<body><script type="text/javascript"> function setAttributeOnload(object, attribute, val) { if(window.addEventListener) { window.addEventListener('load', function(){ object[attribute] = val; }, false); } else { window.attachEvent('onload', function(){ object[attribute] = val; }); } } </script> <div id="navbar-iframe-container"></div> <script type="text/javascript" src="https://apis.google.com/js/platform.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> gapi.load("gapi.iframes:gapi.iframes.style.bubble", function() { if (gapi.iframes && gapi.iframes.getContext) { gapi.iframes.getContext().openChild({ url: 'https://www.blogger.com/navbar.g?targetBlogID\x3d16149408\x26blogName\x3dThe+Blogulator\x26publishMode\x3dPUBLISH_MODE_BLOGSPOT\x26navbarType\x3dBLACK\x26layoutType\x3dCLASSIC\x26searchRoot\x3dhttps://chrisandqualler.blogspot.com/search\x26blogLocale\x3den_US\x26v\x3d2\x26homepageUrl\x3dhttp://chrisandqualler.blogspot.com/\x26vt\x3d4655846218521876476', where: document.getElementById("navbar-iframe-container"), id: "navbar-iframe" }); } }); </script>

« Home | Next » | Next » | Next » | Next » | Next » | Next » | Next » | Next » | Next » | Next »

$155.3 Million of Revenue Can't Be Wrong!

So, if you're not one of ticket buyers who contributed to the record-breaking blockbuster weekend for The Dark Knight, you're probably not going to want to read this post. But if you're not one of those people, then why are you reading this blog?! What were you thinking?!? What in the world were you doing this weekend?!?!?!?!?!?Were you at Mamma Mia?!?!?!?!?

I think, though, that it is safe to say, that the consensus opinion of the Blogulator staff is that the hype surrounding the movie is mostly totally deserving. Not unlike WALL-E. What are the odds that two blockbuster hype machines would also produce sincerelly awesome films? And The Dark Knight didn't even have any discernable liberal propaganda, so all sides of the political spectrum should approve.

Naturally, the skeptic in me tried to think of the film's flaws. I mean, it had some, right? A blockbuster movie that is the basis of the "Gotham City Pizza" from Domino's Pizza (one-line review of the pizza: totally not as much pepperoni as you'd expect for "50% more pepperoni") couldn't honestly also be a sequel equivilent to Godfather II, or The Empire Strikes Back, or even Step Up 2 Tha Streetz. Well, here is my attempt to try to poke holes in the Batman.

Skepticism says: This movie could have been a little shorter. 2 1/2 hours is for arthouse movies like Boogie Nights, not blockbuster sequels.
Sincerity says: Well, considering I saw this movie at the local arthouse theater in Uptown, that argument holds no weight. And what would they have cut from the movie?

Skepticism says: Come on, really? A posthumous Academy Award for Heath Ledger? He totally didn't get enough screen time to warrant that! Plus, he had too many scenes of just causing mayhem and not really talking to truly be the breakout performance the media is so in love with these days.
Sincerity says: You pretentious jerk; Heath Ledger's performance brought the movie theater to rapturous silence every time he appeared onscreen. His nuances made one forget that it was Heath Ledger behind the make-up. And holy crap was he ever amazingly creepy. A superb performance.

Skepticism says: Aaron Eckhert's performance as Harvey Dent / Two-Face was less-than-totally-enthralling, and his character got too much screen time.
Sincerity says: OK, so this is somewhat of a valid point. But, giving the Joker more screen time would have taken some of the mystery of his character and his performance, and the Two-Face plot was integral to the movie.

I could go on forever with this, but the point is, this is as close to flawless of a major blockbuster Hollywood movie as you are going to get. At this point, getting nitpicky about some of the plot points of the movie is like trying to take the liberal propaganda machine out of WALL-E -- you just can't do it without causing a lot of pain.

Let the debate begin! What did you all think of the movie?

Labels: ,

  1. Anonymous Anonymous | 8:50 AM |  

    I walked out of this movie thinking that I just saw one of the best movies I've ever seen. And I think I still feel that way.

    If I had to nitpick and point out any flaws in the movie, it would only be that certain aspects of the story should have had more time devoted to them, but since it is already 2 1/2 hours long, that's really not possible. That's mainly just how I felt about Two Face...they could have devoted an entire movie to just him.

    I was curious to see how a prosecutor with good morals and a desire for righteous justice would become an evil criminal, and while the conversion did make a little sense, they didn't get to dwell on his evil ways that much. But then, I don't see him being as sadistically evil as The Joker, and if the movie was just about Two Face, then it would have been a dumb movie. They did tie Two Face into the movie really well.

    I didn't think of this as a Batman movie or a comic book movie, or even an entertaining popcorn summer blockbuster movie. I mainly just saw it as an intelligent action / drama film with a deep sense of morality, which is something you wouldn't expect out of a summer Batman movie. Simply put, it was just amazing how densely detailed and engrossing this movie was, and that's why I think it's one of the best I've ever seen.

    Also, IMDB calls it THE best right now.

    http://www.imdb.com/chart/top

  2. Blogger Nicole Arratia-Walters | 9:15 AM |  

    I thought it was good, but I honestly liked the first one better...the plot was smarter and the narrative flowed in a logical way. This movie lost me at the millionth time the Joker was setting up a scheme to kill people and Batman had to rush there and most of them died anyway. There were also many quick jumps between different dialogue-intense scenes without breaks...choppiness, choppiness. But I think that's my five-year-old attention span, mostly;)

    And for me, personally, it was too violent. I honestly can't believe it was PG-13...someone from the film obviously wined and dined the ratings board! There were so many knife-fights, senseless 'creative' murders, and point-blank shootings (which were a crucial aspect of the Joker's character, I know). Throughout the movie, though, I couldn't stop hoping that none of my little students were seeing it, although I'm absolutely sure a lot of families went to see it together.

  3. Blogger Brigitte | 10:18 AM |  

    I love Batman Begins, but I think this one was better...and I can't wait to see Mamma Mia.

  4. Blogger Unknown | 11:32 AM |  

    Yeah LQ, I agree with you that Two Face's "evil" side wasn't as fully developed as it could have been. Hopefully that is because his character will be in more focus in Batman 3. I didn't totally buy his transformation, though, it seemed kind of sudden to me.

    Nicole, I liked BB a lot, too, but I felt like TDK was superior on every level. Some of the character development aspects of BB were awkward (ex. Bruce Wayne running through a fountain with models?! Inconsistent tone!) and while it was totally intriguing and technically put together well, it left me wanting more (which was, maybe, the point of it, because it left me and the rest of America craving more in TDK).

    TDK was very dark, but I didn't feel like it was violent for violence sake (although it clearly should have been an R rating -- of course, if you don't show blood or curse too much, the MPAA won't give it an R.) I thought a good example of that was when Harvey Dent punched the witness on the stand -- it illustrated that this was a city whose morals had been run to the ground, and the definition of what it means to be a hero is different from what we would define in society today. And instead of the explosions seeming "cool", to me it just seemed tragic -- certainly, buildings being demolished reminded me more of 9/11 than it did "Die Hard".

    Granted, I also left wanting a little stronger of some kind of message -- is Gotham City a parallel to anything in society today? Or, was it just entertainment? That is what I would like to answer for myself when I see it again.

  5. Blogger Lestranger | 12:01 PM |  

    This comment has been removed by the author.

  6. Blogger Lestranger | 12:04 PM |  

    Pretty good stuff. This is most certainly top-notch blockbuster fare. After reading a ton of reviews, and more importantly, what the average folks are saying, I think the quality of the film is less important than the reaction to it. People seem to just adore this movie for every reason imaginable. They love the acting, the symbolism, the Joker, the writing, the philosophy, etc... Their reason for loving the film seems to be much less important than simply loving it itself. People loving something usually makes me euphoric, but it depresses me greatly when people love something that is wholly undeserving of devotion and praise (Bush, Entourage, Capitalism, etc.). Its a good movie, no doubt, but when foregrounded by the response to it, the whole situation is just absurd.

  7. Blogger Lady Amy | 12:47 PM |  

    I would agree with lq's criticism of Two Face's development. I have a hard time believing that his transformation happened so suddenly. I think we are supposed to believe that there was something evil there to begin with based on the whole "how much do you trust him" conversations at the beginning. I wish they had developed that a bit more - but maybe that background is something we were supposed to know from the comics?

    As for the violence, I didn't feel like it was too bloody. The film really emphasized the sort of randomness of tragedy rather than the actual violence, which I think is even scarier and less gratuitous.

    The length, I think was perfect. I personally did not feel like 2 1/2 hours had passed when I left the theater. Most really long movies like that have some sort of dragging feeling in the middle. Not Batman. If I had to cut something out, it would have been the sonar technology thing that I didn't really get in the first place.

  8. Blogger Nicole Arratia-Walters | 1:32 PM |  

    Yes, I'm glad that there wasn't a lot of blood. I wish there had been more Christian Bale however, as Bruce Wayne just hanging out, working out, laughing, changing his clothes, etc. You know, crucial plot points involving just him ;) You know what I'm saying? Exactly.

    I totally agree that the sonar thing could have been left out, as well as the bizarre finger-print on the bullet thing. And most of the dealings with the mob, which I didn't really get. Too complicated! More Bruce!

  9. Blogger Brigitte | 1:54 PM |  

    i kept waiting for christian bale to do more shirtless push ups...alas...

  10. Blogger chris | 2:06 PM |  

    Can I just point out that Wipert placed Entourage between Bush and Capitalism in his analogy? It was beautiful and correct on every level.

    During my whole four hour class today I was just like "(twitch twitch) I wanna comment about Batman on the Blogulator!!!" - so here I go:

    I didn't start being a naysayer about Two-Face until Mark and Brigitte brought it up a couple days after. Like Wipert, I was just basking in the loving it without analyzing (which I hardly ever do) for a good 24 hours after Thursday's Midnight showing. But as always, my mind started going through the different possible downsides it had (like Two-Face's transformation, cluttered plot points, sonar technology, etc.) and the only solution I came to was that I need to see it again. SOON. I hadn't felt a visceral urge to see a movie for a second time in the theater like this since 28 Days Later. So that's saying something more along the lines of the hippie crap that Wipert's spewing (or as the almighty instrumental band Six Parts Seven so eloquently said in their track title, "What You Love You Must Love Now").

    In analytic pop culture discourse, however, I would agree that Two-Face needs/needed more development (though no one's brought up the very simple notion of his greatest love Rachel Dawes' death inspiring his turn to evil rather than philosophical "what it means to be a hero" undertones that the beautiful dialogue hinted at throughout) even though I felt like Amy that the film's length was pretty perfect (maybe 5-10 minutes at most could have been excised, but maybe that was me being awake at 2:55am when the film finally ended). Can I talk again about the dialogue? What's the last action/fantasy movie that had such profound and intricate dialogue? HOLY CRAP. I wanna read the script, not just see it again.

    Also the Bale Batman voice is terrible, but that's a fact I was able to accept and ignore because he's so dreamy.

    Oh and Batman Begins is a pile of trash compared to this movie. We watched it right before we went to TDK and upon my 3rd viewing of it: the one-liners stuck out like Joel Schumacher's rainbow erection-fueled movies and the whole East-Asian half of the movie is a snoozefest (regardless of its connection to the original comic)...though that might have been an annoyance to me because I had just watched Kung Fu Panda AND eaten at Big Bowl, so I had my "Asian fill" for the day already, if you catch my drift.

  11. Anonymous Anonymous | 11:02 AM |  

    I had two concerns entering this movie: 1)the hype, and 2) the length. I have to admit that I was not disappointed on either of these fronts. I hardly noticed the time, as the the movie, for the most part, successfully lived up to the hype. For me, Heath Ledger stole the show, every scene that he wasn't in I waited in anticipation for his arrival. I was unimpressed with the performances of Christian Bale and Aaron Eckhert, while Maggie Gyllenhaal's acting I found unbearable at times. I much perferred Bale in Batman Begins, and I hate to admit it, but I even preferred Katie Holmes as Rachel. Despite these criticisms, I was still thoroughly entertained by the film.

  12. Anonymous Anonymous | 9:41 AM |  

    it was 2 and a half hours? and i stayed up through the WHOLE thing? movie of the decade.

  13. Blogger Unknown | 8:38 AM |  

    Amen, Arunzatoo. I share your sentiments exactly.

leave a response