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Heath Ledger may actually pull this one off!
Holy shit I'm totally hyped. This movie is gonna kick some serious ass.
It's coming!!! I can't wait to see it hahah.
(please go ahead and delete the previous post or merge it with this one)
OMG THE MOVIE WAS AWESOME.
Heath Ledger was CRAZY good. Eerie. Creepy. Disturbing. It was truly worthy of being his final completed performance. Oscar award, anyone?
Anyway, the movie overall was outstandingly good. And the ending... wow, I swear I almost shed a tear hahah. And that's saying a lot for a superhero movie.
I hope it's better than the first. The first one really made want to go out in the night and be a ninja.
The Dark Knight was amazing!!!!
Ledger(the joker) was incredible, he literally stole the show!!!!
i just wish he was still alive to win the oscars
its an EPIC movie at every moment
I think it's safe to say that this movie will rank up there with the greatest movies of all time. It starts out as a superhero movie and ends up so much more. As in really, really more.
This Batman is like the grit and brooding to Iron Man's flash, flair and flamboyance. Christian Bale was solid as the Dark Knight. I realized the raspy voice which I didn't like in the first film was an aural manifestation of the very idea of Batman: he was a character distinct from Bruce Wayne, and his main tool, at least in this series, was the fact that he could intimidate greatly. The Batman had to be dark, scary. He had to bark at his opponents, and when needed, bite.
But as everyone says, this was Heath Ledger's movie. Of course his recent death increased the publicity of the role, but even if he was still alive now I would say that this is one of his best performances ever. In fact, I would say that this is the best Joker, ever. I don't get why some people said Jack Nicholson would have done a great job, either - his Joker was not dark and twisted enough for the film. While Mr. Nicholson was all comic-booky and fantastical in the original Batman, Heath Ledger's Joker was real. He's the reason some people are afraid of clowns. You could feel that his Joker could really exist in real life, and that's scary for the audience. Everything about him was there - he had the disheveled hair, the running makeup, the scars, the mismatched clothes, the tongue mannerisms, the pinched voice, the insane laughter, and the frighteningly real conclusions. And he pulled it off so, so, so well. Just... wow. I have no more words.
What I think was overshadowed by Mr. Ledger's death was Aaron Eckhart's performance. He was really good as Harvey Dent, and you could feel the transition from himself to Two Face even before the physical transformation took place. The anger was there, it was building up.
Like my former teacher said, this movie had the layers which all successful movies have. There was so much meat to the story, so many themes that were explored (justice, duty, the almighty gray area in morality), and I think each one was given enough exposition without it being too contrived. Definitely a well-done script.
The score was fantastic too. It really heightened the tension even more, especially in the scenes where a character was about to make a big decision.
I find it hard to think of any way in which Christopher Nolan can outdo himself with another one. With Heath Ledger's recent immortalization by the movie and his subsequent death, will there be any actor brave enough to take on this performance of a lifetime? That actor would have a LOT of people to convince. Also, I can't really see any more possibilities to go on from here story-wise (flashbacks will seem kind of backward at this point). Add to that Mr. Nolan's tendency to focus on things that could happen, that could be reality (meaning no super/subhumans or overly-sci fi stuff), and you wave goodbye to the Penguin, Tempel Fuget and Clayface.
To be honest, I wouldn't mind if this did turn out to be the last Nolan Batman film - it's shaping up to be so legendary, waaaay beyond the levels of 300 and Iron Man, that anything following it could be disappointing.
If I could cry over just one film for the year, I definitely would on this one even if there weren't any tear-jerking scenes, just because it's that good.
Bravo Nolan. Brave Bale. Bravo Eckhart. Bravo Ledger.
theGrim Wrote:I think it's safe to say that this movie will rank up there with the greatest movies of all time. It starts out as a superhero movie and ends up so much more. As in really, really more.
This Batman is like the grit and brooding to Iron Man's flash, flair and flamboyance. Christian Bale was solid as the Dark Knight. I realized the raspy voice which I didn't like in the first film was an aural manifestation of the very idea of Batman: he was a character distinct from Bruce Wayne, and his main tool, at least in this series, was the fact that he could intimidate greatly. The Batman had to be dark, scary. He had to bark at his opponents, and when needed, bite.
But as everyone says, this was Heath Ledger's movie. Of course his recent death increased the publicity of the role, but even if he was still alive now I would say that this is one of his best performances ever. In fact, I would say that this is the best Joker, ever. I don't get why some people said Jack Nicholson would have done a great job, either - his Joker was not dark and twisted enough for the film. While Mr. Nicholson was all comic-booky and fantastical in the original Batman, Heath Ledger's Joker was real. He's the reason some people are afraid of clowns. You could feel that his Joker could really exist in real life, and that's scary for the audience. Everything about him was there - he had the disheveled hair, the running makeup, the scars, the mismatched clothes, the tongue mannerisms, the pinched voice, the insane laughter, and the frighteningly real conclusions. And he pulled it off so, so, so well. Just... wow. I have no more words.
What I think was overshadowed by Mr. Ledger's death was Aaron Eckhart's performance. He was really good as Harvey Dent, and you could feel the transition from himself to Two Face even before the physical transformation took place. The anger was there, it was building up.
Like my former teacher said, this movie had the layers which all successful movies have. There was so much meat to the story, so many themes that were explored (justice, duty, the almighty gray area in morality), and I think each one was given enough exposition without it being too contrived. Definitely a well-done script.
The score was fantastic too. It really heightened the tension even more, especially in the scenes where a character was about to make a big decision.
I find it hard to think of any way in which Christopher Nolan can outdo himself with another one. With Heath Ledger's recent immortalization by the movie and his subsequent death, will there be any actor brave enough to take on this performance of a lifetime? That actor would have a LOT of people to convince. Also, I can't really see any more possibilities to go on from here story-wise (flashbacks will seem kind of backward at this point). Add to that Mr. Nolan's tendency to focus on things that could happen, that could be reality (meaning no super/subhumans or overly-sci fi stuff), and you wave goodbye to the Penguin, Tempel Fuget and Clayface.
To be honest, I wouldn't mind if this did turn out to be the last Nolan Batman film - it's shaping up to be so legendary, waaaay beyond the levels of 300 and Iron Man, that anything following it could be disappointing.
If I could cry over just one film for the year, I definitely would on this one even if there weren't any tear-jerking scenes, just because it's that good.
Bravo Nolan. Brave Bale. Bravo Eckhart. Bravo Ledger.
Now that I think about it, when I look back at all the previous portrayals of Joker in the cartoons, comics (barring Miller's works), and TV series, I found it hard to believe that such a comedic character would have given the bat such much trouble.
I mean C'mon! He felt more like a washed up comedian than a real criminal mastermind. To quote Terry from Batman Beyond:
Quote:So you fell in a tank of acid, got your skin bleached and decided to become a supervillain. What? You couldn't get a job as a rodeo clown?
Then came Ledger's Joker. Sure he's still funny, but that's only the icing to a sick, twisted yet brilliant mind. In short, The Dark Knight's version of the clown feels like a genuine archnemesis for the caped crusader.
What's up with all the fanboy-ism?
You guys really should read the comics if you're interested in these characters. I can lend you back issues over the past few years if you're interested. The Batman main series is still the benchmark for all other titles. Ledger's Joker is actually a pretty accurate rendition of the Joker in the comic books. In other words the previous portrayals were just bad or were out of character. The Joker in the Dark Knight is highly reminiscent of his portrayal in Alan Moore's
The Killing Joke.
Batman Beyond sucked.
I found the Dark Knight good, but there was a lot of intellectual masturbation. Watch it again in a few months and you probably won't find it as brilliant as you do now.
Sforza Wrote:What's up with all the fanboy-ism?
To make it clear, if it didn't come out in the post enough, I am. Of Batman at least.
Quote:Ledger's Joker is actually a pretty accurate rendition of the Joker in the comic books. In other words the previous portrayals were just bad or were out of character. The Joker in the Dark Knight is highly reminiscent of his portrayal in Alan Moore's The Killing Joke.
Actually, the Joker in the Killing Joke is really more akin to Jack Nicholson's rendition. Yes he killed people, he had the same maniacal tendencies and he still tackled societal themes, but that Joker came off less dark than Nolan's version of it - in the novel he really was more of an evil clown than a crime kingpin. Even Tim Burton said that this book was a great part of the inspiration for him to do the original Batman film then, so what he read eventually translated to what Nicholson portrayed.
I agree with Antonio, I felt that this was the first Joker that really posed a problem for Bats.
theGrim Wrote:To make it clear, if it didn't come out in the post enough, I am. Of Batman at least.
Come to think of it, why hasn't anyone created a Batman thread in the past? Would have made for pretty nice discussion.
Quote:Actually, the Joker in the Killing Joke is really more akin to Jack Nicholson's rendition. Yes he killed people, he had the same maniacal tendencies and he still tackled societal themes, but that Joker came off less dark than Nolan's version of it - in the novel he really was more of an evil clown than a crime kingpin. Even Tim Burton said that this book was a great part of the inspiration for him to do the original Batman film then, so what he read eventually translated to what Nicholson portrayed.
I agree with Antonio, I felt that this was the first Joker that really posed a problem for Bats.
I made the reference to The Killing Joke because I felt that it was the only title most people would recognize precisely because of the reference Burton made to it. In storylines during post Crisis on Infinite Earths, Joker's generally always posed a problem for Batman because they're supposed to be mirror images of each other and the writers have been consistent at it, as recently as the Hush series and even Justice. Read the comics and you'll probably agree with me, that this isn't anything new. That's all I've been trying to say.
All the fanboyism is because Heath Ledger really was just awesome. It was the first time for the mainstream crowd to see what the Joker was really all about.
Sforza Wrote:In storylines during post Crisis on Infinite Earths, Joker's generally always posed a problem for Batman because they're supposed to be mirror images of each other and the writers have been consistent at it, as recently as the Hush series and even Justice. Read the comics and you'll probably agree with me, that this isn't anything new. That's all I've been trying to say.
Noted.
What amazes me most about this Joker was that it was scrappy, dirty, unwashed and unkempt. It's like the dark deformed shadow of the Joker of the comics. It's literally unlike any Joker I've seen before, appearance-wise.