I really dont get it... (Dark Knight)

[vultureX21]

To whit, you also never presented what it was that bothered you about it so much other than the hype and merchandising (which happens with most major motion pictures). What specifically about the film's construction/acting/sets/filming/plot did you dislike? Throw out some rationale for being unimpressed and then we've got ourselves a conversation worth having.

I found Christan Bale's acting to be quite hilarious, and not in a good way. It was a very mediocre performance that I would assume a video game knock off to sound like, no the actual character in the movie. Me and my girlfriend laughed at every other word out of his mouth, and all of his cheesy dialogue. Now granted, super hero movies SHOULD have this, but when people start nominating Emmy's for it, its insane.

And the Jokers lip batting and over the top dialogue just got annoying.

Now remember, I didn't have any negative feelings towards the movie, just the entire teenage American population.

Sure, it played a roll in why I may have came into the movie ready to judge it, but if it was a generally good movie, it would not be a problem.

And the entire reason for this thread was for someone to please explain WHY this movie is so hyped, and praised?
No one can seem to give me a logical answer as to why its such a great movie

See that's exactly the kind of thing I am looking for! An honest to God supported argument!

Bale was trying to swap voices from Wayne to Batman, it was awful, totally agree. Personally I enjoyed Ledger's over the top presentation of the Joker as a totally psychotic criminal with no motivation other than to be the chaos countering Batman's order. But, this is a strong point of contention among fans, many of whom don't like the darker tone in general or just preferred Nicholson. Matter of personal taste I would say.

Now as to why it was hyped and praised so much? Well, Heath Ledger. It got a lot more credit and attention than it deserved to be sure. However, was it good? Hell yes, it was, despite Bale not recognizing how much he hammed up the voice shifting. Personally, it was performances from Eckhart, Oldman, Caine, and Freeman that really made it enjoyable to watch. A very talented supporting cast made for some excellent characters and dialogue and again, I did think Ledger took the Clockwork Orange version of Joker to new heights that I liked. As I stated earlier, the plot was a big issue for many, but again I compare it to Heat. We're looking for actors in dramatic scenes that they nail, unfortunately The Dark Knight is lacking a good performance from Bale and that holds it back.

So I think yeah it was totally over-hyped and I also think if you had seen it with significantly less pre-screening praise you would have liked it more for what it is, a good action drama. And more directly, no, there is no reason (other than Ledger's death, which apparently meant the last big movie he was in had to be Citizen Kane) for it to have been so praised, but don't let that jaded view knock a good film out on its ear.

 

[Mcface]

snip

Fair enough.

I think time will tell, when the squeal comes out, if people still flock to see it, and it starts up a trend again. I'm willing to bet, unless the crew murders one of the actors a few weeks before release, the movie wont do nearly as well as the Dark Knight, which I guess I was too harsh on, it's not an awful movie, but personally for me, the over hyped situation of a "meh" movie to where its winning awards is just unforgivable.

 

[sheic99]

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080716/REVIEWS/55996637/1023

The first paragraph physically hurt me.

 

[Rook of Spades]

it makes sence, harvey dent randomly shows up into gotham all good and stuff and so does joker and neither of them have even existed before this point and harvey despite being all good and all has some strange grudge against commisioner gordon who somehow has gotten away with working with someone that you are supposed to arrest on sight for what like 5 years and harvey is going out with the girl bruce wayne wants to be going out with and bruce acts all sad and then he LETS HER DIE for harvey who almost immediatley becomes a homicidal maniac and then goes around flipping coins and shooting people and then threatens gordons family then totaly unrelatedly the joker somehow puts enough oil onto 2 boats and wants them to kill eachother and it takes forever and the rest of the movie is monolouging. THE END! batman arkham asylum was good tho =]

okay, now it's ON.

The Joker didn't just randomly appear at the beginning of the movie, they hinted at him at the end of Batman Begins with the Joker card.

Harvey Dent didn't randomly appear either, there were multiple fake newscasts made to promote the movie that focused on Harvey Dent running for the position of Gotham DA.

Harvey Dent's grudge isn't against Gordon but against the fact that Gordon is working with a vigilante as well as having some cops that he suspects to be criminals or informants for the mob.

Batman didn't let her die, the Joker gave the cops and Batman the right addresses but told them that the address where she was was where Dent was and the one where Dent was was where she was.

The jump to homicidal maniac wasn't immediate, Dent clearly had some issues before hand, which was shown when he kidnapped one of the Joker's goons who was in custody and threatened him with a gun for information. When he landed in the hospital, Dent saw it as the final proof of everything he'd said was wrong with Gotham, and even then had to be convinced by the Joker to kill anyone. He didn't just go around randomly shooting anyone he saw either, all his targets were specifically chosen for (at least in his mind) having played a role in Rachel's death. He didn't even kill them immediately, instead choosing to leave their fate to luck, giving them the same chance at life that Rachel had.

The part with the boats wasn't unrelated, The Joker orchestrated both events as separate attempts to throw Gotham into chaos and cause even more death.

Putting the oil on the boats wouldn't have been too difficult, the Joker has henchmen all over the place, so if he could have some in the cops, why not a few dock or boat workers?

The monologue was relevant to the plot, and wrapped the story up rather nicely.

Damn, it just hit me how big a nerd I am.

 

[Finnboghi]

I managed to obtain a VERY little known leaked copy 2 days before the premier, so there was absolutely no spoiling for me.

I enjoyed about 75% of it, and hated the other 25%.

The Joker was awesome.

Because his writer was awesome.

It had dick-all to do with the actor.

Personally I enjoy dark movies with a sense of humour, which I felt Dark Knight was quite lacking in.

It's not a horrible movie, but it could have been much better.

 

[Flying-Emu]

Wow. Not only do you think Dark Knight is overrated, but also Slum Dog Millionaire. What do you also think The Godfather and Alien are overrated too? Dark Knight was probably the best superhero movie ever, and there is so much attention to detail in that movie. Everything was crafted amazingly from cinematography to sound editing. And it was paced so well unlike a lot of other movies which have disappointed me in recent years.

Of course excluding the fact that it was ridonkulously long.

 

[TheSunshineHobo]

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080716/REVIEWS/55996637/1023

The first paragraph physically hurt me.

Why?

 

[Altorin]

As much as you like to complain about heath ledger, he held that movie up all by himself. If his portrayal of the joker wasn't so spoton and awesome, the movie would have sucked.

So that being said, the reason the dark knight rocked was because of the joker.

 

[NBSRDan]

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080716/REVIEWS/55996637/1023

The first paragraph physically hurt me.

Why?

"Heath Ledger stars as The Joker in a scene with Christian Bale, who plays Batman in "The Dark Knight.""
A scene? Has the person who wrote that seen the movie?

 

[Kstreitenfeld]

Besides the stupidly deep batman voice that came off as very annoying to me, I thought it was a good movie.

 

[JWAN]

I thought the joker was the best batman joker of all time. I also thought that it was the best batman movie of all time.

but one of the BEST MOVIES OF ALL TIME. it ranks pretty high up on the chart but its not the best.

 

[y1fella]

i dont get why people like the dark night so much it was a decent film but not some classic we should faun over

 

[lenin_117]

This just in. Someone went into a movie with a negative attitude and came out displeased. Stop the presses!

I will try goddammit

 

[Pegghead]

It's a fucking comic book movie

In no way does the primary medium of telling a story determine the value of that story in film. Most movie critics and cultural analysts have recognized the relevance of comic books as art and literature by now, you can't just toss out the "it's a comic therefore it's automatically inferior and not as valuable" argument anymore.

As for not liking The Dark Knight I mean, that's personal opinion but, as another commenter already alluded to, you went in with negative expectations, which are difficult to overcome. Frankly, yeah you are in the minority, so what? You didn't like it and that's fine, I guess I am a little confused by the aggressive "prove to me why I should have liked it" stance.

To whit, you also never presented what it was that bothered you about it so much other than the hype and merchandising (which happens with most major motion pictures). What specifically about the film's construction/acting/sets/filming/plot did you dislike? Throw out some rationale for being unimpressed and then we've got ourselves a conversation worth having.

I went in to it with the mindset that I was going to enjoy it

I just think its extremely wanky to take something which has a reputation of being in a certain style and then taking that, saying phwaa to all the other perfectly good and successful examples of that genre and aiming to be more...artistic so it can avoid relation to its other members of the genre (Its kind of like how whenever a film was made of a picture book say Jumanji it was normally just a good, all-rounder family flick, then some douche from hollywood comes along and says phwaa, I don't want my picture book to be like those films and then they go off and make where the wild things are the movie (GAAAAH I HATE THEM SO MUCH))

I didn't like the characters (Even the good guys, Batman for instance), the plot seemed to be all over the place, it was far too long, the direction of the film made it seem like it was trying too hard, to please fans, to be considered for an award

I thoroughly enjoy comic-book films so I don't think of them as inferior in any way, shape or form and personally relished the idea of a new batman film

And yes I can toss out the comicbook argument, let's face it, they're basically just a collection of well drawn pictures surrounded by boofs and bams, also with good character development and freedom to assist the characterisation process, so they serve their purpose and serve it well (Spare the anime ones, that's a whole different ball game)

I'll admit it had its moments and yes it wasn't the worst movie I've ever seen, It's just that to me it did not live up to the mass hype surrounding it and I just don't see how it's attained such a mass following

And you sure do talk alot

I really don't want to start a flame war but if people on the escapist are gonna contradict me, brother I can go as long as you want.

 

[SonicKoala]

I thought it was a fantastic movie. In my opinion, it completely redefined what a comic-book movie is capable of. It took all these characters that had already existed for sometime and practically re-defined them. You didn't like Heath Ledger's "over the top dialogue"? How could the Joker possibly be portrayed any other way?

I'll admit that Christian Bale switching voices when he was Batman was freaking annoying after a while, but I don't see what you're talking about when you call Bale's dialogue "cheesy"? What was cheesy about it in the slightest? Bale was by no means the star of the show, but he gave a really solid performance. That being said, every performance in this movie was worth watching. Aaron Eckhart was second to Heath Ledger, in my opinion, particularly the flawless transition he made from the Harvey Dent persona into Two-Face. And who can't love Morgan Freeman? Seriously, that man can't give a bad performance.

I feel the Dark Knight has been so highly praised because it seems like so much more than just a comic-book movie. It features characters that, despite dressing up in costumes or wearing face paint, feel like real people, with a much broader range of emotion than the comic book ever allowed. However, this would obviously cause a lot of contention among hardcore fans of the comic book, because the movie is, after all, trying to break away from that medium. If you're a huge fan of the comic book, I can understand why you don't like it. Myself, on the other hand, am a huge fan of film, and I personally found that the Dark Knight was flawlessly executed, with an excellently written script, fantastic acting, really solid cinematography, and a certain level of thematic complexity that makes the film memorable long after you've seen it.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

I didn't really like it, I didn't really like Batman Begins, or Tim Burtons batman movies. It's not that I dislike batman it's just that I grew up watching that oh so classic Batman: the movie so I was given the mindset of batman being this bright, colourful character along with the villians (Which they were). Though the hype really pissed me off, Heath Ledger? Who cares about heath ledger, he was a nobody in the films industrie, emmy awar winning? It's a fucking comic book movie, that's what pissed me off so badly with Watchmen.

The Watchmen was said to be unfilmable and yet it seems to have succeeded more than it failed. Nolan's vision of Batman has revitalized a character that, outside the comic book crowd, had absolutely zero crediblity as a viable or important figure. Heath Ledger was the first actor to portrey the Joker as a broken, twisted figure rather than the usual camp with which he was portreyed (As in version of Batman from the '80's or the animated series from more recent memory).

Are any of these things really important? I suppose not in the grand scheme of things, but then if one wants to view media on such a broad canvas then the world must be a fairly bleak place. Each of these things represents a success of sorts and while they may not appeal to all I would hope that people can at least recognize positive qualities when they present themselves.

Besides, to conclude such a diatribe with an indictment against these films because they are based on a comic book seems comicly out of place. The Watchmen, in spite of being a comic book, is held by Time Magazine as one of the 100 greatest novels of all time. Batman is a character that has powered not only a comic for more than five decades, but also spawned countless movies, hundreds of episodes of television, an endless line of toys and other products and stared in more than a handful of games (including the most recent darling Arkham Asylum). Comic books, more than other media, beg to be translated into film because they are by their very nature visual media. And while comic books often portrey fantastical vliians and heroes with undremt of power, the best of them examine the very real issues that people deal with throughout their lives. Make no mistake, comic books have as much value to our culture as any other work of literature, perhaps more when you consider their particular ability to attract the youngest of audiences. And, like any material destined for the silver screen, a comic book movie must be handled with care or risk falling flat on it's face.

 

[Housebroken Lunatic]

It isn't that good really. It's just Heath Ledgers intepretation of The Joker that makes the movie watchable. The rest is quite boring.

Also, Christian Bale, like all the other actors trying to play Batman before him... Suck. Big time. Batman is just too much of a larger than life character for any actor to portray well...

 

[TheSunshineHobo]

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080716/REVIEWS/55996637/1023

The first paragraph physically hurt me.

Why?

"Heath Ledger stars as The Joker in a scene with Christian Bale, who plays Batman in "The Dark Knight.""
A scene? Has the person who wrote that seen the movie?

That person is Roger Ebert, one of, if not the most, famous and well known critics in the world. What you quoted was the description of the photo above it. Did you read the entire review? I suggest you do that and learn how picture captions work.

 

[Skeleon]

Actually, I'm with you, OP. Didn't like it much, either. Watchmen was better but also overrated in my opinion.
Maybe I just dislike superhero movies in general (though I really liked The Shadow and some of the older Batman movies, for example the one with Jack Nicholson as the Joker).

 

[Housebroken Lunatic]

The Watchmen was said to be unfilmable and yet it seems to have succeeded more than it failed.

No they didn't. They failed more than they succeeded.

Watchmen the graphic novel had a lot more existential ideas and conveyed them to the reader in excellent ways. But like hollywood always does, they dumbed it down for the movie and focused mostly on the more boring and "human" characters of the story (Silk Spectre and Nite Owl, that is).

Dr Manhattan, Rorschach, Ozymandias and The Comedian had a lot more scenes and a lot more "screentime" in the graphic novel. These where the characters that were interesting, and the situations and lines of thought the engaged in were interesting. But they replaced that with more post-matrix action sequences and other mind-numbing crap.

Sure it had a novelty value in nice looking special effects and Im sure you can appeal to some audience by showing scenes of a naked Malin Akerman having sex... But it doesn't really stand out much from anything else hollywood does. Action, sex and over the top special effects, but little brain behind it all.

That being said, the movie could have been worse. I could have felt outrage, but I didn't. Instead I just felt disappointed, which isn't ood eighet. But it could have been a lot worse, they could have chopped it up in a more unpredictable way, but instead the way they did it was rather predictable...