I have been told that writing that Heath Ledger is lucky that he died before he ever had to sit through his last movie is too “offensive,” so I won’t. Suffice to say that had Ledger lived long enough to watch the 152 minutes of torture that is his last film, it’s likely we would be mourning his death anyway, because it’s practically impossible to sit through The Dark Knight without choking to death on your own tongue. If I had a superpower, it would be the ability to punch Christopher Nolan in the face until he realized that Batman is the most ridiculous superhero ever, and trying to take him seriously is the equivalent of making a holocaust film starring the teletubbies. Nolan apparently just figured out this really cool trick where you spin the camera in circles really fast and decided to use it in every scene, giving me yet another reason to feel like I was going to throw up while watching The Dark Knight.
"I'd rather die than do another one of these movies!"
Watching Christian Bale stumble around like an idiot for two and a half hours, half of the time the world’s foremost asshole and the other half inexplicably with a sore throat, helped me realize that there has never been a superhero that I have wanted to disembowel as much as him. I’m not sure how exactly Heath Ledger died, but it might have been from a helium overdose. He sounds like Tweety Bird, rambles incoherently, and is as intimidating a figure as Barney. Aaron Eckhart can shout as much as he wants, but it doesn’t change the fact that he has the emotional range of a toaster strudel. And unless you pay close attention, you might not have noticed that Maggie Gyllenhaal was even in this movie. Actually, Maggie Gyllenhaal might not have noticed either. As the anti-climactic action scenes piled up, I felt tempted to take up the Joker’s suggestion to chew on razor blades, just as a distraction from the excrement on screen. But as blissful as the temporary relief would be, feeling the scars on the insides of my cheeks for the rest of my life would serve as a reminder of the two and a half hours I wasted on this terrible movie.
July 23, 2008 at 8:50 pm |
Interesting.
I smiled and ran my hands through my hair, contemplating visiting this more often.
However, just thought I would point out that this was, in fact, not Heath Ledger’s final film.
This was: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1054606/
Check it out, it looks blissfully disgusting.
July 25, 2008 at 2:56 pm |
Can I kill you?
July 26, 2008 at 12:55 am |
Where do I begin,
I am a batman fan to the fullest. The best depiction of batman outside of the comics will always be The New Adventures of Batman, which is the last season of the animated series. Now at the time of it’s release Batman (1989) was considered the end all be all of comic book movies. But one also has to remember that there were only four superman movies back then and the competition was very small. So now a days we have one comic book movie after another comic book movie, with the better coming from marvels side of the fence. Batman Begins was a great movie with alot of fantasy elements. When i heard that Heath Ledger was cast as the Joker, I was really disappointed. And then when I read interviews about eveything from Heath not liking comic book movies to this being a new type of Joker, that’s when I became less enthused. I went to the movie remembering that sometimes all the hype isn’t always good. Lets not forget Superman Returns, while cirtics called it the greatest superhero movie of all time, fans felt robbed buy the super artsy film. With The Dark Knight I have to say that I feel it was one of the most terrible superhero movies of all time. First off Heath Ledgers Joker was terrible in every way. Everyone talks about batmans voice, which was equaly as bad, but know one talks about the Jokers. He wasn’t scary, his plans had nothing to do with anything funny, which is how the joker plans all of his capers in all other media. And then there’s the licking of the lips and the gudgey look, it just was wrong. Bruce Wayne was cool but batman was terrible. The suit looked stupid and bulky and his cawl was to tight. If you want to see what Batman really looks like google Batman 608 comic cover. It is 2008 and if you look at other comic book movies like spiderman or the fantastic 4 or Superman Returns you will notice if an acter gets in shape he can look cool in his costume without looking stupid. And if you want to say it was his armor, then look at the behind the scenes of any spiderman movie and you’ll see that those were not his musles, but foam padding, now tell me Morgan Freeman couldn’t come up with somthing like that. And that voice was getting on my nerves. Alfred always knew want to say every single time. Maggie Gyllenhaal was very bad as well and for those that said she was good, I don’t believe you liked Katie Holmes or the Rachel character to begin with. The action sucked, Batman doen’t go head first into a fight swinging, he’s sneaky and quit, something batman begins did so well. In other media Batman has criticized superman on many occasions for not checking things out before dealing with the situation. When you take something that is fantasy and put to much reality in it you get an episode of Law and Order with weird people dressed up in costumes, if you want to see a billionaire fight crime in a cool suit of armor Go See Iron Man. If you want to see Heath Ledger final finished film go see The Dark Knight, but please don’t say that he is the best Joker ever created because real fans like me know thats not true. By the way I saw the movie twice and i have turned the movie inside out, and there’s nothing good about any of it, sorry. And i will debate with any one that can prove me wrong. I have more points that I will bring up later on.
July 26, 2008 at 7:58 am |
Your grammar and poor reasoning for saying this is a bad movie make it very hard to take you seriously. Sorry.
July 26, 2008 at 5:34 pm |
Oh how I so longed to like this film. It’s been getting rave reviews. Although I’ve hated every film Christopher Nolan has directed to date, I was hoping that I would be converted and finally see the light.
It was just abysmal. Zero plot and humour, weighed down with a sense of pretence and moral piety, it’s Nolan’s worst work to date. Christian Bale was wooden and seemed to think he was playing James Bond as opposed to Batman (one third of the movie plays out like a Pierce Brosnan era Bond movie) and Ledger was, well….. no one is willing to say that the emperor has no clothes, but let’s just say that it’s not Ledger’s fault that he was told to do a silly Saturday Night Live-style Vincent Price impression for two hours.
When is someone going to stand up and say that Chris Nolan is an overrated, pretentious hack?
There, I just did!
July 27, 2008 at 7:44 pm |
Heath Ledger’s performance was only compelling the first time around due to the suspense created around the audience’s curiousity in determining how far his character would go onscreen.
The replay value drops dramatically during the next subsequent viewing[s].
This movie is not for children and most adults.
But if you absolutely must watch this movie, see it in IMAX.
It really makes a huge difference in terms of the quality of presentation.
Anything less will be a discredit to the greatness of
the intial “Dark Knight” movie watching experience.
I pray for peace, clarity, love, and grace to the surviving members of the Ledger family.
July 28, 2008 at 7:54 am |
Everyone loves this movie, including most critics. It is making record box office. Ledger will most likely receive a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination.
The problem here isn’t the movie. It is you. You are welcome to your own opinion, but your arguments against the film are sophomoric and ill-reasoned to the point of being laughably bad.
July 29, 2008 at 11:18 pm |
Who would’ve thought they would have had enough talent and vision to concoct a Batman like this? It’s not perfect, and you’re entitled to your opinion, but your attack of pretty much every character/actor (including Maggie G) proves you’ve got a bug up your ass about this shit. Name one other director besides James Cameron that could’ve done something as unique as this and with as much brains. Compared to what? Spider-Man movies? Fantastic Four? Piss off.
July 31, 2008 at 9:48 am |
As much as I agree with you on The Dark Knight sucking (and disagree with you on Brokeback and Memento, and am confused by your attacking of Mamma Mia and Sex & the City – how could one go into either film expecting anything more than you were given?), I have to say I agree 100% with the misspelled Jackel. Your grammar blows, man. It makes it hard to take some of this stuff seriously, as funny as it is. F-.
August 5, 2008 at 3:12 pm |
I love watching people rise to your bait Tom. Anyone who takes such extensive, verbose and violent reviews seriously needs their funny bone checked. Keep on going Tom, you give us all entertainment we desperately need in this world.
August 11, 2008 at 11:12 pm |
Tom, I think the guy over at the dark knight sucks thinks you actually think the dark knight sucks.
August 12, 2008 at 6:56 pm |
I found your site on technorati and read a few of your other posts. Keep up the good work. I just added your RSS feed to my Google News Reader. Looking forward to reading more from you down the road!
August 14, 2008 at 7:09 am |
Your blog is interesting!
Keep up the good work!
August 26, 2008 at 2:28 pm |
JUST ADMIT THAT YOU LOVE THE COCK TOM HOOSEMAN!!! NOBODY TAKES YOU SERIOUSLY WHEN YOU CANT EVNE SPELL THE ACTRESSES NAME RIGHT!!!!!
September 24, 2008 at 4:08 am |
REAL FAN — I got your back. As a lifelong Batman fan, I agree with you. The last season of the Animated Series hit every single note you needed to get Batman’s universe. Some of the best story telling was done in that medium. The problem is The Dark Knight is for bandwagon chumps who have climbed off one wagon, and jumped on ours; and since Hollywood is about appealing to the lowest common denominator — hello, they don’t give a flying turnip about you and me, the guys who will come and see this movie no matter what. What they want is to sucker in all these wannabe soulless parasites who are so empty they move to one mythology to the other without batting an eye and blindly take in whatever is handed them because they want an awe-inspiring experience even if it means perverting and showing little respect for the mythology you and I hold dear. These are Meta-Vampires, walking, brainless, buffoons, who will suck the life and all the joy out of our mythologies, and cause confusion. They are the ones who want to cut off Sherlock Holme’s hawknose; and remove Zorro’s mask; and make Tarzan an effeminate monkey, just to satisfy their curiosity, and if you stop and try to reason with them and explain why their visions and versions are wrong, they will vomit out a stream of mindless, soulless, witless diarrhea, lacking any logic whatsoever. SO, in many ways, our crusade is pointless no matter how much we love our characters because money is bigger than you or I. HOWEVER, eventually Hollywood will see The Dark Knight for the tired, monotonal derivative, formulaic hack job that it is, and after beating “the formula” to death, will be forced to re-evaluate the Batman franchise once again. And in that moment the studio execs might realize what you and I have been saying all along, and then maybe, just maybe, we will see a Batman film that is true to what we have loved for all these years. In the end, you’re right. That wasn’t the Joker. That was a Joke. Batman wasn’t Batman — he was Robocop. But to try to beat sense into these meatheads is pointless. They wouldn’t know Dick Sprang from Neal Adams if you pointed out the subtleties. And see that’s the problem, most of the execs, except for Michael Uslan, are not even Batman fans! They are like water cooler Football Coaches — they don’t have any idea how to run the game, they just sit and marvel at the work of others. You could dumb the most incoherent Batman rendering in front of their eyes, and they would wet themselves like Ren and Stimpy, because they couldn’t create art if Picasso peed art into their ears. And yet for some marvelous reason, these intellectual gadflys actually have a say in shaping a movie that will be seen by millions. UCH! ECH! Gag me with a spoonful of maggots! What is the world coming to?