The Long Dark Knight

DannyinJapan

DannyinJapan

Joined
Oct 9, 2003
Messages
5,594
(no spoilers in this)

Movie start time- 5:00
Got up to leave - 7:45

2 hours 30 minutes. Whatever you think of the movie, you certainly get a lot of it.

They worked hard to make this movie, that was obvious.
You will have to work hard to watch it.
There is a ton of material. The movie starts out with a bang and keeps going at a break-neck speed all the way to the end. It got confusing to me when it would end, as it seemed to finish and then start again.

I wish they could have slowed down a bit and savored the actual "batman" part of the movie, but so much time was spent on political motives and the emotional problems of ugly girlfriends, you ended up kind of tired of all of them. I was missing the dark alley "where is he?" kind of moments, and there werent any.

Cool toys, new batsuit, batcycle, etc..
Some anti-patriot act kind of stuff in there, too.

Was Heath Ledger stunning in his role as the Joker? Not particularly.
He did a lot of Jim Carry-esque tongue and mouth movements. He reminded me of Jim Carry as the riddler, actually. (maybe the riddler would have been a better choice of roles)

He never actually hurts anyone in person, to my memory, so he wasnt that scary to me. He wasn't too crazy or nutty. It seemed like he was trying to do a Hannibal Lecter meets the riddler kind of thing. Boring.

Call me crazy, but I liked Jack Nicholson and Cesar Romero in the role better.
 
While I'm at it, I'd like to skewer Hellboy 2.
Same basic problem as Batman 2.
Lots and lots of great ideas and creativity, but packed so tightly into the story that you never had any time to enjoy it.
The first one had some pretty serious stuff in it and had a little humor here and there.
The second one went so hard and fast and had so little seriousness in it, that all the funny gags just lay there like fish on the dock.
I really didnt need to see a demon singing barry manilow's greatest hits.
 
Batman just got arrested for beating up his own 60 yr old mother.
Oh my gosh, I so don't want to see that movie again.
 
Specifically, Bale was arrested an an alleged domestic violence incident involving his mother and sister, which was not deemed serious enough to prevent him from attending the premier. That does not necessarily mean he "beat up his mother," though of course this is an odd bit of news that doesn't bode well for him.
 
I knew he was a bad egg when he spoke about Huey Lewis in glowing terms in "American Psycho" and when he was able to keep a straight face in any scene with Liam Neeson in a ninja costume was another tip-off. Not once was Bale caught on film coughing "tool" under his voice in "Batman Begins."
 
Batman star Christian Bale has been arrested in London after turning himself in to a police station to undergo questioning on allegations that he assaulted his mother and sister.

The incident allegedly took place in the box-office champ's Dorchester Hotel room in London on Sunday, the day before the blockbuster film's European premiere.

A Metropolitan Police spokesperson tells E! News that Bale presently faces "no charges, all we are saying at the moment is that a 34-year-old male attended a central London police station this morning, by appointment, and was arrested in connection with an allegation of assault.

"He currently remains in custody."

Per standard Scotland Yard procedure, suspects are not named until formally charged, but the age and allegation match up with the Bale reports.

It's unclear what exactly went down, but the Welsh-born Bale's 61-year-old mother, Jenny, and 40-year-old sister, Sharon, reportedly went to a Hampshire police station to make the allegation. The local cops subsequently turned the case over to London's Metropolitan Police.

Although his family lodged the charges prior to Monday night's premiere, police waited until today to question Bale to allow the event to go on without headline-grabbing interruption.

Bale made a promotional appearance on the U.K. morning show GMTV Monday morning, hours after the alleged assault, and he was his typical serious self. A production source tells E! News the actor "seemed fine" during the segment.
Click to expand...

.............
 
Here is my Sherlock on this:
If he had beat up his sister, his mother would have tried to talk her out of going to the cops. Even if she did go, his mother probably would not have gone to the station.
If he had beat up his mother, his sister would have made her go to the cops and even taken her to the station, which is what happened.
I wonder who would win: Christian Bale or russel Crowe.
Those two need some time in a room together.
 
The only thing I didn't really like was the scratchy Bat-Voice(tm).

I thought Heath Ledger was pretty good - he was crazy/creepy without being cartoony. I think a large part of the 'scare' factor is that he's both crazy AND competent.

If I had a complaint it would be the fact that I caught one editing/continuity error and possibly a second.

(No spoilers)

The one I definitely caught was in one scene the Joker's suspenders were peeking out from under his vest and then suddenly weren't in the next cut. The colour contrast was dramatic which is why I noticed.

The one I wasn't certain about was a scene where someone was holding the hammer down on a gun. The camera kept switching back and forth between two angles and it looked like the hammer wasn't actually being held in one of them.
 
DannyinJapan said:
Call me crazy, but I liked Jack Nicholson and Cesar Romero in the role better.
Click to expand...

I haven't seen Batman Begins or Dark Knight, but from the trailers I saw for each, it seems too much like they're trying to take comic book characters and transplant them from their world to a more believable one. In trying to make the subject matte more "serious", it just ends up looking more silly.

I think the Tim Burton Movies struck the right balance between kitsch and creepy for the most part. Not perfect, but hey, it's just a guy in a bat costume! :D

Anyway, it's refreshing to see someone who wasn't completely bowled over by Ledger's Robert Smith meets the Riddler performance.
 
I found Ledger to be kind of boring, really.
Cesar Romero really IS the joker, in my opinion.
I wish he had been able to star in these recent movies somehow.
 
Maybe he should contact Tupac Shakur's agent.

Romero was great and the standard against which all Jokers must be judged, but I enjoyed Ledger more.

I'm having a flashback of Colin Quinn's "Do the Robin Thing." Maybe it's on youtube? It's the Batman rendition of a Spike Lee joint.
 
I dunno, Ledger WAS the Joker, IMHO.

I'm not a huge Batman Begins/Dark Knight fan. They are great movies, but I have not been salivating to see the new movie like a lot of people.

However, having dabbled a bit in the comics (a very, very little bit given its nearly 70 year run), if you ever read The Killing Joke, you'll see a much more Ledger-like joker.
The Joker represents Batman's polar opposite. Batman does not take a life, the Joker will kill on a whim. Batman believes in Justice and balance, the Joker believes that there is no big scheme and chaos is the constant. Batman is an absolute fascist when it comes to crime doing what needs to be done to stop it if but dogmatically. The Joker is an anarchist.

They are two characters that have always clashed because in addition to their actions opposing one another, neither can gain a firm foothold on the other as their ideals are yin and yang with each other.

Burton's Joker was good. Jack did a neat job even if it was just Jack acting like Jack for 2 hours. However, I gotta disagree about Cesar's performance. He did LOOK the part of the old, old comics. However, he was about as much an accurate representation of the Joker as portrayed in the more modern comics as West's Batman is as accurate as...well, I don't think Batman was ever a potbellied middle aged man with the total absence of any chest:p

Ledger took that role to a whole new level. I say that as a guy that has never been floored by his acting. He was really became the chaotic sociopath that the Joker is at the core of the character.
 
I was under the impression that Batman used to shoot bad guys with a 1911...
Didnt he carry a pistol in the early years of the comic?

The idea of not killing the killers seems like the crazy part to me. If you are going to enforce the law, then you are going to be shot at and there is no good reason to risk your own life to save the lives of bad guys who are trying to kill you, unless of course you are trying to make a martyr of yourself. Your standard, run of the mill Police officer carries a pistol and uses it when he needs to. Why would a super hero cripple himself in such a way?
You cant blame it on his "ninja" training. I promise you, they have no such rules...

I will say that I was impressed with the fact that the new batsuit and batmobile were not props. They were the real deal.
 
I haven't read the earliest Batman comics, but the explanation I read in the older ones is that Batman hated guns because they killed his parents (classic blame the tools). However, he never seemed to have a problem killing bad guys in other ways, if necessary, but preferred to "bring them to justice".

Chalk it up to the liberal comic writers' ideals that murderers shouldn't be killed unless there's absolutely no other choice,and that any extreme or expense (witness the Bat toys) should be gone to to avoid using firearms.
 
Forget the political doubletalk and think about the dramatics:

If Batman meets the Joker, pulls a gun and shoots him, 1) the movie is over, and 2) there's no sequel, either. :p

The "liberal" moviemakers never shy away from violence. They had fists, knives, firearms, and explosives in this one. That's a case of "don't tell me, show me" if ever I saw it.
 
Esav Benyamin said:
Forget the political doubletalk and think about the dramatics:

If Batman meets the Joker, pulls a gun and shoots him, 1) the movie is over, and 2) there's no sequel, either. :p

The "liberal" moviemakers never shy away from violence. They had fists, knives, firearms, and explosives in this one. That's a case of "don't tell me, show me" if ever I saw it.
Click to expand...

I wasn't referring to the violence they love to make money off of, I mean their personal ideals. Most of them are rabidly anti-gun, some anti-any weapon at all in their daily lives. That bias DID come through in the Batman comics. Sure, he had no problem blowing people up (apparently rocket launchers from some of the various Batmobiles is OK), or killing them in various other ways, but he was always preaching that guns are the tools of the enemy.

Now, the Punisher. . .not too "super", but more my kind of hero.
 
I did some digging around and discovered that the original Batman DID use guns and DID kill bad guys. (during the first 6 months or so) Apparently, once the comic got big, an editorial decision was made that Batman would limit his violence and stop using guns, which helped increase sales of the comic. Esav was right in more ways than one.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top