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The Dark Knight - with spoilers
SFEnnisSF:
Ok I'm just back from seeing TDK.
First of all it was way too violent and the subject matter way too unsettling for a PG13 rating. I'm not opposed to violence in movies, but let's just call a spade a spade here. Alot of this reminded me of the poor victums of 9/11, and what the terrorists caused. I mean, that's what The Joker was, essentially a terrorist. And society is supposed to think he's funny and this is all funny? Eh. All these families taking their 9-10 year olds to see this?? (PG13 magically means families welcome these days. The whole rating system's a joke anyway.) ::)
I found the serious parts too serious, and the "comic book parts" too lame. The whole Aaron Eckhart character was un-believeable, un-necessary, and lame and silly. The showdown holding the kids hostage at the end was way over-done and was too much. I didn't mind the violence (but let's call it R ok) and I loved the psychology of The Joker's character, and the darkeness. But stuff like the massive wall of screens with the cell phone emissions, and the computers bursting into flames when Morgan Freemen types his resignation in and all other sorts of comic book stuff like that brought the whole intensity of the movie down.
Didn't work for me. Only 2 of 4 stars from me.
delalluvia:
FINALLY saw this.
Yes, Heath is unbelievable. He completely melts into his character. You see the Joker, not Heath. He's a blank, a cipher, you have no idea who he is or where he is from or what his motivations are. Frighteningly, it is suggested that he has none. He's an ID personified and he is portrayed as a terrorist, wanting nothing more than to spread terror.
I also agree the rating was too low for the movie. The movie was dark, the violence extremely disturbing.
I'm not sure why they insisted on keeping the Dent character plotline. They killed him at the end but left the Joker alive, yet Aaron Eckhart is still with us and Heath is not.
The explosive danger was fairly unbelievable. It's supposed to invoke 9-11 I guess, but if you think about the reality - how many drums of oil were needed? And NO ONE saw them loading up every single floor of a hospital? NO ONE saw them loading them onto a couple of ferries? Ludicrous - as are people falling 30 or so stories and living. And both Dent and Batman fall 3 stories, but Dent is dead and Batman lives? Why is that? His suit can protect him from bullets and such, believeably, but not such severe carwrecks and incredible falls. Yes, the wall of monitors sparking and crackling when Freeman's character signed off was lame. I was expecting a countdown of some sort and the screens displaying the destruction of the information, not literal destruction. Batman shuts down his entire operation, destroys all his records, he's going to turn himself in. Yet he can get it all back up in minutes. The fact that a firetruck can be on fire in the middle of the city and blocking a road, and an entire police station is blown up and neither is reported, nor draws a crowd is also way out there.
Plus, how did Batman know where Dent and Gordon were at the end?
Yeah, some parts are very comic-booky, but if you ignore those, it's very enjoyable.
BelAir:
I FINALLY watched my DVD copy, so finally saw the movie for a second time. I was prompted to go back and read some of the initial comments from myself and others when the movie was first released. I remember loving Heath's performance, but being less impressed with the movie overall. This second time through, I still thought Heath was amazing, but I also liked the movie better overall. I also found it less scary - I figure this relates to size of the screen on which I was viewing the movie.
Anyone else have changing opinions over time?
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