Dark Knight: Less fun than having your appendix out.

[richardf8]

After reading much critical acclaim Morgan and I went to see this with a friend of ours from Shul.

Comments

[richardf8]

The scene on the boats would have been the films saving grace. But that sort of thing is going to be played out again and again, that sort of torture will persist as long as an absolute predator like the Joker is around.

C.S. Lewis, in Perelandra, showed us the proper way to deal with a villain of this sort.

[deckardcanine]

You're pretty brave for writing this. Professional critics who've given less-than-stellar reviews to TDK were surprised at the "insane" foulmouthed threats they received by the figurative truckload. Of course, you don't have nearly so wide an audience or so strong a perceived authority on movies.

I found years ago that several movies in the IMDb top 250, including some near the top, are too gritty for my taste. I also found with Memento and The Prestige that Nolan is big on antiheroes and philosophically disagreeable to me. I tend to respect his films more than I like them. That said, I think Batman Begins may be the best superhero movie ever and TDK comes close in its own way

[richardf8]

I doubt Dent's dead. This film was Two-Face's origin story, and he too is a canonical villain.

Batman Begins was superb. The gulf between that and this is huge.

Memento, which I watched twice for a class at my Shul on the subject of faith, left me with the impression that the protagonist, with very good reason, set himself up to be set up to kill his antagonist. I found it satisfying; the protagonist killed someone who was cynically using him as a killing machine.

TDK did not give me that satisfaction - call me shallow, but I want catharsis. Memento gave it (though it does demand two viewings) TDK did not.

[deckardcanine]

This tells me that you're big on stopping a killer by killing.

[richardf8]

Yep. Its a moral imperative, in my mind, to kill someone who is taking innocent lives. With Joker its a no-brainer. He's killed many, he's remorseless, and he thinks up creative ways to kill more. Someone like that you kill. Period. To even have such a thing as a "no kill rule" when dealing with a creature like that is suicide at best, genocide at worst.

[lordrunningclam]

I guess I liked the movie a lot more than you did. I liked that they finally came up with a credible origin story for The Joker. I liked that they turned him from a ninny prankster into a totally amoral psychopath whose only motivation is chaos and destruction. I liked the moral ambiguity of Batman and the clever double bind sort of situations the Joker placed him into. I think it's OK that they preserved Harvey Dent's public image (and yes, I think he's dead, he did his villain turn in this movie). I want to see this movie again, although I'll probably wait for the DVD to come out - I was thinking of going to the Imax version, which was too hard to get into at the time. I do think it is the sort of movie that takes more than one viewing to fully appreciate

[deckardcanine]

I liked that they finally came up with a credible origin story for The Joker.

I.e., none at all. He gives conflicting histories behind his scars. Maybe his subtle message is, "Wanna know how a man gets as villainous as me? Take your pick. Any of these will do the trick."

[copperpoint]

Nicholson warned Ledger about sleeping pills, not the joker.
http://entertainment.aol.ca/article/jack-ambien-warning/67635/

You neglected to mention that Batman already demonstrated that he was perfectly willing to simply let someone die in Batman Begins. Exiting the train moments before it crashed he claimed, "I wont kill you, but I don't have to save you". Was it a personal need to "beat" the joker by not sinking to his level? How selfish.

[c_eagle]

I still haven't seen it... perhaps the huge monetary success has to do with people being enchanted by the spectacle.