Anyone want to see a magic trick?

where did they screen the press screening? I would assume it was 35mm that was spooled for the media - for me it's IMAX or nothing.

Glad to hear how dark this movie is. My son wants to see it but I told him I'd have to see it first...now I know he won't be seeing this one.

My unknowing wife asks why can't he see it...she doesn't know the Bat and Joker like I know them

Why are you placing comic books in a tonal ghetto? Yes, the film is based on a character who appears in comic books. What is a comic book? A story that uses words and images at the same time. What about that demands that there be a light tone to it? It's a slight to an entire medium to suggest that comic books, and the films based on them, must be light hearted, and thus taken less seriously. Why would you ever limit creative people that way?

One of the great things about Nolan's Batman series is that by giving his characters psychological grounding, he makes their predicaments more realistic. Thus, we don't have to think that a man dressing up as a bat = silly.

Having just seen the film again last night (this time in 35mm), I'm struck by two things. First, you really need to see the film in IMAX. It's a wholly different experience. Secondly, goddamn this is a great film. It made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

The O has spoken:

"The Dark Knight eats Begins for breakfast."

Though RT.com initially listed his A scored review as Rotten .

(and for the obvious "So what?", be redirected to the Wall-E backlash.)

Supermallet, I have seen it in IMAX and noticed a lot of scenic shots were in the IMAX format which was great as many were very majestic.

I will say though that while the majority of the action sequences have been filmed much better than Begins, the finale seemed to be rushed and suffered from restraining tight shots. What are your thoughts about that? TIA

Uhm? The comics are serious and dark. So it's faithful to those.

I have yet to see The Dark Knight but I think the reason why the common complaint against this film with it being too serious, too dark, no fun etc. is that some equate Batman as the comic book character of the late 60s to early 70s and a campy tv show back then. What they don't understand is that a shift in the writing of Batman in the mid 80s showed a very dark character and a new type of comics evolved, namely the graphic novel. And with the growth of the graphic novel came the many fans that applaud the complexity of Nolan's Batman & Gotham City.

Starting with Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns (though it had sarcastic humor, it also had a very brutal storyline about society & very ugly undertones about Batman/Bruce Wayne), to The Killing Joke (Joker's uncompromising origin), to Batman: Year One etc....all these works made a lot of people go back to the literature of comic books. It was the acclaim towards The Dark Knight Returns that returned my fascination towards Batman and other "superheroes" and its effect was the same to several people. The great writing in these graphic novels brought these "heroes" into the real-life world where innocent civilians get shot, Superman can get depressed, Joker brutally kills Robin, & Batman's vigilante ways end up haunting him.

I always think that if the US only had Japan's attitude towards anime & manga, then the criticism towards the "seriousness" of The Dark Knight film won't even come up.

Great!!

I saw this in Imax last night and it really is an oustanding movie. It is so brutal and unforgiving from the get go. I understand now why Nolan was describing the Joker as a whirlwind whipping through the whole movie.


I'm looking foward to seeing it multiple multiple times in the theater.

I did have a couple issues with the movie, small ones, minor really but not enough to even slightly ruin my experience.

Well the local idiot critic Michael Sawgaw gave the movie a C and complained that the movie is too dark (he gave Wanted a B+ and There Will Be Blood a C)

Absolutely!

Posting one from the 70's proves nothing.
Read some of them now. Hell, right now Bruce is homeless and addicted to herion.

Really? Addicted to smack? That's so over the top as to be hilarious.

I mean I like dark, real dark...but man that sounds just silly.

What's next for Bruce Wayne... pedophilia and suicide?

Don't forget Joker's Big Boner.

Read the comics. He was knocked out. Injected with meth and herion and put on the streets. He's hooked now.

Wait, you're telling me that someone with an iron will who is also so smart got addicted to heroin and doesn't have the willpower to stop? How pathetic.

Grant Morrison is one hell of a writer...

So what is that, like a D+?

You can't compare 60s Batman to modern Batman. That's just ridiculous.

This is modern Joker in the comics:

I have never personally been addicted to drugs, so I don't have any firsthand knowledge on the subject, but I do know that addiction is very very powerful. Even smart people like Bruce can get addicted with ease. Once you get started, you are hooked. I agree that Bruce wouldn't willingly start taking drugs on his own, but with the recent heroin thing, he was not willing. He was injected while knocked out, and once it goes through his body once, thats all it takes to get hooked.

There was also another story back in the late 80s where Batman got addicted to drugs. The story took place in Batman's early days when he was still a newbie to crime fighting, so he was still young and prone to making bad decisions. The story starts with him trying to save a little girl. She is trapped in a cave (I think it was a cave, my memory is a little rusty) with a big boulder blocking the entrance. The cave is slowly filling up with water. The only way to get in the cave is to move the boulder, and Batman isn't strong enough to move it. He watches her drown.... This screws the young Batman up emotionally. He finds out about this drug that gives greatly enhanced strength, so he decides to start taking it to avoid any future incidents where he might not be strong enough to save someone. He gets addicted, and the rest of the five issue story is about his addiction. On another note, this drug is the same drug that Bane takes when he is introduced several years later.

Wait, you mean the Batman books that are published now are different from the ones published 50 years ago? Fascinating. Tell me more!

Well, just got back from seeing it. It was quite a great film. Ledger was great but I thought it was Gary Oldman who truly shined in this film above all else. This almost felt like Gordons film for most of the running time. I would like to see him get a nomination for this over Ledger I must say.
WIthout getting into spoilers right now I think it is going to be hard to imagine a third film in Nolans Batman Series. The Film certainly did not end the way I thought it would in regards to setting up a sequel. In any case the bar is now set pretty high for future Batman films.

* I don't know what to spoiler or not, so I'll err on the side of caution, in case people are still checking this thread out to just read reviews.

Just got back from the early show at the Arclight and man, I was really impressed. I knew my expectations were probably too high, and as much as I tried to keep that in check, I knew I was probably going to be let down over something. Right now, I can't say that I was. Essentially everything was great. I did feel the length a bit at the end, but not so much that I was annoyed by it. It could stand to lose 15 minutes or so, just to tighten stuff up, but I can't think of what those minutes would comprise. The only subplot that could have been jettisoned without much fuss would have been
I was actually really impressed by the way the movie ended. It makes a sequel more difficult for the writers but more interesting in terms of subject matter.

10 screens here, for the midnight show, all sold out. Best movie I ever seen. The ending just amazed me, that they took that route.