Comments on: The Dark Knight

By: Phil Early

Phil Early — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 22:39:49 +0000

“Nolan’s attempt at lifiting the story… into the realm of Goodfellas, The French Connection, and The Godfather, is bound to fail.” Your subjective opinion; certainly it didn’t fail commercially, and critically the movie was provocative, and timely. I find the movie even better on repeated viewings, and perhaps this indicates this will be a classic that far outlasts some minority of critical intellectual quibbles. I judge the movie not close to kitsch, and I don’t think Nolan was trying for the Godfather, or Goodfellas, they were telling his story. That it has been mis-compared to those movies tells you how highly people hold Nolan’s accomplishment. There’s no comparison, but TDK stands on it’s own as a brilliant piece of film making.
On a personal note the Joker was shooting, if it was me I’d have run his crazy ass over. In the movie it’s Batman’s non-compromising morals. But you can’t kill the joker. Out of respect for H. Ledger they’ll wait twenty years, then revive him on film again.

By: Vinc M

Vinc M — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 01:49:14 +0000

Just suffered through the excrutiating Dark Knight and so relieved to hear others had a similar response. Heath was the beginning and end of anything vaguely interesting about this tedious piece of cinematic torture. Seeing all the raves and heaps of masterpiece praise made me wonder about my own sanity, but only for a moment. Oddly, not a single person I know liked this movie. How is it that there is such a schism between critics and real people on this one? …unless all the people I know that saw this thing may be too in the dark to get it.

By: tink'snemesis

tink'snemesis — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 22:04:13 +0000

Hoo Boy – here’s another unhappy camper – and I say camper because I felt like a weekend was going by in that IMAX instead of – what did you all say? Only 2 hours 20 minutes?! I looked forward to the occasional Actual IMAX scenes which were so amazing to look at – then – bam -back to partial Imax size and the damn story with the repetitive themes…dynamics….z-z-z-z-z
Oh – not too many are commenting on this – is Batman channeling Bea Arthur or Kathleen Turner when he speaks?
Now – was that supposed to be humorous? Because the movie needed a tiny touch of levity since it is a wall-to-wall downer from start to finish…

By: jay

jay — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 03:08:15 +0000

Jürgen, thanks for having the balls to say what a piece of shit movie this is. The emperor is definitely wearing his birthday suit. Truth hurts I guess. But if we listen to TDK, maybe we don’t need the truth! Down with your negative comments then! Stop this website! Call in the electronic sonar!

By: omo

omo — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 14:31:11 +0000

even i was terrified to say it.. that i was let down.. hugely let down… and yes, the emperor is naked indeed…i hated it.. hated it.. hated it.. and i must say im finally relieved to learn im not alone in this… as far as i was concerned, i could have spent the entire time watching the joker..

By: b wolper

b wolper — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 03:38:08 +0000

Escape from Arkham
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3224/2715855571_a15c125d28_o.jpg

By: b little

b little — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 05:08:50 +0000

I don’t see the spoilers in the review. Other complaints of this short review fall apart as well. This movie in no way deserves the comparisons to Chinatown, The Godfather, or any other crime movie. It is not a crime movie. It is another adaptation of comic book stories. The problem is the comic books were better. They were at least consistent and coherent. This movie was good. Not great. Good. It could be classified as a flawed masterpiece if it weren’t for all of the failures to deliver. It is more of a failed masterpiece. It attempted to tell a good story but couldn’t always pull it off. Much of the movie was cluttered with too many asides and disappointing payoffs. I wonder if this movie would be as widely accepted if the actor who provided the best performance was still alive. It seems that his tragedy has skewed the perspective on a decent—though definitely not instant-classic—film.

By: StanleyK

StanleyK — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 04:20:19 +0000

you wrote:
“heaps of vicious violence, Gotham City politics that play a little bit like The Wire, only stupid”

Question: how were you able to write that line if you only recently saw all five seasons of The Wire…?? How would you know that TDK was more or less stupid than The Wire?

By: Sean C

Sean C — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 00:31:58 +0000

I saw TDK on Sunday with much anticipation and was as disappointed as I’ve ever been in a film that had been so widely and keenly praised. I completely agree with your brief review; and you’re far from alone – David Denby canned it in The New Yorker and he was right on the money, too. It truly is a tedious, wearying experience.

By: Alvy Singer

Alvy Singer — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 16:23:28 +0000

First of all, sorry for the grammar. I’m an spanish blogger and critic and here is happening the same. The fanboys attack every people that sees TDK as a very very weak movie with a lot of noise. I’m proud of reading these smart critic, and I thought that Armond White’s review was the first I’ve read that explains something of that the movie means and talk about movies, about the shots, and all this stuff.

Thanks Jurgen for this great review, wich has considerations to what pop culture means, and if the movie is really somethin’. It has no power in his language. And I talk of language thinking ’bout Welles, Scorsese, DePalma. I don’t like Mann because I’m european, that means that I’ve seen the Melville’s cinema first. And this is just for american people.

Well, this reviewers (Mr. White, you, Keith) consider the moral issues of the movies. I’m sure that Rosenbaum would hate it.