where he lands flat on his back. I wouldn't have minded some kung-fu hooey move to explain it away.

Nolan is great at picking chilling moments to drop almost all the sound in the mix, like The Joker's cop car ride and Dent's breakdown in the hospital bed. Beginning the movie that way was effectively disorientating, the blue explosion without noise giving me a feeling that something was very wrong here. When we finally see the sonar eavesdropping technology in full effect, it's visual relation to the opening logo brought back chills.

I'm not altogether convinced that they won't try to bring back Dent for a third film, saying that the public ceremony at the end was all part of the Batman/Gordon deception conspiracy, and Dent is alive and stashed in Arkham or some other creepy place.

Did any other Batfans geek out a little when the third act gizmo contrived to allow Batman to finally have all-white DC Comics eyes?


SPOILERS ABOVE


Whether you liked or disliked TDK, this reaction to the hype is pretty funny:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDxgNjMTPIs

Speaking of which, I read something on GreenCine daily yesterday that I thought was very odd:

http://daily.greencine.com/archives/006409.html

"Go ahead and scoff at the analogy, boomers, but one of the kids [he's met] likened the opening of Dark Knight to the JFK assassination and the Challenger disaster as quintessential where-were-you defining moments of his generation."

:blink:

I would say that The Dark Knight is an entertaining, well-crafted movie that happens to be very popular at the moment and not much more than that.

Don't know what to make of this:

Christian Bale arrested in London

Three more very interesting reviews:

Reel Politique

CHUD.com

Only The Cinema

I thought that the first half/two-thirds were excellent, but I've got to say it just becomes a mess during its lo-o-o-ong and overly complicated climax that just lost me a great deal of my interest. I think there was good material in there. It's a case, rare for me, however, that I might have liked a studio recut version a lot.

I saw it yesterday at an IMAX screening and enjoyed it quite a bit. I was honestly shocked to see Two Faces character get his whole story out in this one. For some reason, I thought he was being set up as the villain in the next film. Guess not.

Of course, there are three funny and completely trivial bits that I have to discuss with Mobius members here.

One - how is Batman/Bruce Wayne able to actually bend the metal of a rifle like he did on the vigilante's gun? I can accept his flying and gadgetry, but that required strength from him that is unheard of.

Two - is Gordon the dumbest cop alive? He falls for the Joker's bait-and-switch like 5 times in this flick.

Three - is Morgan Freeman's Fox really dumb enough to leave plans for the Batmobile in the Wayne Enterprises archives after he made it in BATMAN BEGINS?

I didn't get that gun-bending thing either. Not even Chuck Norris can do that! :rolleyes: My guess is that Nolan thought it looked "cool," though it's just another of his misunderstandings regarding the Batman character. It's possible that the Batman costume is some sort of exo-skeleton that gives him extra strength, though this is never explained. Whatever the explanation, it isn't as galling as the stupid new powers Christopher Reeve received in the Superman films.

I didn't think it about Gordon so much, but the entire Gotham City police force is depicted as being populated by either crooks or boobs. I especially blanched at Gordon's attempt at explaining away the Batsignal to Harvey Dent as some kind of electrical malfunction. I think he was being facetious, but I'm not certain.

No, I would not think Fox would be that clumsy, and that entire subplot was one of many that could have been easily jettisoned to get the film down to a more manageable running time. Another would have been that excruciatingly long scene of the Joker baiting the detective in the interrogation room. That coulda/shoulda been a 30-second scene, considering everyone in the theater knew how it was going to end, but Nolan lets it run for several minutes.

.

MASSIVE SPOILERS



The gun? Yeah, I think it was just meant to be a cool shot. In retrospect, admittedly, somewhat silly but hey, it lasts approximately two seconds. Admittedly two vivid seconds, if we're all sitting here remembering it, but still, two seconds.

The police force? Right, crooks or boobs. Or, humorously, both Crooks and Boobs. Didn't bother me, this is a highly stylized sort of world, but YMMV. Yes, I think Gordon was being facetious about the Batsignal.

I personally could've done with less Freeman myself, but I understand why he's there -- Batman's decisions have to have all sorts of personal costs, and he's one. Batman has to "understand what he has to become" to stop men like the Joker, and what he has to become is a little more than a guy in a suit -- he has to "break the rules" on his own side in order to fulfill his role as protector. And that has it's costs. (Another way to read this movie is to see the Joker as another "father" figure -- if Ras Al Ghul was there to teach Bruce Wayne "how to be the Batman" in the basic sense of the term -- how to dress up, how to fight, etc. -- Joker is there to teach Batman how to be Batman -- ie, how to take on mythic stature.) Each his own, but don't you think you're exaggerating somewhat about the "excruciatingly long" interrogation scene? Is it even three minutes? (Maybe it is longer, but it didn't feel that way to me. Each his own, like I said.)

Like I said earlier in the thread, if anything I could stand to see a longer cut.

doug

There's a definite mechanical/hydraulic noise that accompanies Batman's bending of the gun barrel, so I think the implication is that it's something built into the suit.

I found this from Mr. McKee on the "What have you been watching" thread, but thought I'd repost and answer it here, so as not to hog up that thread overmuch.

I liked IRON MAN myself, which I think is more the kind of thing Marty is talking about. I think the qualities that seperate IRON MAN from DARK KNIGHT could be explicated a bit more than "a well-crafted mystery...with action, suspense, intrigue and humor", though, since the mystery part aside you can arguably find all the rest of it in DARK KNIGHT. Well, maybe not intrigue.

The comic books I grew up on were all fairly heavy, fairly dark, portentous, melodramatic, often pretty overtly symbolic. I mean, subtlety, thy name ain't Chris Claremont. But I like that. I've always liked melodrama and this sort of darker storytelling. I think that's the especial interest of superhero comics -- they very easily lend themselves to that kind of neo-Operatic/almost allegorical kind of thing, where not only Emotions but Themes Themselves are writ large and personified.

That doesn't make me special, of course, I'm just saying there's another side to this case. As for Batman in particular, I think there's no small wonder why Batman keeps getting resurrected and, say, Superman hasn't had an easy time of it. I just think the darker, moodier aspects of Batman are more suited to today's time. It's just easier to believe in Batman, it takes less of a leap of faith. I'm interested in the morality of Batman too, but I guess in a different way -- I like the interior morality, the uncomfortable sense that a lot of these supervillains are the personifications of crippled states of being; the weirdly symbiotic relationship Batman has with a lot of them; the complicated ways he tries to do good while not being part of the Established Order; the sense of omnipresent evil and what one just man must do, etc. Some of my favorite Batman stories are really just hb crime stories -- with him.

doug

I can buy that. I'd give a Nolan created extended version a chance. I think the extended Lord of the Rings movies tell their stories much more clearly and, as such, move at a better pace than the theatrical version, so I'd give it a chance. There was easily enough that I liked here.

On another note, I've been chomping at the bit to make. There was, as everyone notes, a lot to praise in Heath Ledger's performance. It's an interesting balancing act of madness that even, in a few places, suggests he's not insane at all. But a lot of the time I kept getting the feeling he was doing an imitation of someone I couldn't put my finger on. Maybe Clint Howard...

or Brad Dourif?

I thought it was 50% Nicholson, 48% Tony Hopkins, and 2% Cesar Romero myself.

Not that anyone else is saying so, but Mark Hamill's animated Joker is the best film version I've ever seen. I don't know if Hamill could pull it off in a live-action format, but I wish someone would give him the chance.

James Tucker "gets" Batman:

"The Batman we're doing has that pain, but instead of letting it pull him down, he's trying to make sure that never happens to anyone else. He's a very... decent guy. (Laughs) I guess that's the best word to describe him. He doesn't let his torment affect the way he treats other people."

Thank you! I've always wondered why Warners never let Bruce Timm et al. from the animated series do the live-action Batman films too.

That's funny. Our local reviewer compared it to Dourif's performance in EXORCIST III.


marc

Re the gun barrel-bending moment:

I immediately thought of a similar moment from Robocop. I seem to remember an episode of Mythbusters (or maybe it was somewhere else) that demonstrated how that's impossible to do even if you have superhuman strength (you would just pull the gun out of the person's hand).

What if you had a superheated-hand power and could rapidly melt the gun barrel to a pliable state?

Supposedly DARK KNIGHT tackles complex moral problems, but NOWHERE does it address the pressing social issue of superheated-hand powers rapidly melting gun barrels into pliable states.

I was getting more than a little Agent Smith from The Matrix.

"Now, Misssster Batsssssy..."

Well, I had the exact opposite of the IMAX experience, or maybe a much lower budgeted version of it. The theater I went to (the only one within an easy cab ride of home, a limitation caused by an ankle fracture) is an old neighborhood movie palace, the last neighborhood theater still showing movies in the Bronx, that’s been chopped up into seven theaters. (Is that some kind of record for a onetime single screen?) The theater I was in was the third section on the right of the old balcony and it had a big screen up front that loomed over the first few rows. The projector was pretty close to the screen but it had a really dim bulb, so an already dark film was even darker (or just dimmer). And the edges were soft. Plus there was a distracting light on the side wall that stayed on the whole time. So, it kind of makes one wish he’d stayed home and waited for the DVD to come out.

Anyway, THE DARK KNIGHT opened like it was going to be a good, down-and-dirty crime picture—with a clever caper-- and seemed promising for the first hour. The Hong Kong sequence was nicely done. (When the Hong Kong cops showed up, I was hoping one of them would be Lau Ching Wan. :D ) But then it started to get confusing. Every action scene involving vehicles lost me. Who was in what vehicle and where was it in relation to the other vehicles? I couldn’t keep track. That whole bit about checking cops who had relatives in hospitals made no sense to me. On any given day, wouldn’t hundreds of police in a big-city police force have relatives in hospitals? Then when the audience I was with laughed heartily at the Joker-induced blowing-up of a city hospital, leaving ruins that reminded me of Ground Zero right after 9/11, I stopped caring about the movie (and the audience).

And then there’s this climax involving ferry boats, an office tower, hostages and SWAT teams, and thousands of cell phones and Batman moves in with some kind of lenses in his mask that show him multiple screens of things going on in each floor of the building and I didn’t know how that could happen or what that was all about or how he could then move through the building without tripping over something or walking into a wall. It all got to be too much for me. But I’d lost interest a long time before that anyway.

Also, I couldn’t tell what it was all about. Is it an allegory about terrorism and our response to it? Is it about the flawed nature of superheroism and the resultant sacrifice and difficult moral dilemmas? There are so many half-baked ideas floating about that it’s no wonder people see what they want to in this film. Rush Limbaugh was crowing the other day about a right-wing think piece insisting the movie is full of conservative values. I didn’t quite see it that way myself, but the movie’s certainly open to interpretation. Provided there’s enough there to actually interpret.

But it was good to see people like Eric Roberts, Michael Jai White and Tiny Lister around, if only in small parts. It made me wonder what a Batman movie directed by Walter Hill instead of Tim Burton might have looked like in 1989, with Bill Paxton as Batman, David Patrick Kelly as the Joker and a cast filled with people like Mickey Rourke, James Remar, Lance Henriksen, Ellen Barkin, Powers Boothe, Michael Ironside, Rip Torn, Brion James, Bernie Casey, Annette O'Toole, etc. :)

That's ridiculous - and I'm betting you know it.

I prefer Batman dark and bitter - but it'll be great to have a Batman cartoon to watch with my four and a half year old nephew. I just can't sit through Super Friends - hopefully with Tucker behind this series it'll be watchable.

I'm also glad to see Plastic Man is in this series.

I don't think that anyone was laughing at the explosion, but rather at the Joker's fumbling with the trigger and then his expression when it finally worked. Gallows humour, to be sure, but that's what it was.

Exactly - that was maybe my favorite shot in the movie (which I found pretty good on the whole), which is all down to Ledger - body language worthy of Chaplin or Groucho in that one moment. No, seriously.

I don't think this particular exploding building bore any more resemblance to 9/11 imagery than a whole lot of the other exploding buildings that Hollywood gives us. Can you just not handle exploding buildings anymore, Brian?

Yep.

Yep.

Also - the hospital was friggin' empty.