Siddown, Shut Up
“The Dark Knight was not a great movie,” Marshall Fine explains to the fan boys who wanted it nominated for Best Picture. “It was only half a good movie. It was not as good as Batman Begins. It was not as consistently entertaining as Iron Man.
“There’s a solid 90-minute movie buried within the 150-minute slog that is The Dark Knight. And even that wouldn’t have been worthy of an Oscar nomination.
“Personally, I’m still trying to figure out why so many people got so worked up about this bloated, self-important movie. It kind of blew, in the same way that Spider-man 3 kind of blew.
“Sure, it was dark and broody. And then, for a change of pace, it was darker and broodier.
“The Dark Knight had more prelims than a Don King undercard. You had to sit through Batman slugging it out with what seemed like dozens of faceless, generic henchmen before he actually worked his way to the Joker. It was as if Batman tried to cut in line to buy Springsteen tickets – and then had to take on everyone else in the line – before confronting the Boss himself.
“If you want to make a movie about Two-Face, go ahead and make one. But don’t graft it on to the Batman-Joker movie, like some weird Ray Milland/Roosevelt Grier clone. By the time Aaron Eckhart was burned into a special-effects nightmare worthy of early Sam Raimi, you mostly wished he’d just die and shut up. Or spin off to his own movie.
“Too much of this over-earnest outing was devoted to convincing people to take it seriously. It practically screamed, ‘This is literature! This is art, by God!’
“Meanwhile, writer-director Christopher Nolan left out a couple of key elements. Fun, for one. Excitement, for another. If I wanted to listen to Nolan’s dissertation on the nature of heroism in modern society, I would have gone to grad school with him.”
A-MAN! Finally. It’s about time. Bloated, self-important movie if there ever was one. Take away Heath Ledger excellent (though over-hyped) role, and all you get is a very long and very boring movie. Batman Begins was indeed much better, and I’ll take Iron Man over TDK every day.
Yay! Finally, the truth. Although, to be honest, Ironman was no great shakes either. Just okay. And Robert Downey, Jr. and Gweneth Paltrow had absolutely no chemistry…..NADA. I had to wonder what the big fuss was about, as did my other half. These films get way too much attention if you ask me. Thank god for Heath Ledger…..the major saving grace of Knight, because Bale, a reasonably good actor, has rarely been more leaden. The main reason Bale isn’t a really huge star by now has to do with his ultra seriousioty as an actor. He just never radiates that he’s having much fun onscreen to me, a sort of pre-requisite for being a true movie star and a compelling superhero. And, yah, Nolan takes himself far too seriously too. Fine hit the nail on the head here, whether a lot of people want to hear it or not.
Count me as another underwhelmed by The Dark Knight. Nolan sure doesn’t know how to craft exciting action sequences.
Cut out all the parts without the Joker and you’ve got a good movie.
A very, very misguided piece by Marshall Fine. I’d sit here and debate him on how wrong his stance is, but I have coffee to drink and errands to run. Equating TDK with the diarrhea flakes that were Spiderman 3 is reason enough not to take his argument seriously.
People, come on I understand that not everyone loves every movie nor dislikes every movie… That said I also see that it’s now fashionable to hate on a well-received film. Dark Knight wasn’t meant to be entertaining in an Ironman way. Yes in many ways (except superpowers) Batman is closer to Spidey in terms of mental anguish and a sense of duty. Thing is Spidey has powers and a mind of a person still forming and growing. Bats on the other hand is a Man who remakes himself into a protector of the innocent to deal with his anguish and mourning. I actually think that the Batman TV show (Campy fun) really did a bad job os destroying the central character of Bats. He is a ‘Dark Knight’ operating outside of the law for the common good.
Heath’s performance by the way imho is not a trick or over-hyped. How do I think this? Watch the dang opening. See Heath for most of the opening without his make-up… just a mask and yet his entire body/action is the embodiment of mayhem. Most of the ‘tricks’ Heath uses in creating the Joker from his movements to his make-up was all Heath’s doing.
I think Bale has done the right thing here as well. Drunken, silly misanthrope rich playboy and dead serious provider of justice.
Nolan and crew have fashioned a true ‘Dark Knight’. I find it great to have some of our superheroes suffer from the burden of angst, guilt and perhaps even a skewered sense of justice.
Above it was mentioned what Bat’s had to go through when he stopped the ‘fake bats’ in their tracks. I believe the purpose of scenes like that is to show the effect Bats actions is having on Gotham.
About Two-Face… the point with him is simple… you have to have a Villain create him. That is his origin. Sure perhaps you could devote an entire film to Two-Face… but you still have to create him as a victim of another major villain.
I only had one REAL problem with ‘The Dark Knight’ as a whole… I wished Nolan would have included the scene from the script that let’s us know what the Joker did after Bats and lady left the penthouse party through the plate glass window.
If you want fun and a high old time from your superhero comic book movies then do two things… stay away from the upcoming ‘The Watchmen’ movie and wait until the next Ironman installment.
And Wells — Crossing Over — what’s the deal!?
Personally, it’s not even The Dark Knight I’m upset about anymore. It’s the fact that The Reader took the spot that could have been occupied by another great movie from this year. I wish the Academy had the balls to nominate Che or Revolutionary Road, but those movies bore/scare Academy members. And they’d never nominate Wall-E or Man on Wire, despite being the best reviewed wide and limited release films of the year. Ultimately, it’s incredibly meaningless.
Btw, I’d like to add that the Annie Awards have been completely disqualified in my mind for their COMPLETE shut out of Wall-E in favor of Kung Fu Panda. What gives?
I don’t understand the ‘Iron Man’ love — it has the appeal of a Saturday morning cartoon and Favreau’s direction feels like its catered toward the Mountain Dew chugging video game crowd. Good performances, though.
And yeah, he needs to go back and watch ‘Spider-Man 3′ again, maybe he’s forgotten how F-ing awful that thing was — at least Batman didn’t go around Gotham, grinding on unsuspecting patrons…
More to the point, STFU.
He can criticize the fanboys all he wants but there is no arguing with the reviews for the film and the box office, two things the Academy usually, when they are of right mind, responds to. It’s a joke for them not to nominate this film – a complete and utter joke – and lame people who whine about how bloated it is, or whatever dumb thing, have simply it. Hey, we all can’t agree on everything – and if we can’t agree on what makes a good film why not at least acknowledge something that achieved more than any other film did this year.
Or else just STFU. I mean, really. Talk about pointless whining – the film was shut out of best picture – why doesn’t make assholes like this happy enough to STFU? They should keep their dumb mouths shut.
“I’ll take Iron Man over TDK every day. ”
Ouch, how embarrassing.
If ever there were a movie whose level of admiration would become decimated without its fireworks performer, that movie isn’t The Dark Knight, it’s Iron Man. Take away Robert Downey Jr. (hell, just take away the first twenty minutes of Robert Downey Jr.), and you’ve got a mildly passable superhero surrounded by a handful of forgettable supporting characters.
Marshall Fine, you’re not Moses here. Nobody was waiting for you to come down the mountain with a couple of stone tablets dictating the TRUTH about The Dark Knight to the blinkered masses. You’re just another outlier in the range of opinions of this movie. Get over thyself.
AtticusRex -
The 1960s Batman TV was completely faithful to the character at the time of its airing. Yes, the camp was a little bit more direct, but Batman in the 1960s was not a place for darkness, gloom, introspection, and brutality. If you wanted those things in 1966, you made yours Marvel, so to speak. Most of the first season episodes were direct adaptations of comic book stories.
Also, Batman the TV show saved Batman the comic book from cancellation. In 1966, Batman had not been relevant since 1945 and sales for the comic book were declining and hovering on cancellation. Only the popularity of the show saved the character and paved the way for the eventual ‘return of the Dark Knight’ in 1969 (by Neal Adams and Denny O’Neil… sixteen years before Frank Miller).
Fans may carp, but the show was both completely of its time and a genuine pop masterpiece.
http://scottalanmendelson.blogspot.com/2008/07/when-bam-whap-pow-saved-batman.html
Actionman FTW. It’s fashionable to bash everything now. Frankly, I feel that TDK expanded just what a superhero flick could be (maybe not as interesting as HANCOCK, last year’s most unappreciated big flick!) and advanced popular entertainment for years. It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks, just what you think, but this guy comes off as deranged and out of touch as a supposed movie lover could be.
“It kind of blew, in the same way that Spider-man 3 kind of blew.”
Please. I wasn’t one of those offended by any perceived Oscar snub, and I actually think Batman Begins was better than The Dark Knight. But to equate it with the worst comic-book movie ever – including freaking Superman 3 – is ludicrous.
I agree 100% with Marshall Fine.
It’s interesting how Tim Burton’s Batman and Batman Returns seem to have been completely forgotten these days. I watched them both recently and was surprised at how well they stood up. Batman Returns in particular is a terrific picture, although it’s maybe more of a Tim Burton film than a Batman film. I’m struggling to think of a character moment from Nolan’s films that matches Keaton and Pfeiffer at the party discovering each others alter-egos.
Wow, Mark, I can’t believe you just brought up that scene.
“A kiss under the mistletoe. You know, mistletoe can be deadly if you eat it.”
“But a kiss can be even deadlier… if you mean it.”
Whoever wrote that should have been hanged.
I don’t know what’s more tiresome: the Slumdog backlash or the Dark Knight backlash. And, for all the criticisms directed at raging fanboys (although I loved the film and couldn’t care less about comic books so I don’t fit into Fine’s stereotyping of the film’s supporters), most of the critics who didn’t like the movie are the ones who can’t seem to let it go.
It seems like every time I read allegedly “serious” movie critics these days, I cringe at the sheer stupidity particularly when they seem to spend more time whipping up hysterical campaigns against what they perceive is the consensus opinion (it’s not like none of us have heard negative opinions on Dark Knight) rather than say something remotely insightful about them.
I also would add that Spiderman 3 was awful on every level: script, direction, acting, etc. And, for all the people who disliked Nolan’s direction, but are giving a pass to Favreau’s uninspired Iron Man direction, really? Take out Robert Downey Jr. and that movie is by the numbers. The boxing robots finale was as poorly directed an action sequence as I’ve ever seen.
Maggie Gyllenhaal is ugly.
I’ve lurked on HE for years and have never commented before, but this post has finally dragged one out of me. I didn’t realize, prior to reading the above comments, that not having a schoolgirl infatuation with Chris Nolan’s poem to benign fascism means that I’m out of touch and not a “real” lover of movies. But if being a lover of movies means loving TDK, then fuck it, says I.
I won’t waste time criticizing the movie’s storytelling, ’cause I agree with Fine on pretty much every point he makes. What I want to do is discuss the Joker’s scars. He’s got a couple different stories about those scars, and they’re pretty grim. They’re also lies. And it’s in those scars, and the Joker’s lies about them, that the movie reveals itself for what it is. We’re not supposed to care where the Joker picked them up. Because his motivation doesn’t matter. Because “some people just want to watch the world burn.” Like, you know, America’s enemies. Hell, he probably gave ‘em to himself, just to make people feel sorry for him, just like Hamas used the people of Gaza as human shields to make the international community turn against Israel, which was bombing hospitals and schools in innocent self-defense. The message of TDK, in case you were too busy jerking off to the explosions to pay attention, is that our enemies are our enemies because THEY JUST ARE. Their motivations don’t matter, don’t put any responsibility on us, don’t even EXIST. “Some people just want to watch the world burn.”
I like a lot of movies that advance a message or a philosophy I disagree with, but TDK isn’t one of them. Because its message is too serious, and too many people with too much power believe in its reality too strongly, for it to come wrapped in such a cartoon package. And because too many people who should (and do) know better found themselves in movie theaters last summer nodding their heads in agreement, some without realizing it.
I thought TDK was a really good movie. It was more than the basic arc – 1) introduce superhero in ordinary setting 2) turn him/her into something special 3) introduce villain 4) fall from grace 5) grand finale. Always the same, rarely interesting. TDK is a little stiff (a Nolan hallmark), and Christian Bale’s tough-guy voice is a failure on every level, but it presents an interesting (if somewhat) twisted sub-text about the nature of power and order. It didn’t make my top five of the year (Let the Right One In, Burn After Reading, Man On Wire, Revolutionary Road, Wendy and Lucy), but it was in the mix. The war over TDK seems to be between two groups of chronic maturbators – graphic novel guy and pretentious film guy. Everyone else is just caught in the…um…crossfire.
The fact that TDK has been DreamGirls(ed) – shouldn’t make it the target of cheap bashing. I didn’t know until recent that people hate and bash Terminator 2 – and yet at the same time look forward to the inferrior non-James Cameron incarnations of the franchise it makes no sense. I didn’t like BB – I loved TDK in theaters but only the ending (the speech/montage) and Heath’s performance are the only things that matter to me.
The Tim Burton movies are every bit as good (albeit in very different ways) as the Nolan Batman pictures. If The Dark Knight is Batman as real-world crime drama, then Batman Returns is Batman as dark Grimm’s fairy tale.
Morons. The film was culturally iconic. Communal experiences like The Dark Knight only come along every so often and the fact that, as a piece of entertainment, it was not recognized as such is completely ridiculous. How many people can say they shared the same thrill of a seeing a hyped-up, tastefully done tentpole with a crowded audience that gasped, cheered, and sneered at one of the greatest spectacles, featuring one of the greatest villains, of all time. The REASON the joker worked so well was because he needed the padding of the movie to exist around him, so he could become that agent of chaos. The film is every bit the technological achievment that Button was and contained more energy than Slumdog and Milk combined. Please. Get off your soapboxes. The Dark Knight was a fantastic moviegoing experience that teetered on the brink of high-art. As a film, it’s BETTER than The Departed, which won best picture some how.
I think MrBradleyMrMartin’s first-ever post is the best one I’ve ever read on this site. I hadn’t quite figured out why the movie bored me, but he hit the nail on the head. Unmotivated evil is boring, simplistic: a poor encapsulation of life. Bravo, sir.
Vehemently disagree with this guy. I am not a big superhero movie guy. I thought ‘Iron Man’ was a fun, well-executed movie for the most part, but could not understand what all the fuss was about. Admittedly, there are a handful of movies that I haven’t seen yet – Wrestler, Frost/Nixon, Rev Road, Wendy and Lucy, Doubt, and Synecdoche could all potentially leapfrog it – but The Dark Knight is pretty easily my favorite movie of the year and far and away the best superhero movie I’ve ever seen. I find it utterly mesmerizing…can’t remember the last time I enjoyed a summer popcorn movie so much. It raised Nolan up to God-level status in my eyes. I’m comfortable throwing around the word masterpiece.
I thought Hallick made a great point in regards to Downey Jr. vs. Ledger. ‘Iron Man’ is even more mediocre without the former, the glue who holds it all together, whereas, even though I absolutely loved Ledger, Nolan hit such a home run that the movie would have been just fine with about 50 other actors I could name. Sean Penn, Ryan Gosling, Benecio Del Toro, I can think of a bunch of guys who could have nailed Joker, due respect to Ledger’s legendary perf.
I mostly agree with MrBradleyMrMartin, though I consider this a rare instance where I have great appreciation for an aesthetically brilliant film that is antithetical to all I stand for politically. The unexplained nature of Joker’s scars always struck me as a pretty lazy paradox: scars are indexical traces of trauma, and the film wants to have it both ways by saying he does have trauma but it doesn’t matter what it is.
Anyway, what I really wanted to say is: can we stop with this fanboy BS? The Dark Knight was embraced by critics and the guilds, not just the dirty unwashed masses. At least get the target of your criticism right.
Josh Massey: I wasn’t referring to the dialogue, more to the exchange of looks between Keaton and Pfeiffer, plus Elfman’s orchestral score echoing the song Face to Face.
/3rtfu11: Don’t worry, only idiots would bash T2. Anyone who wants to see a real action filmmaker at work should watch the canal chase in T2. Each cut is beautifully timed, and the action itself is spectacularly and excitingly staged. Compare it to any of the action scenes from The Dark Knight, Nolan is good but, like Burton, he can’t do action.
This is an awful, awful piece. The Dark Knight was every bit as worthy of an Oscar nom as ANY of the movies nominated. If the Academy would stop obsessing with Dramas (usually with political overtone – which is the only art that Baby Boomers understand) then some worthy movies could start getting nominated. Wall-E, Tropic Thunder and The Dark Knight should have been serious contenders.
My guess is the Oscar snub and Monday morning pieces like this are the result of people waking up to how Conservative TDK was.
Nolan basically crafted a love letter to the tragic, complicated and (ultimately) correct Presidency of George W. Bush.
What? The Dark Knight is overrated and not as good as all the hype and fanboy raving would have you believe, and it didn’t deserve a Best Picture nomination? My my, what an edgy, unique and mindblowing opinion that is! I’ve certainly never read anything like that on the internet before!
Fine nailed it…my sentiments exactly.
Marshall Fine is a moron. And the word “fanboy” should be stricken from the English language.
The only thing more boring than discussing the merits of The Dark Knight 7 months later is reading this discussion. By this point I think most of us know where everyone stands on it. Some of us like it, some of us don’t. A third film is inevitable, so why not bitch about how shitty or awesome that’s gonna be?
MBMM – what would the “real” backstory of the Joker’s scars have done for you, actually? Justified his actions, made you all weepy and sympathetic for his plight? I’m not buying that Nolan was interested in crafting a love letter to the Shrub or even an allegory to the War on Terror. But if you’d like to go there – would the individual childhood traumas of the guys who flew the planes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and that field in Pennsylvania done it for you?
Fine came off as a smug asshole in his article, redeeming himself with only this:
“Now let‚Äôs unite behind a cause that is crucial to our survival as a species: stopping Steve Martin from ever making another Inspector Clouseau movie.”
You have no idea how true this is.
Why are movies so long these days? They are exhausting. 8mm is the benchmark, I think. A movie so shitty but so long that at the end you couldn’t get up out of your seat and think “That was a fucking shitty movie!” Instead you were resigned to going to the bathroom and then getting the fuck out of that movie theater without giving the movie another thought.
Count me as another underwhelmed by The Dark Knight. Nolan sure doesn’t know how to craft exciting action sequences.
The comic book Joker IS an unmotivated lunatic who just enjoys sick jokes. That’s the way he’s written, and I really don’t think it was with Palestinians in mind. The Joker represents chaos because that’s the only way to continually frustrate Batman, a character who’s tightly self-disciplined and smart enough to predict what most rational criminals will do.
And Spider-Man 3 isn’t even close to the worst superhero movie ever. Superman IV has it beaten, as does the Tom Jane/John Travolta Punisher.
“If you want to make a movie about Two-Face, go ahead and make one. But don’t graft it on to the Batman-Joker movie, like some weird Ray Milland/Roosevelt Grier clone. By the time Aaron Eckhart was burned into a special-effects nightmare worthy of early Sam Raimi, you mostly wished he’d just die and shut up. Or spin off to his own movie.”
I got this far into the article before realizing this guy was a fucking moron, with little to no concept of films outside of the last ten years. One of the reasons that Dark Knight was embraced more than almost any other movie released last year is because it doesn’t just have one plot thread – instead of creating a high-concept Blake Snyder-device, it paints a portrait of a city and characters. Or do franchises just get Fine hard?
Complaining about Two Face in TDK is like complaining that the Godfather went on after Michael killed Virgil “The Turk.”
MrBradleyMrMartin…
All due respect, but I strongly disagreed with the whole ‘Dark Knight = Cheney’s beliefs in the War On Terror’ mantra. I wrote a long-ass rebuttal to this back in July, but the short version is that the film isn’t any more conservative propaganda than the first film was liberal propaganda. If you recall, Batman Begins painted Joe Chill as a tragic character and partially treated crime as the end result of poverty and lack of opportunity. In Batman Begins, some of the villains were ‘motivated’ (Joe Chill, Ra’s Al Ghul), some were just mean and/or crazy (Falcone, Dr. Crane).
Heck, the character who acts most like Bush/Cheney in the film is Harvey Dent. Dent: “Oh, The Joker killed my girlfriend and scarred my face.. so I’ll go after everyone remotely connected to the incident EXCEPT the person actually responsible, even targeting the innocent family members of said patsies.”
The LONG version (it’s not my best writing, but it deals with several points made in this thread already):
http://scottalanmendelson.blogspot.com/2008/07/batman-in-movies-debunking-dark-knight.html
AtticusRex –
The 1960s Batman TV was completely faithful to the character at the time of its airing. Yes, the camp was a little bit more direct, but Batman in the 1960s was not a place for darkness, gloom, introspection, and brutality. If you wanted those things in 1966, you made yours Marvel, so to speak. Most of the first season episodes were direct adaptations of comic book stories.
Also, Batman the TV show saved Batman the comic book from cancellation. In 1966, Batman had not been relevant since 1945 and sales for the comic book were declining and hovering on cancellation. Only the popularity of the show saved the character and paved the way for the eventual ‘return of the Dark Knight’ in 1969 (by Neal Adams and Denny O’Neil… sixteen years before Frank Miller).
Fans may carp, but the show was both completely of its time and a genuine pop masterpiece.
http://scottalanmendelson.blogspot.com/2008/07/when-bam-whap-pow-saved-batman.html
“There’s a solid 90-minute movie buried within the 150-minute slog that is The Dark Knight. And even that wouldn’t have been worthy of an Oscar nomination.”
That’s never stopped AMPAS before…
“It was only half a good movie. It was not as good as Batman Begins. It was not as consistently entertaining as Iron Man.”
No it wasn’t, but it had more of a cultural impact this year than both of those films combined.
“Personally, I’m still trying to figure out why so many people got so worked up about this bloated, self-important movie. It kind of blew, in the same way that Spider-man 3 kind of blew”
Well, as one of the few Spider-man 3 defenders, too, I think the appeal comes from forcing the protagonists to think about the consequences and value of their actions-a stylistic choice I imagine you’ll be defending Watchmen for, just because it didn’t become a hit.
“You had to sit through Batman slugging it out with what seemed like dozens of faceless, generic henchmen before he actually worked his way to the Joker.”
Have you read the comics?
“”If you want to make a movie about Two-Face, go ahead and make one. But don’t graft it on to the Batman-Joker movie, like some weird Ray Milland/Roosevelt Grier clone. By the time Aaron Eckhart was burned into a special-effects nightmare worthy of early Sam Raimi, you mostly wished he’d just die and shut up. Or spin off to his own movie.”
And yet you like Batman Begins, even though Scarecrow was tacked onto Ra’s al Ghul main story.
“Too much of this over-earnest outing was devoted to convincing people to take it seriously. It practically screamed, ‘This is literature! This is art, by God!’”
The same can be said for Shakespeare in Love.
“Meanwhile, writer-director Christopher Nolan left out a couple of key elements. Fun, for one. Excitement, for another. If I wanted to listen to Nolan’s dissertation on the nature of heroism in modern society, I would have gone to grad school with him.”
Where’s the fun and excitement in ‘Button again? Or The Reader, for that matter?
austin: “The main reason Bale isn’t a really huge star by now has to do with his ultra seriousioty as an actor. He just never radiates that he’s having much fun onscreen to me, a sort of pre-requisite for being a true movie star and a compelling superhero.”
If he’s not a “huge” star, how do you explain Yuma and The Prestige making money?
“And, yah, Nolan takes himself far too seriously too.”
You’re right. He should sugar-coat Third World living conditions for Oscar-bait.
Atticus: “I actually think that the Batman TV show (Campy fun) really did a bad job os destroying the central character of Bats. He is a ‘Dark Knight’ operating outside of the law for the common good.”
Nah, I blame the Schumacher stuff. The Adam West Batman had better villains.
Jeremy: “Btw, I’d like to add that the Annie Awards have been completely disqualified in my mind for their COMPLETE shut out of Wall-E in favor of Kung Fu Panda. What gives?”
No, Wall-E actually deserved to be snubbed. The negatives made about TDK’s alleged pretension rightfully belong to it.
Chase: “I don’t understand the ‘Iron Man’ love — it has the appeal of a Saturday morning cartoon and Favreau’s direction feels like its catered toward the Mountain Dew chugging video game crowd. Good performances, though.”
The appeal comes from a guy fighting against the faceless corporations which nearly ruined and corrupted him, and therefore America. That, and
it actually recognizes the risks of the War on Terror, better than the people who were running the country.
Bradley: Oh, right. We just need to show more understanding to countries which stone women who’ve been raped. They’re actually more complex under the surface.
qwiggles: “The unexplained nature of Joker’s scars always struck me as a pretty lazy paradox: scars are indexical traces of trauma, and the film wants to have it both ways by saying he does have trauma but it doesn’t matter what it is.”
I think the reason that it doesn’t matter is because he’s paradoxical himself. I mean, a clown is supposed to comfort people away from their worries, and yet he’s the product of an awful moment.
bmc: Compared to the Peter Sellers INO Pink Panther and the Benigni one, the Steve Martin stuff is genius.
LYT: Disagree with the Jane Punisher and Superman IV being the worst.; I’m gonna have to say it’s a toss-up between Batman and Robin and Mystery Men.
It’s interesting how Tim Burton’s Batman and Batman Returns seem to have been completely forgotten these days. I watched them both recently and was surprised at how well they stood up. Batman Returns in particular is a terrific picture, although it’s maybe more of a Tim Burton film than a Batman film. I’m struggling to think of a character moment from Nolan’s films that matches Keaton and Pfeiffer at the party discovering each others alter-egos.
The Tim Burton movies are every bit as good (albeit in very different ways) as the Nolan Batman pictures. If The Dark Knight is Batman as real-world crime drama, then Batman Returns is Batman as dark Grimm’s fairy tale.
D.Z. – wait until the new PINK PANTHER hits. There is not a single laugh in that entire picture.
And yet, still better than [i]The Reader[/i] or [i]Benjamin Button…[/i]
Josh Massey: I wasn’t referring to the dialogue, more to the exchange of looks between Keaton and Pfeiffer, plus Elfman’s orchestral score echoing the song Face to Face.
/3rtfu11: Don’t worry, only idiots would bash T2. Anyone who wants to see a real action filmmaker at work should watch the canal chase in T2. Each cut is beautifully timed, and the action itself is spectacularly and excitingly staged. Compare it to any of the action scenes from The Dark Knight, Nolan is good but, like Burton, he can’t do action.
shepherd: “Unmotivated evil is boring, simplistic: a poor encapsulation of life.”
What?! Unmotivated evil is anything but simplistic. And more often than not, when things go horribly wrong in the real world, you can usually trace it back to at least one or two people who just didn’t care about anything. There’s just no compromising with this kind of person, and that is what (IMHO) makes this sort of anarchic evil so damned terrifying.
quiggles: “The Dark Knight was embraced by critics and the guilds, not just the dirty unwashed masses.”
By unwashed masses do you mean the people that paid to see it in theaters to the tune of $530 million, or the people that bought $13.5 million DVD units in its first week? Just curious.
“the film wants to have it both ways by saying he does have trauma but it doesn’t matter what it is.”
I’m not so convinced that we’re supposed to take the trauma for granted. Perhaps he’s just a really talented raconteur. There is no indication that any of the stories the Joker tells about his scars throughout the film hold any truth whatsoever.
Prager: “Why are movies so long these days? They are exhausting. 8mm is the benchmark, I think.”
8mm came out 10 years ago (not exactly modern) and ran 123 minutes (about average). Perhaps you went to the bathroom at its conclusion, and re-entered the theater when the film re-started. Senior citizens like yourself are known to do this.
bmc: The clips I’ve seen are generally funnier than the second half of Borat. http://www.themoviebox.net/movies/2009/NOPQR/Pink-Panther-2/trailer.php
The only thing more boring than discussing the merits of The Dark Knight 7 months later is reading this discussion. By this point I think most of us know where everyone stands on it. Some of us like it, some of us don’t. A third film is inevitable, so why not bitch about how shitty or awesome that’s gonna be?
Retorts:
JckNapier2: I understand what you are getting at and I agree with you about Batman during the 60′s, Your points were on my mind while I wrote my opinion. I meant more about the general public opinion/expectation of Bats due to that show.
Thrudvangar: It isn’t that Maggie is ‘ugly’ but I did feel from a ‘looks’ department that men of the stature of Wayne, Dent and even Joker wouldn’t have found her that captivating even though her smarts showed through.
markj: I haven’t forgotten Burton’s or anyone’s adaptation of Bats. I feel that Burton’s first missed the mark. I hated the Prince music driven parade and Keaton for my $ didn’t pull of Bruce Wayne. That said yes Burton’s 2nd one was much better. The 3rd one… well… was wrong period and the 4th one had only one good thing going for it… Clooney was a great Bruce Wayne.
shepherd123456: Unmotivated evil? I think you missed the point of The Joker. He was pure anarchy. He thrived on whatever came next. He thrilled for the moment. A truly living walking ID.
And the worst comicbook movies? Spider-Man 3 is an Oscar winner compared to the Fantastic Four movies, Electra, Superman III and Howard the Duck!
One thing in Dark Knight’s favor: who the fuck is going to be writing scathing commentaries about The Reader, Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon, and Milk six months from now? Maybe people will for Slumdog Millionaire, if it does indeed win. The rest, nobody will care. Hell, no one really cares now. It’s a Best Picture nomination list full of Babels.
The fact that some writers (and posters) feel the need to continually explain to everyone why The Dark Knight wasn’t a good movie suggests to me that they know they’re fighting against the tide of popular sentiment and are doomed to failure.
The comic book Joker IS an unmotivated lunatic who just enjoys sick jokes. That’s the way he’s written, and I really don’t think it was with Palestinians in mind. The Joker represents chaos because that’s the only way to continually frustrate Batman, a character who’s tightly self-disciplined and smart enough to predict what most rational criminals will do.
And Spider-Man 3 isn’t even close to the worst superhero movie ever. Superman IV has it beaten, as does the Tom Jane/John Travolta Punisher.
MrBradleyMrMartin…
All due respect, but I strongly disagreed with the whole ‘Dark Knight = Cheney’s beliefs in the War On Terror’ mantra. I wrote a long-ass rebuttal to this back in July, but the short version is that the film isn’t any more conservative propaganda than the first film was liberal propaganda. If you recall, Batman Begins painted Joe Chill as a tragic character and partially treated crime as the end result of poverty and lack of opportunity. In Batman Begins, some of the villains were ‘motivated’ (Joe Chill, Ra’s Al Ghul), some were just mean and/or crazy (Falcone, Dr. Crane).
Heck, the character who acts most like Bush/Cheney in the film is Harvey Dent. Dent: “Oh, The Joker killed my girlfriend and scarred my face.. so I’ll go after everyone remotely connected to the incident EXCEPT the person actually responsible, even targeting the innocent family members of said patsies.”
The LONG version (it’s not my best writing, but it deals with several points made in this thread already):
http://scottalanmendelson.blogspot.com/2008/07/batman-in-movies-debunking-dark-knight.html
This argument could go on forever… TDK vs. Iron Man. I have to say I wanted to love TDK but found it boring and way too long and way too confusing. And come to think of it way too dark. I have watched Iron Man several times and enjoy it even more on second watching. And whoever says Downey and Gwyneth have no chemistry must have been texting during the movie. I think they had excellent chemistry. Don’t get me wrong here… I was knocked out by Heath. But you should not have to sit through so much darkness to get to the brilliance of his parts of the movie. I talk to a lot of serious movie goers in my circle and you would be surprised but most have the same idea. Iron Man was totally entertaining.. the only really great part of TDK was Heath. He makes it worth while watching but the rest of it is just not great. Certainly not Oscar calibre.
Atticus: The Fantastic Four movies are a helluva lot better than the Corman version.
Pete: I imagine the Bat-lash is due to critics who have it in for the LOTR sweep, since it’s much more “lowbrow” than Camelot and Gladiator.
hawthorne: I agree about the chemisry, especially since Paltrow acts like a vapid skeleton most of the time.
Reread for tone, CitizenKanedforChewingGum: I was not referring to TDK lovers as “dirty unwashed masses” but saying these lazy critiques keep making them out to be that, under the blanket term “fanboys.” My point was that elitist dismissals of TDK boosters as being simply a mass of whiny computer nerds are off the mark, as its support can be traced all the way to critic groups as well.
No, it’s the idiot fanboys who are bagging on The Dark Knight. If FIne can’t see the difference between The Dark Knight and Spiderman 3, then he needs to hang up his pen.
The Dark Knight remains the smartest, most intellectually developed comic book movie ever made. On top of that its first two hours are almost straight intensity. There’s nothing like it.
Iron Man actually is the inconsistent one. It’s boring for the first half-hour, when we have to watch every detail fo Downey play Mr. Science. But Downey should have been nominated for an Oscar. Without him this film would be sub-Fantastic Four.
Incidentally, I don’t think the film has to be seen as right-wing, although it certianly can be seen that way. There’s plenty in it that makes it possible to go the other way. Which is why I think it’s so interesting.
Apologies if I came off as abrasive, AtticusRex. I just get sick of hearing comics fans whining about the 1960s TV show, that it somehow ruined the Batman character and that true fans must hate it. On that note, the new Batman: The Brave and the Bold cartoon is pretty darn clever and funny as well.
I’m guessing the West-haters are pissed that the show got more attention than the comic it was based on, even though that actually allowed the maturity level to be upped on the source material-since the fact that Batman was in the American consciousness took some of the strain of the Comics Code off its back.
Apologies if I came off as abrasive, AtticusRex. I just get sick of hearing comics fans whining about the 1960s TV show, that it somehow ruined the Batman character and that true fans must hate it. On that note, the new Batman: The Brave and the Bold cartoon is pretty darn clever and funny as well.
JckNapier2: Thank you for your comments. I actually loved the ’60′s show and the vehicles that came from it. I was not aware of the Brave & Bold cartoon. Is it on Cartoon Network?
D.Z.: I would have mentioned the Corman version but just like the Capt. America film both were barely if at all released except on bootleg videos that I didn’t feel they were worth mentioning.
That said of all the Superhero movies of the ‘modern age’ that I was THE most disappointed with was Superman Returns. Boy howdy how Singer who did the X-men films proud could fumble so badly with Supes. With the tech where it is now Supes’s Return should have been monumental. But then again his story is harder in some aspects to convey. You see his face and he is nigh invulnerable. Perhaps when the next Supe movie is made the makers should devise a story that deals with Supe being an outsider, an Alien defending a world he cannot call his own. Defending a race of weak mortals from themselves. That way the makers can induce some much need angst which seems to be the driving force behind the best superhero movies.
Batman: The Brave and the Bold – Friday nights at 8pm on Cartoon Network (of course it also reruns throughout the week).
I hated Superman Returns for the same reason I hated Spider-Man 2 – they were both epic passion plays about a guy who whines and broods over a girl who won’t love him back, completely forgetting that he dumped/abandoned her in a cruel and selfish fashion in the first place. I mean, HOW DARE Lois Lane move on with her life after Superman just upped and left five years ago without so much as a note?
JckNapier2: I actually didn’t have a problem with Spidey 2. I loved the anguish spidey showcases when he stops the EL-Car. His desire for Jane is simple. He can’t equate his life with hers. He is always putting himself at risk. Plus remember Spidey might have powers… but he is still a young man with those problems. He still has to mature.
Supe on the other hand… well… how can he have a successful love life? He will always be dealing with loss. Actually how does Supe age? We see him grow up… but is there a final to him?
Besides as you brought up… He leaves for five years… um so does Clark and still no one makes the connection. Geesh!
I do like the way you think… at least in this thread…. lol.
“how Singer who did the X-men films proud could fumble so badly with Supes”
One of the problems is that the approach that worked for X-Men just wasn’t right for Superman. Singer wisely realized he needed some way to introduce the audience to the weird little mutants. Many people were unfamiliar with characters like Rogue, Magneto, or Professor X, and he couldn’t really have Hugh Jackman running around dressed in yellow spandex. It would’ve pleased fans, but seemed far too silly to the masses.
However, Superman was different. There was no need to mute the colors of his suit, because everyone already accepted it. They knew the character and were comfortable with him. Once Singer began talking about Superman not being a very interesting character on his own…and the story needing a love triangle or a potential kid for such a film to work…it was clear there might be a problem.
You don’t need to go out of your way to make Superman seem realistic, because he’s still going to be a flying alien with a little red cape. You have to have faith that the audience will meet you halfway, and be willing to accept those fantastic elements. Singer’s problem is that he backed off from that approach, and thus failed to deliver the over-the-top epic that most were anticipating. As noted above, a Superman film should- by its very nature- be able to dwarf the action of its fellow comicbook movies.
You certainly don’t put Superman in a hospital bed with his red boots sitting in the corner. By trying so hard to ground it in reality like that, it just makes it appear sillier than if you’d gone the fantasy route in the first place.
Batman: The Brave and the Bold – Friday nights at 8pm on Cartoon Network (of course it also reruns throughout the week).
I hated Superman Returns for the same reason I hated Spider-Man 2 – they were both epic passion plays about a guy who whines and broods over a girl who won’t love him back, completely forgetting that he dumped/abandoned her in a cruel and selfish fashion in the first place. I mean, HOW DARE Lois Lane move on with her life after Superman just upped and left five years ago without so much as a note?
Atticus: “Boy howdy how Singer who did the X-men films proud could fumble so badly with Supes.”
I imagine it’s because he “borrowed” the Matrix-style of shooting for X-men; but he became artistically bankrupt when forced to come up with a different approach to Supes.
Jck: http://superdickery.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=28&Itemid=45
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