Yes the Joker was great but...

Could Contain Spoilers, be careful.



So I saw "The Dark Knight" at a midnight screening on Friday. Let me first say that I thought the film was fantastic, and The Joker performance was stunning along with Commissioner Gordon, and a lot of the other supporting cast members. The realistic environment was beautifully crafted and the photography was lovely. All that being said, there were a bunch of moments in the film that almost killed the movie for me:



- The dialog from the Jokers henchmen during the opening scene was terrible and completely unneeded. The actions were great but when you are trying to base this story "in real life" you gotta loose the comic book dialog.
- Maggie Gyllenhaal was terrible. I felt like every time she was on screen she was chuckling at the fact that she was cast in this movie. Compared to a lot of the other performances she stood out like a sore thumb.
- My biggest issue was Christian Bale's performance as Batman. As Bruce Wayne he is great. He brings in the best elements of American Psycho and plays the spoiled rich kids extremely well. But as soon as you put the mask on him and he puts on the out of breath deep voice, I cringed in my seat. How can the director hear his voice in dailies and go…"Yes, yes that is great!"

Overall the film was amazing, but these issues nearly pulled me out of a film that I wanted to stay in for the entire 2 ½ hours. It's a difficult thing to take a story that is comic books themed, and over the top, and make it real. I feel like they almost did it. Great movie though. See it for yourself and tell me I'm full of shit.

i like how Bale voices Batman. i can see why some people don't, but to me it's no sillier than the fact that he's running around in bat-themed pajamas.

remember in Nothing to Lose, where Tim Robbins and Martin Lawrence were arguing about which approach to robbing a convenience store was scarier--the cold, calculating persona, or the crazy-as-fuck persona--and it turned out that screaming like an idiot and waving your gun was scarier than making quiet threats and pointing your gun?

same deal. you've got a guy in front of you wearing a cape and bat ears, and he only speaks in growls and roars. that's either hilarious or terrifying--and after he's broken your arm, hilarious really isn't an option.

as for Maggie... i dunno, she did okay. i liked her better than Crazy McCultistnutjob, or whatever her name is.

I'm surprised that you didn't like Maggie Gyllenhaal. I thought she was good. Certainly a great improvement over Katie Holmes, as motorfirebox has observed.

Yea she was an improvement....but she wasn't that good. Alot of it has to do with what was on the page though.

what really disturbed me about Holmes was the fact that she was nipping through a fucking cardigan sweater. what the hell are her tits made of?

Her tits are made of Adamantium. Oh wait, wrong nerd movie.

The shattered dreams of her disappointed parents.

I love that The Joker was making fake stories about how he got his scars.

Then he was going to lie again to Batman how he got them!!

I'll give it a 10 out 10. I think Ledger almost steals the movie away.

But yeah I agree the whole main cast is really great in TDK.

Who knows? He may have actually been prepared to tell Batman the truth. He did seem to feel an affinity with him.

If you were one of the most famous people in Gotham and your mask only covered half your face, wouldn't YOU put on a different voice?

I was imagining the Brokeback Mountain theme when you said that!

next up, christopher nolan tells you what sucked about "cold hard cash".

Yeah..but not one that sucked..its a movie...you can craft it.

Hey man..if he even watched it..I would take the abuse, and deserve every bit of it...lol Beleive me..I would just shit if I had to do batman...and could I do it better? No. But my point was that damn..it was almost perfect.

I would have to agree with Bale's Batman voice being sub par. Michael Keaton should of done voice overs when Bale was in the suit. But Bale plays Bruce Wayne perfectly.

And Ledger completely stole the movie.


PS: I liked Maggie

I don't like how they show Bruce Wayne in these movies. Bruce wayne has always been a stand up do it yourselfer. He was always some respectable. And now he's.... not. I 'm not a fan of that.


Also i hated that they tossed two-face (a major character) in there so half assed. I felt they needed to develop him and bring him in the next movie... not just kill him off so fast and act like it wasn't just put in there for fan service. Was a major disappointment that such an inetresting and good character was knocked out so quickly and without any real development.

Who say's Two-Face is Dead
The character development behind Harvey Dent was fantastic.

Excellent points... And I agree, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Batman's silly voice and some of the dialogue in the movie were too much, although I get the voice part, because in the end Bruce is only human trying to appear more badass than he is, it's just the tone of his voice may be scary for the people in the movie but it doesn't work the same way when you're watching it from the outside.

From what I've seen, hardcore Batman fans are extremely adoring of this movie, whereas those who aren't, agree that it was good, but that's about it. A friend even said to me that he felt as if Batman took a back seat to what was going on around him.

really? i've always seen the Bruce Wayne persona portrayed as a playboy with a big heart and deep pocketbooks. as i recall, everyone was surprised during No Man's Land, when Bruce suddenly began acting intelligent and ruthless in his pursuit of getting Gotham rebuilt.

I disagree. Whether he is dead or not too little went into him. Compared to how he is shown in the comic books and such just too little effort went into showing his darker side. It has always been a big issue. In this he was just too loveable ALL the time. Two one sided. He was always shown as being majorly two sided. He always had this other half. They didn't explore his other half nearly enough before he 'transformed'

IN my opinion they should have done some character development in this movie and then moved onto a whole movie about two face. It was just two major a character to cut short like that. Dead or not he was just shoved in there at the end. It was upsetting. Two face was always one of my favorite dark elements of batman.

Well see i saw him as a playboy too. BUT... it's one thing to be a playboy but he has always been this sturdy, stand up almost if not always respectable guy. He's always been someone the city looked up to and who could run his own company. Someone who had pride in his name. I can understand taking a bit of that away for cinema sake.... but they seem to make Bruce down right dirty sometimes. I remember always loving batman because he was this amazing guy. It's one thing to be a playboy but they show it off a little too much. To much time goes into showing how he gets all these beautiful women. I'd like to see in teh future a little more of him standing on his own two feet with the business. Responsible Bruce Wayne was always easier to get into. He always had that "this is my parents name and it's respectable" outlook. Yet now he's falling asleep at his desk and showing off the women he can get (for good reason sometimes but sometimes just for petty jealousy).

yes, but this is still early Batman/Bruce Wayne development. right now he's still mainly trying to live up to the public's expectations as to what his social life is supposed to be like. he's already started to play a larger part in the business of Wayne Enterprises, but he's still searching for that balance between the two sides. Batman is more him than a persona, unlike Bruce Wayne right now.

i expect that him becoming a more serious businessman to the public will be a part of the future movies.

Fantastic movie. My complaints are very minor:

so, did Batman did return the wayward Joker to his place in Arkham.
and having no further concern, he did seek adventure in the west of Gotham City.
honor and fear were heaped upon his name and, in time, he became a true hero by his own hand.
...but that... is another story![/Mako]

I'd be willing to bet that his voice on the set while wearing the batman costume and his voice in final production don't sound at all alike. I could be wrong though.