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The Dark Knight Thread
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Topic Started: Apr 29 2008, 06:06 PM (1,861 Views)
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The Natural
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Jun 25 2008, 07:52 AM
Post #41
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Just found the first review on aintitcool.com but have no means of editing my last post. The floodgate of reviews are about to open guys...The Dark Knight has finally arrived. Harry said it best "A truly lucky and blessed bastard has seen THE DARK KNIGHT and damn... I'm so frickin' jealous!":
Spoiler: click to toggle Hi Harry and the rest of the crew,
Just after watching The Dark Knight. I see no reviews are online so I thought Id send you my review.
Ive kept this review as spoiler free as possible as I dont want to ruin anything like someone did recently with another Christian Bale movie!!!
Ill start by saying that I was a fan of Batman Begins and am a huge admirer of Christopher Nolan's body of work. I had my faults with BB mainly to do with how they shot and edited the fight sequences but felt it was a great start to a much larger story and I jumped with joy when Gordan pulled out the Joker card at the end.
The Dark Knight opens with a bank heist sequence that highlights how the joker is always one step ahead of the criminals he is working with and the police who are after him. Numerous men break into a bank controlled by the mob wearing clown masks and comment on how The Joker has put the whole thing together. This is the catalyst for which the rest of the events in this movie takes place.
The heist does not go to plan well at least not for all the gang. Its a great set up and payoff and a unique way of introducing the ace in TDK'S whole or in this case its Joker.
Heath Ledgers performance of the joker is truly one for the books. A man of no remorse or morals who simply wants to see things burn. There is no back story or establishing the character. He is fully formed. He does have some dialogue scenes that reveal a bit of his background. Lets just say he has some issues with his father and that smile of his is rooted in a gesture of love. He is far from a caricature and has depth . He realises that without Batman he would not be. The Joker is almost more of a terrorist than criminal. He is not motivated by money. He wants to see people suffer. Its a damn shame that this was Heath Ledger's final major performance as it shows a whole different side to him as a performer and I now know that he was endlessly talented. To watch him walk away from an exploding hospital dressed as a nurse is probably my favourite moment Ive seen on film so far this year. Also look out for when he makes a pencil disappear such a cool moment! Best supporting Oscar anyone?
Gotham is still engulfed by crime. Falcone's reign as the head of the mob is over and that seat has been filled by Salvatore Maroni played by Eric Roberts. What becomes clear is that there are also numerous other gangs within Gotham. Its no longer just one syndicate. They are all in some way in cohoots but the arrival of Batman has made it harder for them to operate.
Batman has inspired the city officials particularly Harvey Dent. The DA for Gotham city. This is really his story. The rise and fall of the white knight. He is Bruce Wayne's hope for Gotham City. A hero who doesn't have to wear a mask. A man who can inspire hope in the masses. If BB was about fear then TDK is about hope and is relevant in today's times. Harvey Dent is a good honest man who is willing to bear the weight of bringing down all the criminals on his shoulders and what that means for his own life and those he loves. In terms of his transition to Two Face all I will say is that everything online that Ive seen is fake. The moment we first see him in hospital when Harvey Dent asks Gordan what his nickname used to be in Internal Affairs and Gordan says Harvey Two Face and Harvey turns to him . Such a clever way of establishing the character. Even down to his double sided coin. Lets just say Aaron Eckhart puts Tommy Lee Jones to friggin shame!
The film feels more like a crime drama in a grand city scape than a typical comic book movie. It feels like Heat except Batman is Al Pacino and The Joker is Robert De Niro and just like in that film we have a great scene between Heath Ledger and Christian Bale across a table. There is also an element of a Greek Tragedy.. There is a vast sense of morality at play within the film.
Dent is trying to bring down the criminals and wants to bring them in under a RICO charge. To do this he needs Batman's help as he has to bring in the man who takes care of all their money. A glorified accountant as Rachel Dawes puts it.Think Al Capones accountant in the Untouchables. So Batman ventures to Hong Kong. It adds to the idea that this is very much set in the real world and its not just Gotham that Batman can access.
This all happens within the first third of the film. The run time is two and a half hours. It doesn't feel that long as there is so much going on within the film. Ive always felt Christopher Nolan was able to handle pacing unlike many movies that are over two hours these days. This is also his first entirely linear film and he proves himself to be a gifted storyteller and a master of utilising film as a visual medium. He fills each frame with so much scope and detail. You can tell he is enjoying himself with the amount of money he is being allowed to play with and wants to better himself and the franchise. Although this movie doesn't feel like an instalment in a franchise. The best thing I can think of for comparison is The Godfather Part 2.
There is no sign of the Batcave in this film. Although Alfred does make mention of it saying how he looks forward to it being finished. Bruce now lives in a pretty sweet penthouse apartment and his new batcave is in an underground layer in the docks. Bruce and Lucious Fox have been working on the suit and toys although to my surprise the Batpod was in BB and nobody spotted it. It'll put a smile on your face when it makes its introduction.
Christian Bale owns this role. He is Bruce Wayne and he is Batman. He is also a third character in some regards as there are almost two sides to Bruce Wayne. The public figure, a playboy billionaire who knows how to spend his money and the Bruce Wayne behind closed doors who only Alfred and Rachel get to see. A man covered in bruises and wounds who desperately wants be free of Batman but is compelled to make a difference as no one else can. He can play the villain to be the hero as he does.
The second third focuses on the capturing of The Joker. The city is living in fear as he makes threats on national television that he always follows through with. You simple have no idea what he will do next. There appears to be no reason to his madness although that proves to not be the case.
I don't really want to give away anymore. I will say there is death but not in the way some of the fan boys who have watched the trailer are thinking. There is a prestige moment within the film that is a true Chris Nolan moment. The scarecrow is in the film but has a very minor role.
Just go see it on opening day in a room full of fans. Ill be doing the same and have no doubt Ill enjoy it even more the second time round.
Enjoy.
Tim Bisley
I have not read it yet, but on the subject of Heath Ledger's performance getting Oscar buzz, what category would Ledger's peformance as The Joker be nominated for, Best Actor or Best Supporting Actor?
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Acadius
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Jun 25 2008, 08:33 AM
Post #42
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I'd imagine Best Supporting Actor... but I'm not convinced that the buzz will amount to anything. Everything I've heard suggests it's a superb performance from Ledger, but lets face it, how often do films like these get noms based on acting performances? I suspect a lot of it is due to Ledger's untimely death. Whether he'll get a nod or not will no doubt depend on the strength of the field, but I'll be surprised if he does get one!
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The Natural
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Jun 25 2008, 09:12 AM
Post #43
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- Acadius
- Jun 25 2008, 08:33 AM
I'd imagine Best Supporting Actor... but I'm not convinced that the buzz will amount to anything. Everything I've heard suggests it's a superb performance from Ledger, but lets face it, how often do films like these get noms based on acting performances? I suspect a lot of it is due to Ledger's untimely death. Whether he'll get a nod or not will no doubt depend on the strength of the field, but I'll be surprised if he does get one!
I'm no film buff but I think I'm right in saying for acting categories, superhero films comes a cropper and get them for cinematography (Batman Begins) or SFX (Spider-Man 2) at best. I wouldn't be suprised if he got a nomination (he'd be only the 5th actor to do so when passing away) but winning, no (would only be the 2nd actor to do so).
Did you enjoy the spots? The one week wait sucks, grrrr.
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Salty
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Jun 25 2008, 12:46 PM
Post #44
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We Are SEX BOB-OMB!
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I imagine that hype alone will garner Ledger a posthumous oscar, even if it is only an honorary one.
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Acadius
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Jun 25 2008, 01:44 PM
Post #45
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The Academy isn't one to go with the hype usually... he'll get his face on the deceased montage at the ceremony, but can't see him getting an oscar, honourary or not. Otherwise any name actor can die and get one...
Natch - I'm still determined not to see any trailers, watch any TV spots, or read any reviews on the film. I'll get to see it in a few weeks time perhaps, and I want to go in with zero expectations and knowing very little. How movies used to be watched...
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Salty
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Jun 25 2008, 01:49 PM
Post #46
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We Are SEX BOB-OMB!
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I'm pretty sure someone will guilt trip the Academy into giving him an award.
"He should have won for Brokeback Mountain! He played an amazing mumbling gay cowboy! AND NOW HE'S GONE! WE MUST ATOOOOOONE!!!!"
I imagined Jake Gylenhaal in a suit yelling at the board with fake tears in his eyes and his sister facepalming herself in the doorway when I wrote that....
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AdrenoKrome
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Jun 25 2008, 09:26 PM
Post #47
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HHAHAAHAHAHAHAH.. That's the funniest thing I've read all day Reverend!
The way the ratings of the last Oscars went, I wouldnt be shocked if they put Ledger in the running just to get some people watching again.
ROLL ON THE DARK KNIGHT!!!!!! This summer has been pretty stacked for entertainment but this flick (and Hellboy 2) are at the top of my list.
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Salty
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Jun 25 2008, 11:48 PM
Post #48
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We Are SEX BOB-OMB!
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The next four weeks will be filled with awesome.
Wall-E --> Hancock --> Hellboy --> The Goddamn BATMAN
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The Natural
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Jun 26 2008, 04:10 AM
Post #49
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No spoilers in this review, from Rolling Stone:
- Quote:
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Heads up: a thunderbolt is about to rip into the blanket of bland we call summer movies. The Dark Knight, director Christopher Nolan's absolute stunner of a follow-up to 2005's Batman Begins, is a potent provocation decked out as a comic-book movie. Feverish action? Check. Dazzling spectacle? Check. Devilish fun? Check. But Nolan is just warming up. There's something raw and elemental at work in this artfully imagined universe. Striking out from his Batman origin story, Nolan cuts through to a deeper dimension. Huh? Wha? How can a conflicted guy in a bat suit and a villain with a cracked, painted-on clown smile speak to the essentials of the human condition? Just hang on for a shock to the system. The Dark Knight creates a place where good and evil — expected to do battle — decide instead to get it on and dance. "I don't want to kill you," Heath Ledger's psycho Joker tells Christian Bale's stalwart Batman. "You complete me." Don't buy the tease. He means it.
The trouble is that Batman, a.k.a. playboy Bruce Wayne, has had it up to here with being the white knight. He's pissed that the public sees him as a vigilante. He'll leave the hero stuff to district attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) and stop the DA from moving in on Rachel Dawes (feisty Maggie Gyllenhaal, in for sweetie Katie Holmes), the lady love who is Batman's only hope for a normal life.
Everything gleams like sin in Gotham City (cinematographer Wally Pfister shot on location in Chicago, bringing a gritty reality to a cartoon fantasy). And the bad guys seem jazzed by their evildoing. Take the Joker, who treats a stunningly staged bank robbery like his private video game with accomplices in Joker masks, blood spurting and only one winner. Nolan shot this sequence, and three others, for the IMAX screen and with a finesse for choreographing action that rivals Michael Mann's Heat. But it's what's going on inside the Bathead that pulls us in. Bale is electrifying as a fallibly human crusader at war with his own conscience.
I can only speak superlatives of Ledger, who is mad-crazy-blazing brilliant as the Joker. Miles from Jack Nicholson's broadly funny take on the role in Tim Burton's 1989 Batman, Ledger takes the role to the shadows, where even what's comic is hardly a relief. No plastic mask for Ledger; his face is caked with moldy makeup that highlights the red scar of a grin, the grungy hair and the yellowing teeth of a hound fresh out of hell. To the clown prince of crime, a knife is preferable to a gun, the better to "savor the moment."
The deft script, by Nolan and his brother Jonathan, taking note of Bob Kane's original Batman and Frank Miller's bleak rethink, refuses to explain the Joker with pop psychology. Forget Freudian hints about a dad who carved a smile into his son's face with a razor. As the Joker says, "What doesn't kill you makes you stranger."
The Joker represents the last completed role for Ledger, who died in January at 28 before finishing work on Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. It's typical of Ledger's total commitment to films as diverse as Brokeback Mountain and I'm Not There that he does nothing out of vanity or the need to be liked. If there's a movement to get him the first posthumous Oscar since Peter Finch won for 1976's Network, sign me up. Ledger's Joker has no gray areas — he's all rampaging id. Watch him crash a party and circle Rachel, a woman torn between Bale's Bruce (she knows he's Batman) and Eckhart's DA, another lover she has to share with his civic duty. "Hello, beautiful," says the Joker, sniffing Rachel like a feral beast. He's right when he compares himself to a dog chasing a car: The chase is all. The Joker's sadism is limitless, and the masochistic delight he takes in being punched and bloodied to a pulp would shame the Marquis de Sade. "I choose chaos," says the Joker, and those words sum up what's at stake in The Dark Knight.
The Joker wants Batman to choose chaos as well. He knows humanity is what you lose while you're busy making plans to gain power. Every actor brings his A game to show the lure of the dark side. Michael Caine purrs with sarcastic wit as Bruce's butler, Alfred, who harbors a secret that could crush his boss's spirit. Morgan Freeman radiates tough wisdom as Lucius Fox, the scientist who designs those wonderful toys — wait till you get a load of the Batpod — but who finds his own standards being compromised. Gary Oldman is so skilled that he makes virtue exciting as Jim Gordon, the ultimate good cop and as such a prime target for the Joker. As Harvey tells the Caped Crusader, "You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become a villain." Eckhart earns major props for scarily and movingly portraying the DA's transformation into the dreaded Harvey Two-Face, an event sparked by the brutal murder of a major character.
No fair giving away the mysteries of The Dark Knight. It's enough to marvel at the way Nolan — a world-class filmmaker, be it Memento, Insomnia or The Prestige — brings pop escapism whisper-close to enduring art. It's enough to watch Bale chillingly render Batman as a lost warrior, evoking Al Pacino in The Godfather II in his delusion and desolation. It's enough to see Ledger conjure up the anarchy of the Sex Pistols and A Clockwork Orange as he creates a Joker for the ages. Go ahead, bitch about the movie being too long, at two and a half hours, for short attention spans (it is), too somber for the Hulk crowd (it is), too smart for its own good (it isn't). The haunting and visionary Dark Knight soars on the wings of untamed imagination. It's full of surprises you don't see coming. And just try to get it out of your dreams.
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The Natural
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Jun 26 2008, 04:21 AM
Post #50
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Rolling Stone:
- Quote:
-
Spoiler: click to toggle Heads up: a thunderbolt is about to rip into the blanket of bland we call summer movies. The Dark Knight, director Christopher Nolan's absolute stunner of a follow-up to 2005's Batman Begins, is a potent provocation decked out as a comic-book movie. Feverish action? Check. Dazzling spectacle? Check. Devilish fun? Check. But Nolan is just warming up. There's something raw and elemental at work in this artfully imagined universe. Striking out from his Batman origin story, Nolan cuts through to a deeper dimension. Huh? Wha? How can a conflicted guy in a bat suit and a villain with a cracked, painted-on clown smile speak to the essentials of the human condition? Just hang on for a shock to the system. The Dark Knight creates a place where good and evil — expected to do battle — decide instead to get it on and dance. "I don't want to kill you," Heath Ledger's psycho Joker tells Christian Bale's stalwart Batman. "You complete me." Don't buy the tease. He means it.
The trouble is that Batman, a.k.a. playboy Bruce Wayne, has had it up to here with being the white knight. He's pissed that the public sees him as a vigilante. He'll leave the hero stuff to district attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) and stop the DA from moving in on Rachel Dawes (feisty Maggie Gyllenhaal, in for sweetie Katie Holmes), the lady love who is Batman's only hope for a normal life.
Everything gleams like sin in Gotham City (cinematographer Wally Pfister shot on location in Chicago, bringing a gritty reality to a cartoon fantasy). And the bad guys seem jazzed by their evildoing. Take the Joker, who treats a stunningly staged bank robbery like his private video game with accomplices in Joker masks, blood spurting and only one winner. Nolan shot this sequence, and three others, for the IMAX screen and with a finesse for choreographing action that rivals Michael Mann's Heat. But it's what's going on inside the Bathead that pulls us in. Bale is electrifying as a fallibly human crusader at war with his own conscience.
I can only speak superlatives of Ledger, who is mad-crazy-blazing brilliant as the Joker. Miles from Jack Nicholson's broadly funny take on the role in Tim Burton's 1989 Batman, Ledger takes the role to the shadows, where even what's comic is hardly a relief. No plastic mask for Ledger; his face is caked with moldy makeup that highlights the red scar of a grin, the grungy hair and the yellowing teeth of a hound fresh out of hell. To the clown prince of crime, a knife is preferable to a gun, the better to "savor the moment."
The deft script, by Nolan and his brother Jonathan, taking note of Bob Kane's original Batman and Frank Miller's bleak rethink, refuses to explain the Joker with pop psychology. Forget Freudian hints about a dad who carved a smile into his son's face with a razor. As the Joker says, "What doesn't kill you makes you stranger."
The Joker represents the last completed role for Ledger, who died in January at 28 before finishing work on Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. It's typical of Ledger's total commitment to films as diverse as Brokeback Mountain and I'm Not There that he does nothing out of vanity or the need to be liked. If there's a movement to get him the first posthumous Oscar since Peter Finch won for 1976's Network, sign me up. Ledger's Joker has no gray areas — he's all rampaging id. Watch him crash a party and circle Rachel, a woman torn between Bale's Bruce (she knows he's Batman) and Eckhart's DA, another lover she has to share with his civic duty. "Hello, beautiful," says the Joker, sniffing Rachel like a feral beast. He's right when he compares himself to a dog chasing a car: The chase is all. The Joker's sadism is limitless, and the masochistic delight he takes in being punched and bloodied to a pulp would shame the Marquis de Sade. "I choose chaos," says the Joker, and those words sum up what's at stake in The Dark Knight.
The Joker wants Batman to choose chaos as well. He knows humanity is what you lose while you're busy making plans to gain power. Every actor brings his A game to show the lure of the dark side. Michael Caine purrs with sarcastic wit as Bruce's butler, Alfred, who harbors a secret that could crush his boss's spirit. Morgan Freeman radiates tough wisdom as Lucius Fox, the scientist who designs those wonderful toys — wait till you get a load of the Batpod — but who finds his own standards being compromised. Gary Oldman is so skilled that he makes virtue exciting as Jim Gordon, the ultimate good cop and as such a prime target for the Joker. As Harvey tells the Caped Crusader, "You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become a villain." Eckhart earns major props for scarily and movingly portraying the DA's transformation into the dreaded Harvey Two-Face, an event sparked by the brutal murder of a major character.
No fair giving away the mysteries of The Dark Knight. It's enough to marvel at the way Nolan — a world-class filmmaker, be it Memento, Insomnia or The Prestige — brings pop escapism whisper-close to enduring art. It's enough to watch Bale chillingly render Batman as a lost warrior, evoking Al Pacino in The Godfather II in his delusion and desolation. It's enough to see Ledger conjure up the anarchy of the Sex Pistols and A Clockwork Orange as he creates a Joker for the ages. Go ahead, bitch about the movie being too long, at two and a half hours, for short attention spans (it is), too somber for the Hulk crowd (it is), too smart for its own good (it isn't). The haunting and visionary Dark Knight soars on the wings of untamed imagination. It's full of surprises you don't see coming. And just try to get it out of your dreams.
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