The Dark Knight
Well, I finally got to see this one. And,
as Rose Tyler tried to get Queen Victoria to say - I am not amused. Seriously, is Christopher Nolan trying to completely destroy the Batman franchise? Hasn't Joel Schumacher did enough damage to it with
Batman Forever and
Batman & Robin?
The Joker in this movie is a joke (hee hee, pun
). And not in a good way. For example, who is he and where did he come from? The original Joker (played by Jack Nicholson) had a whole backstory which started with him being Jack Napier, a young petty criminal on the streets of Gotham City, killing Bruce Wayne's parents and rising through the ranks of the criminal underground until he fell into the pool of acid during the fight with Batman and became the Joker.
In this movie, he just came out of nowhere and started terrorizing Gotham City for his own amusement. Even the police couldn't figure out who he is when they captured him. Mmmkay... And why saving him at the end? Wouldn't it be simpler and easier to let him fall to his death, thus getting rid of him permanently? They could've even blame him for Harvey Dent's crimes to spare Batman the trouble of taking the blame for something he didn't do.
The whole movie lacks depth and feels rushed. For example, Harvey Dent's transformation from Gotham City's poster boy for justice and anti-corruption hero into Two-Face should have taken longer and make more sense, instead of simply having half of his face burned, Joker coming to him in the hospital (which he later blew up) and giving him a short speech, showing him the world from his twisted point of view, which made Dent go after his (former) friends and co-workers, instead of simply pulling the trigger and killing Joker on the spot with the gun he placed into his hand, since it was the Joker who killed his girlfriend and tried to kill him, resulting in half of his face being burned. Instead, Dent opted to blame everyone else for his loss except the one who started the whole chain of events which, in the end, resulted in Dent's demise. Damn. If he didn't become a criminal, Joker would've made a fine career as a motivational speaker.
Addendum:
The Dark Knight Rises
Por favor, Senor Nolan, please, for the love of god, do me a favor and stop butchering the Batman with these shallow half-assed wannabe-movies. Please, oh please give the director's stick back to Tim Burton, before it's too late. Or just stop making the Batman movies all together. Either would be fine. Really.
As expected, this movie picks up where the previous one left off, only 8 years later. After taking the blame for Harvey Dent's death, Batman has disappeared. And so has Bruce Wayne who apparently spent those 8 years hiding in his (restored) mansion. He still managed to hurt himself badly enough to need a cane to walk around, though. Interesting. I wonder how he managed that, considering he had Alfred to do all the work for him.
Anyway, a new villain named Bane came to Gotham City with an intention to do what Ra's al Ghul tried to do in the
Batman Begins - destroy Gotham City. As it turned out, Bane is a former member of the League of Shadows, the same group Bruce Wayne joined before he became Batman, and which taught him some useful tricks, before he turned against them.
Okay, so we got another wacko with no real backstory other than he being a former member of the League of Shadows who rescued him from a prison. Who is he? Why was he imprisoned in the first place? Lots of questions, but zero answers. In the end, it turned out he wasn't even the main villain, but only a hired muscle for the real villain, a daughter of Ra's al Ghul who's been hiding in plain sight the whole time, and who intended to finish her father's work. Sheesh. Why are so many people so keen on destroying the Gotham City? And if you really want to destroy it, why not just detonating that damn nuclear bomb you got your hands on instead of setting it on a 5 months timer while at the same time holding the detonator you could press at any time to manually set it off? What's the point?
Joker was a joke in the previous movie. Bruce Wayne / Batman is a joke in this one. After 8 years of "retirement", he got out of shape so badly that Bane managed to do what no other villain ever has - kicked his ass so badly he could've easily killed him, if he wanted. Instead, he left him alive and dumped him in the same prison the League of Shadows sprung him from.
So, while the bomb slowly ticked the 5 months away, Bruce struggled to get back into shape, escape the prison and return to Gotham City. With the help of the Gotham police, he mounted an assault on Bane & his personal army and kicked Bane's butt, only to be (literally) stabbed in the back by Miranda Tate, a member of the Wayne Enterprises executive board who kept her real identity of Talia al Ghul, Ra's al Ghul's daughter, a secret the whole time, and who also had the detonator for the bomb. Oh, the humanity!
Of course, Batman wouldn't be Batman if he didn't save everyone in the end.
Nolan managed to stuff Catwoman as well into this movie. Why? I'm not really sure. Just like the Joker and Bane, she has no backstory whatsoever, unlike in Tim Burton's original where we got to know Selina Kyle a little before she became the Catwoman. Her role in the movie seems completely unnecessary to me, it's like she's in the movie just for the sake of being there. Might as well stuck the Penguin in there as well, while he was at it. Hell, why stop there? Where's the Riddler? Mr. Freeze? Poison Ivy? I mean, if you're going to fill the movie with the unnecessary characters, why not go all the way, right?
Doctor Crane, aka the Scarecrow from the
Batman Begins made a pointless appearance too.
All in all, an average movie at best. Worth watching it on TV. Not worth coughing up for a cinema ticket and / or a DVD, though. It's also a bit too long for my taste, although I could blame that on frequent commercial breaks.
