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I don't want to beat around the bush, Heath's death had a huge impact on my viewing. It was that much more chilling seeing him up there. The Joker said to Batman something like, "we are destined to do this forever".

The acting was superb, a very well cast movie. The cinematography and score lent heavily to the dark, grand feel. The classic themes were as powerful as ever.

It was a great movie, i still prefer Jack Nicholson as the joker in the 1989 version but Heath Ledger definately brought the joker back to the maniac he should have been. Not the prankster that Nicholson played

Man, they such a big deal out of Prince's music being in the movie. Or at least Prince did.

Kendall wrote:

I enjoyed it. Heath Ledger did a fine job. Best performance ever? Oscar, Oscar? No.

I never say this about a movie but it was too long. And I rarely analyse movies much but there were some plot things I questioned. Actually, by the end of the movie I didn't really even care who lived or died.

Maybe I didn't enjoy it that much. Too much hype.

It probably was a little long. There was a lot going on. Still, I didn't want it to end myself. I'll be seeing it again soon with the fam.

I was invested by the end of the movie. The way they tied all the themes together with what was going on on the boats I thought was great. I read this somewhere and I agree with it, it really drove home the fact that Gotham was a city worth saving for Batman.

Bat wrote:

Fortunately it wasn't, and was easily ignored for the marketing hype it was.

Christian Bale, tho, went and got arrested today- some little alleged family assault matter.

A Met spokesman said: "A 34-year-old man attended a police station in central London by appointment and was arrested in connection with an allegation of assault - he currently remains in custody." ®

Update
Bale was this afternoon released on bail until September "pending further inquiries".

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/22/bale_arrested/

Damn, that's a shame.

Bale is great. He is quickly becoming one of my favorite actors as I see more and more of his films.

Honestly, it was a bit too dark for me.  I was pretty surprised by how violent and thematically disturbing it was.  There really weren't a lot of points of light in the whole flick. (guess I could have guessed that from the title)  It was a well-made movie, but didn't deliver on a lot of the kinds of things I typically go to an action flick for.  Stylistically I think it was more akin to Silence of the Lambs or Se7en than any comic-book-blockbuster that I've ever seen.

Aqua OS X wrote:

Ledger was awesome, Bale's Bat-voice was over the top and silly, Two-Face's eye ball made me want to barf, and the movie was quite long.

That said, I'll be seeing it again. Best action flick I've seen in a while.

I've heard that complaint before about Bale's Batman voice. I believe it's necessary and thus understandable. It does feel somewhat unnatural, but I'd rather that than him using his regular voice and nobody noticing it's him. That would frustrate me even more so.

elpato84 wrote:

I think the MPAA rating was a bit suspect. Isn't it plausible for a movie to get [R] rating by themes alone, without help from the usual sex and violence?

Sure, but we're talking money. It's rare for a big-budget film expected to make major box-office to get an R; they earn less. They'll recut a film multiple times if need be to sqeak in with less. In summer especially, with high school kids a likely majority demographic.

Part of the issue is that MPAA doesn't really give much weight to thematic violence versus visual.  As far as I can remember there was very little blood in The Dark Knight, but there were a lot of extremely disturbing things that happened off-screen or were just talked about or implied.  (what happened to the two guys who had to fight each other to the death with a pool stick?)

StaticAge wrote:

dhack21 wrote:

StaticAge wrote:

Have you taken your meds today? You are talking about the one where he comes in playing "Batdance" right?

Same exact.

I just prefer the way Nicholson portrayed the Joker as being more humerous. Dont get me wrong ledger did a fantastic job bringing the character back to the maniac that the joker was intended to be. Jack just seemed to have more fun with the role.

Opinions, huh? Dont get me wrong, I liked Tim Burton's Batman, and I kinda thought the humor came from that because he definitely drew out the bizarre freakish angle of people dressing up in costume to fight people. Michael Keaton talking on the phone half in his outfit was just a really cool weird scene. Jack's Jack, and I do think he played a good Joker, but it required a lot of belief suspension, and Ledger's Joker strangely did not. This was the first time I saw a movie with people dressing up in costumes to fight crime or do crimes which seemed totally believable while watching.

Yeah, good point, Static. The fact that the movie took itself seriously lead to a level of believability I haven't seen in a comic book blockbuster yet. As outlandish as the things we were seeing are, they felt real.

kman wrote:

Honestly, it was a bit too dark for me.  I was pretty surprised by how violent and thematically disturbing it was.  There really weren't a lot of points of light in the whole flick. (guess I could have guessed that from the title)  It was a well-made movie, but didn't deliver on a lot of the kinds of things I typically go to an action flick for.  Stylistically I think it was more akin to Silence of the Lambs or Se7en than any comic-book-blockbuster that I've ever seen.

These are the reasons people are liking it though.

The first new batman was exceedingly good because it took the time to build the characters and make the story somewhat realistic. This one just threw new characters at the audience and went way over the top with the random deus ex machina style solutions to problems.