And this is why I like Tim Burton's interpretation better,and frankly I'd their Joker had the exact opposite problem,it tried to hard to make The Joker this enigmatic force. They pretty much turned a character that used to be a berserk clown that did stuff For The Evulz into Anton under make-up with some Large Ham tendencies. Jack Nicholson had it just right
And how the hell can you forget that half the dialogue the characters say is pretty much stuff the audiences should talk about,stuff that takes ya' out of the moment. Let stuff speak for itself sometimes,don't spell it out,that's just pretentious and almost makes it even harder to believe because it doesn't believe there are Acceptable Breaks From Reality and therefore must Do In The Wizard. This is why even those that love the prequels have a problem with the midichlorians.
This is far more a problem in TDK than Begins.
Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter
I don't have a problem with midichlorians, I love the reasoning behind them =D
^ just felt I needed to ruin all credibility before commenting. I also think it's possibly maybe jumping the gun just a little to have a paragraph complaining about the third film over one trailer :). I'm pumped, wasn't before the most recent trailer but the latest one has done it for me, the first trailers were too stuff focused, shots of badguy, shots of Catwoman, stuff happening, tank, stadium exploding blah blah blah, who cares? It's not what people watched the Dark Knight Saga for. But now we have the stuff with Alfred, the talking the themes, the idea of Batman being completely broken in mind and body as Bane destroys him in every aspect of his life. 'When Gotham is in ashes, then I will let you die' That's what it's all about:D
As for the rest. I'm not sure what I think. I feel there is some substance in what you say, but its tricky on just how relevant it is, are we comparing it to something it's not? On the other hand, Batman is a superhero so shouldn't it be forced to fit into the Superhero box?
The key issues I guess would be, could you tell this story and have it feel superheroey, and if not is it worth having anyway?
This is where I feel like the Avengers was a real let down. It could have been intelligent, it could have had plot. In fact two of it's characters are utter geniuses, one is the worlds greatest spy, one is the worlds greatest interrogator and the villain is the universe' greatest trickster. If you wanted to make a character focused piece it would have even aided the characterisation to have an intelligent film with plot. But they decided to make something different so we still don't know if it's possible.
I think the Dark Knight story would have been impossible to tell without Batman and without superheroes, it relied on superhero relations and events and tropes that are imprinted in our minds to do what it wanted to do and it was a fantastic story worth telling. So I feel it should have existed, Nolan wasn't abusing Batman, because only Batman was capable of telling a story like this, you could have made a standard Academy art film or even a standard Hollywood blockbuster that did it, because the Dark Knight needed Batman.
So I think the question is, could they have made Batman feel more like a hero and kept the story? I'm not sure I'll think about that and I'd be interested in hearing others way in.
Maybe Batman was not the hero The Dark Knight needed, but the hero it deserved :D
Maybe the comics fans prefer Batman as a superhero, but I really don't care. I'm not a comics fan and I haven't really been all that impressed with most of the superhero films, except for X-Men: First Class and The Avengers. So The Dark Knight not being very realistic and not anything like a superhero film is actually one of the reasons I like it so much. Maybe Batman is better off as a vigilante than as a superhero.
The vigilante/hero thing is quite an important part of the Saga overall though. In the first he's not fighting crime just to stop crime and get revenge, vigilantism, he's doing it because he hopes that a positive action like that will inspire the other good people in Gotham to rise up and do something (Gordon, Rachael, Harvey Dent etc). And in the second the Joker has been corrupting the good people who've risen up and Gotham no longer needs somehow who acts outside the law without authority, but the truly good hero, white knight Harvey Dent. So Batman (because he's a hero) chooses to be seen/become a vigilante and take all the blame, because they need to believe in something good.
This is why I don't think you could have the Dark Knight as a non-superhero film, because the core messages are all about heroism and the difference between that and a man with a gun. The introductory scene of Batman in the Dark Knight, is him telling the vigilantes to go home, because they aren't heroes and they don't know what they're doing.
^ I get all that; you missed my point. I only said I didn't like Batman as a superhero, I never said I didn't like him as a hero. The two are very different, and it's very possible to be a hero without being a superhero. Maybe I was a bit hasty in calling Batman a vigilante in that movie, especially considering that he technically wasn't one.
Spot-on review.
It doesn't bug me at all. I generally use The Dark Knight to compare it with The Avengers and I see the yuxtaposition of both being completely different, on opposite sides of the Superhero-film spectrum.
A film like The Avengers is really great because it works well embracing the spectacle and fun thematic that surrounds their world, while The Dark Knight found its appropiate color to express its themes.
"Batman just seems more like a vigilante than a superhero here." ..
that;s the point!
^ Bingo. Exactly. This wasn't a superhero film.
Tyler Durden is my bitch.
^ Which means that it forgot its essence. Result = Bad.
...Do you have to practice dread necromancy to underscore your existing review though?
@ SpectralTime
I'm not the first user (and I probably won't be the last, either) to comment on reviews years back, ya know.
Maybe not, but \'s not necessarily helpful when they do it either, and it reeks of desperation and insecurity in your own recently-posted opinion, which I almost commented on before noticing you were running around throwing digs into every other review.
@ SpectralTime
The only reviews I've been commenting on recently are ones that I agree with.
Is that a problem? Then why just single me out for that?
Besides, movies are there for anyone and everyone to talk about, even years after they premiered. Otherwise, it's pointless to do critiques and reviews in the first place.
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I Finally Got What Bugged Me
I loved The Dark Knight. I loved it. Loved Heath Ledger, especially. But something about it bugged me, and after a few years, now I know what.
It doesn't feel like a superhero film.
Let me explain—Batman has no superpowers. He's usually just made of Bad Ass to fix that. The gadgets are nice, but most of what makes Batman awesome is him. But the film puts so much effort into making this all plausible, especially the gadgets. In trying to not break the Willing Suspension Of Disbelief, they lose that this is a superhero film altogether. Bruce stops being Batman and starts being a rich guy with access to weapons tech and the ability to be a vigilante.
Batman just seems more like a vigilante than a superhero here.
The Joker, now, he felt like he could be some universe's version of The Joker—dark, funny, crazy, a good planner. But Batman...feels stale. I mean, I own the DVD, and all I watch are the truck flipping scene, some Joker speeches, and Alfred. Batman just doesn't feel like a superhero. He's too real.
I go this after watching the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I mean, look at those trailers, and then at the trailer for The Dark Knight Rises. Hell, just compare it to the Avengers' trailer. Avengers has epic fighting, wild visuals, and characters we feel we know. Rises? It has Bruce (whom we don't really know so much as watch), 2 new villains whom we know who they're based off of but they're new to us without seeming all that epic, a cool bit of a stadium falling apart...and a bunch of real-ish stuff like a plane hijacking, Catwoman as a burglar, a ball, and street riots. Yes, Gotham does normally have more real-ish stuff than other superhero stuff but..come on, this is the end of the trilogy. Some epicness is called for. And no, not the flying batplane-an animated series and the comics have done that.
I just feel that it's gone too far to make us believe, to where there's nothing we have to try and believe. Bam. It's real, it's dark...and it's not that super.