Very good movie. Much better than Begins, which bored me by insisting on how DARK and SERIOUS it was. This movie just WAS dark and serious, without insisting on it so much. I suppose having Joker as the villian helped lighten it up a bit, in a sense.
First of all, the acting was fantastic. Of course Ledger was great, we all knew that coming in, and he does not disappoint. But Eckhart's performance was also superb, and Bale himself was a dramatic improvement.
And script-wise, this is the movie I think the Spiderman series WISHES it could be. Mature, with an actual theme, hard choices are made, and everything has consequences. No, you CAN'T save Dent and Rachel. You can't superhero your way out of this one. He had to save one and kill the other. And he did, or at least he decided to, which is what matters.
What I especially love here is that while the Joker failed at his ultimate goal, he won the personal battles. Gotham itself is still sane, but Batman has been driven into hiding, Harvey Dent died an insane murderer, and Gordon's department is riddled with holes. All he left Batman was a city
just sane enough to be worth protecting. At the cost of everything he held dear. I wonder how much of it Joker really realizes he did.
I have to say, I approved of Harvey Dent dying. TDK gave Two Face the absolute best take anyone is ever likely to give him in any movie, ever... and his coin schtick still looks utterly stupid. One of the few points in the movie where it actually felt like a comic book movie. Don't get me wrong, going from 'I make my own luck' to 'Chance is the only fair judge in an unfair universe' was done extremely well, but his bit about literally flipping a coin? Just did not work.
Also, on another note, the action sequences? AWESOME. Batman fights like you'd expect him to fight - a highly trained martial artist with a skilled mind and effectively unlimited resources. Although I would like to point out that if he would just use a GUN, he would've put Joker down in the first third of the movie and saved everyone a lot of grief.
The China sequence? Awesome. Batman at his finest, runs circles around puny corporate security. His overturning the Joker's truck was a great moment as well, chiefly because of how much of a surprise it was. And the crowning glory was his final sequence, rapelling down a building, throwing cops onto every floor on the way.
I would like to register, though, that the script was a bit weak. By the ferry sequence, things had somewhat degenerated into 'Joker pwns everyone because the script says so'. A bit unbelievable, that.
Also, the part was where he is taken to a police station, put in a cell... and no one bothers to even wash off his makeup? Come on. It's a small thing, but it annoyed me.
Fuck you. No, really, fuck you. You and all the rest of you little internet wankers out there I see clamoring for Robin, or Batgirl, or Clayface, or Bane, or Clark Kent to show up and rip off the end of Incredible Hulk, all you insignificant shits who want to dumb this down in the name of returning this back to the '90s cartoon crap can go fuck themselves. This little fanboy pining you are doing is about the equivalent of wishing the Louve would paint a big cartoon smile on the Mona Lisa. Stay home. Take your money and go spend it on more mass produced kids crap. Don't go see this movie. Because you don't fucking deserve it.
why so serious?
Just for you, I hope Uwe Boll directs the next movie May it feature Britney Spears as Poison Ivy and The Rock as her pet thug, Bane...
"Peace on Earth and goodwill towards men? We are the United States Goverment - we don't DO that sort of thing!" - Sneakers. Best. Quote. EVER.
Periodic Pwnage Pantry:
"Faith? Isn't that another term for ignorance?" - Gregory House
"Isn't it interesting... religious behaviour is so close to being crazy that we can't tell them apart?" - Gregory House
"This is usually the part where people start screaming." - Gabriel Sylar
"
- PeZook
