Batman carries on beginning in ... The Dark Knight

Rene Rodriguez of The Miami Herald's review describes a comic book adaptation I don't wanna see.

right, because this is primarily a comic book adaptation

get real peoples

Apparently lots of film critics didn't get the memo that you can treat comics seriously. deeznuts you do not have to respond to every post.

ok hoos! i will choose to say nothing about your idiotic post because thatd only be fair

"primarily"

oh youre right, knowledgeable filmgoers will read it ONLY as a comic book adaptation, & judge it on these merits

the rest are fucktards who should be ignored

twelve 10/10 reviews on that metacritic link up there. jeepers!

http://www.progets.com/simpsons/pics/the%20comic%20book%20guy%20pondering.gif
twelve 10/10 reviews on metacritic is suspect

thats why i think you guys arguing film critics suggesting this is superior to comix are being pretentious are being dumb

I think, if you weren't so busy trying to be right (and failing, btw), you'd realize that all art forms can do things unique to themselves, and that these differences don't intrinsically make one or the other better, unless you're expecting sound from a book, or pictures from a novel.

But that's not even the issue. The issue is these film critic dopes saying that TDK "redeems" SUPER HERO comic books, brings them kicking and screaming into adulthood, and most folks are having an issue w/ critics getting on their high horse proclaiming this shit, as if 1) the stuff that these critics are responding to in TDK never existed in the genre before, and 2) as if SUPER HERO books need to be "serious" in order to be considered worthy of guilt-free praise.

Tho I'm probably off-base, conflating SUPER HERO w/ SUPER HERO MOVIE.

It seems that after you hear people make the "comic books are art/myths" arguments it is soon followed by some critics actually judging the movies like they're high-art, dismissing them, and the original comic-book lovers getting upset that they're taking the films too seriously. You can't win.

And am I the only one here who finds Bale's Bruce Wayne too dull?

I sort of prefer Michael Keaton's take on the role, but I'm sure I am the only one who feels that way.

You aren't. Bale's embarrassing. I mean, I'd rather have sex with him; or maybe his hair.

My wife's totally, utterly in love with Christian Bale. So I hate him.

(j/k; I don't hate him. I just think Keaton's better in the role, but he's a relic of his era, and Bale makes more sense now, obv.)

I like Keaton's Bruce better as well. It only occurred to me on my second viewing that Bale didn't mean to make Bruce look like such an unconvincing playboy.

Frankly, all the protagonists of Nolan movies I've seen are rather bland and uninteresting outside of the predicament they're in for the film. The motivation of the female characters (Moss in Memento, Johansson in Prestige, Holmes in BB) also tend to be murky. I can't get into why without spoiling the first two and I don't think I need to exhume any discussion on Katie Holmes in BB.

You aren't. Bale's embarrassing. I mean, I'd rather have sex with him; or maybe his hair.

-- Alfred, Lord Sotosyn

so lou gehrig's disease basically admits hes trolling this thread

get this tattooed on your forehead homie:

deeznuts you do not have to respond to every post.

-- BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Wednesday, July 16, 2008 7:36 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Link

I liked Bale in BB but he is out-acted by pretty much everyone in TDK except for gyllenhaal, and only because her character isn't given much to do. The guy can brood with the best of them and his billionaire-brat act is fine but his Bruce Wayne is a personality-free blank.

everything about the advance press/publicity for this movie seems to want to pummel me with its hard-won Seriousness, signaled by violence, literal darkness, limited color palette, people speaking in low tones, and the record-breaking misanthropy of the villain. seems really tiresome to me. i have a bad feeling, and not only because i found the first nolan batman boring as shit.

I think this is way less boring than BB. "Seriousness" aside (it is or at least, attempts to be, more serious than BB), it works better than BB as a action-thriller. No more weapons-testing or training bullshit to get through and besides, there's less of a focus on Wayne/Batman and a lot more on the tension between Batman/cops/lawyers/mob bosses/Joker/mayor which puts most of the action in motion.

I wanna know who had the genius idea of casting Nestor Carbonell in a Batman movie because I had to resist the urge to giggle and yell "I am... BATMANUEL!!" everytime he was on-screen.

Surely the deep significance of the "brings comic books to a new level" cliché is that it gives people writing this stuff an out from having to say "this is a movie about a man dressed as a bat punching things and i liked it because i have not grown up on some level"

yea this kind of thing has already been repeated countless times wrt Spidey, BB, V for Vendetta, etc - it's getting real old and doesn't really mean anything much anymore. imo film reviewers are lazy and saying that a film transcends its roots is just their way of saying "This is a fucking awesome movie."

Superhero movies by necessity needs the cheap thrills and spills - can you imagine one where the hero sits around in their tights and have long, intense conversations about morality or the limits and ethics of vigilantism? (lol someone make this happen). Really the only question is whether a particular superhero movie delivers or not is whether it gives the audience more than standard "good guy meets bad guy, they fight, some shit get blown up, good guy wins" plot and manages to capture some of the nuanced storytelling that comic-book fans already know the genre is capable of.

i hear the next movie in the franchise will be directed by pedro costa

well one of the repeated uh tropes of the current crop of superhero movies is that they signpost their MORAL COMPLEXITY at some point and then find a resolution, because it has to involve someone in a cape / leathers / mechanical exoskeleton punching things, that involves either total handwaving denial or a slide into incoherence.

as some people on thread may know the whole OOOH LOOK ITS SO DARK, ITS MORALLY COMPLEX AND PEOPLE GET SHOT aesthetic is one that people have been having arguments over viz. comic books for twenty years or so now, actually. "grim and gritty" is largely recognised as cliché at best, travesty at worst.

as for "movies are intrinsically more creative and just plain better than other media" bullshit i have been hearing that from philistines since i was fourteen and it can GTFO tbh.

xpost who? /:

was looking forward to this then heard "punk rock joker" come out of bale's mouth.

haha amateurist.

"grim and gritty" is largely recognised as cliché at best, travesty at worst.

well yeah. But I think TDK works because it's so focused in what in wants to say. take-away the signposting (the Bat-voice, the darkness, and yes, the somewhat trite mantras) and what you still get is a movie about the difficulty of being a crime-fighter in a batsuit unbound to rules and laws.... when trying to do good things, you get in the way of other people like lawyers and cops who are also trying to do good things and they in turn get in your way. and worse, you push the bad guys to see how far they can go.

but.. I'm a comics dilettante at best and even I know this isn't saying anything really new. I'm more inclined to agree with omar upthread that TDK works because it tells this story well, which is frankly more than you could ask for in a 2-hour plus superhero movie. Does this mean it "transcends the genre"... I'm not so sure.

focused in what IT wants to say.**

oh i am almost certainly going to see this, after wall-e it's my second most looked forward to big budget thing of the year. trailers i have seen make it look three or four times more camp than i was expecting already, though.

the films inevitably come down hard on the side of vigilantism though (largely by the requirements of the genre--this is equally true of the so-called "adult" batman revisions by alan moore and frank miller), so i feel like the vaunted seriousness and self-consciousness are typically just window dressing.

i'd like to see a pixar batman more than the self-serious murk this film seems to be promising (sure, sure, it's possible i'll end up liking it more than i expect).

XPOST

good method to watch TDK, everytime a character says something in low pensive tones, yell "WHY. SO. SERIOUS?!" at the screen.

i was excited for this movie about a year or so ago, now meh.

"i'd like to see a pixar batman more than the self-serious murk this film seems to be promising"

ugh

im sure you guys are all very happy you werent pulp novel nerds in the 1940s

"these hollywood directors & critics just dont understaaaaaaaaaand, man!"

huh? did i say anything about comic books?

there are two equally stupid arguments against this film being made on this thread & sometimes i conflate them

a)not true to its source/not better than its source
b)not enough ironic distance for me to be comfortable with it
(c) film critics really like it)

as some people on thread may know the whole OOOH LOOK ITS SO DARK, ITS MORALLY COMPLEX AND PEOPLE GET SHOT aesthetic is one that people have been having arguments over viz. crime novels for twenty years or so now, actually. "grim and gritty" is largely recognised as cliché at best, travesty at worst.

-- thomp, Thursday, July 17, 1946 9:16 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Link

this is why kiss me deadly is a parody!

jk it is actually a parody for totally different reasons, are you one of those people that takes noir VERY SERIOUSLY as an HIGHBROW AESTHETE? if so, you should be shot.

ha fuck no, im one of those people who thinks this looks like a badass movie

are you one of those people who think 'adaptation' was gods greatest gift to filmmaking?

I'm sure this has been mentioned, as I haven't read the whole thread, but in discussing critical reaction to this I think it's important to be specific about when someone is putting The Dark Knight into the context of "super-hero" COMIC BOOKS and when it's being put into the context of "super-hero" comic-book MOVIE ADAPTATIONS. Which are not the same thing.

TDK feels more like a good, epic crime procedural (HEAT is the movie it evokes, strongly) than it does like any other comic-hero MOVIE. I'm sure there are plenty of comics -- Batman comics probably — that have the same feel/tone. But none of the super hero movies quite do. If it rises above it's form (and I'm not sure it does -- I like X-Men 2 best of the comic adaptations I've seen), it's the form of the movie-adaptations, not of comic books themselves.

just came back from a midnight screening.

yeah, it ruled. that is all.

i need to rewatch this though. i was forced to sit in the front row, the theater was so packed.

does batman really say punk rock joker?

i don't think so. i don't remember him saying it. but i missed a lot of little things.

does christian bale ever have his shirt off? that is pretty much all i care about.

so fuckin tired of superhero movies, don't care how 'dark' or 'innovative' they are. i just want to see some super-physiques, feel me

he impales the joker and two-face with his cock, but he has his shirt on.

this was the shit