Now that a few weeks have passed, let's get serious about The Dark Knight. In every nitpicky review that I do, I point out movie flaws that the majority of the world gives no shits about. In this case, judging by the record-breaking sales, absolutely no one cared about the little things- including myself. Only in retrospect, now, a month after the viewing, can I bring back up the details I ignored.
Before I begin, I assume everyone has watched this movie. There will be spoilers.
This review will seem extra picky, because the movie was so good. But, like the director that created it, it isn't perfect. Am I the only one who thought half of Memento was a psychology lecture?
To start off, let's talk about one thing Batman did that was so utterly ridiculous, it strikes deep fear into my heart about the stability and mental resistance of my own mind. The fact that I did not question this impossibility makes me wonder how long I would last if aliens started brainwashing the planet. Could I resist their advanced mind-mushing techniques? I'm not so sure.
About halfway through the movie, Batman extracts a fingerprint originally pressed on a bullet from its bullet hole. (The bullet had been removed from the scene.) It's not even from the original bullet hole, though, he reproduces one - I think - because in some sort of montage-like explanation of the process, he fired five other bullets into similar material to see if the damage matched the damage of the first bullet. He then arbitrarily picked one of the reproductions and... what the fuck am I even talking about? What the fuck was this movie showing me? What the fuck-fuck?
Not only that, the fingerprint wasn't from the Joker, it was from a random guy who lived in some apartment. It was a set-up to get Batman to go to that apartment where decoy sniper fire was set up so that the Joker could assassinate the Mayor from the ground.
The Joker is so fucking smart! He was so intuitive, he knew that Batman was going reconstruct a fingerprint from a shattered plaster wall, leading him to the scene, where he could only helplessly watch the assassination attempt from above. Is there anything else he could have thought of? I mean, Batman could have also released deadly android birds from the rooftops; each honed in on the unholy scent of a man who hasn't washed his hair in three years. That's reasonable.
But wait, there's a loophole here. The reason Batman had to reconstruct the fingerprint from the bullet hole in the wall is because the Joker took the original bullet from the crime scene. He did that so neither Batman nor anyone else could trace it. Yet he still made the fingerprint a decoy?
Another scene confused me even the second time I saw the movie: when Batman and the Joker play chicken. Well, it's sort-of chicken, Batman's on a super-powered motercycle and the Joker is just standing there, and he wants Batman to hit him. It's not really chicken if some guy wants to be hit. Still, Batman chickens out, unable to kill the bad guy, which is appropriate to his comic-book history, so he swerves out of the way and then... crashes? He had so much open room to direct his bike to. I guess he thought too hard about crossing the line he never crosses, and became a nervous wreck.
Come on, how does Batman wreck his bike? And then he lay there in his super-stiff bat suit like a frozen hot dog. I understand his bat suit afforded little movement, but the restriction didn't show when he fought, only when he lay on the ground. Don't you think the director unnecessarily exaggerated his immovability? Those are three of the largest words I've ever used together in a sentence.
Later, Christopher Nolan decides to bring pop conflict into the movie. He brings up the as-of-now highly controversial subject of spying on everyone for everyone's safety. The Big Brother thing. Batman creates a system of SONAR images transmitted from every cell-phone in Gotham so that he can see and hear pretty much everything. It has a great interface, representing Gotham in its entirety on only about 50 TVs, and the program follows whatever you thought you just heard with only a few keyboard strokes. If you look closely, you'll see that one of the screens shows a person in a bathroom- how appropriate to the issue of privacy.
The director asks the question, should we jeopardize the privacy of every person in a city to find a 'terrorist'? Lucius Fox, Batman's trusty assistant, says that he will resign as long as this system is in place, after they get the Joker. Hard to say if he really disagrees. In the end, the voice-tracing, city-imaging, spy web helps them capture the Joker.
So what's Christopher Nolan's conclusion on protecting the privacy of citizens? That privacy can be ignored if the threat is too large. Well, thanks Christopher, you've gotten us nowhere. You've just repeated the same conclusion - and confusion- of everyone involved in this debate. How do we know if a threat is too large? I don't think the government will spend a billion dollars on a cell-phone-based tracking system and then BLOW IT UP after the currently most-wanted terrorist is found. There's always going to be a terrorist, so the system will always be up and running; i.e. voiding our privacy.
So, once again, thank you Christopher Nolan for bringing up a sensitive issue and offering... absolutely nothing.
Close to the end of the movie, Mr. Nolan breaks a scriptwriting rule: never avoid conflict. At the same time, he breaks one of my rules: don't bullshit the audience. In the tense, who-will-blow-up-who, boat scene, he cuts to that huge, rough-as-hell prisoner like four fucking times. Each time, he sneers and looks ugly. I get it, he's going to stand up and cause havoc, take the detonator and blow up the other boat; he doesn't want to die and no one else will follow through. He's the only one mean enough to actually press the button. The time comes and he uses his scary bulk and his understanding of fear and politics to convince the man holding the detonator to give him the detonator. And like the badass he is... he throws it out the window?
This twist is not some 'unforeseen surprise,' it's a lie. Like, I go to the doctor to visit my dying great-grandmother and the doctor tells me she passed away. Of course I believe him. He's a doctor telling me someone died. If he says 'just kidding' it's not like he tricked me, like I'm an idiot for not picking up on it, there's no way I could have known. It's a lie. Films that lie instead of offer clues suck.
Take this puzzle for example: Billy found a blue building block. What color is the building block?
Uhh, blue?
NOPE, ITS PURPLE!
There has to be hints or the game is ruined.
The reason Mr. Nolan concluded this scene like he did was to give audience a ray of hope in a dark movie. Or at least that's what I read in a review, I never thought the film was 'too dark.' I mean, Batman has always been dark and Mr. Nolan does a great job keeping him that way. This scene is a cop out. I know it was rated PG-13, but imagine how crazy it would have been if Batman was holding the Joker by his feet from the top of the unfinished skyscraper; and suddenly one of the boats exploded. That would have been intense. He may have even dropped the Joker, forgetting his anti-killing cree, and then, of course, the Joker would have laughed his way to the pavement. Whether you like my alternate ending or not, don't avoid conflict, scriptwriting 101.
Jim Gordon coming back from the dead? See the previous paragraphs about pointless puzzles.
This movie is the best comic book movie I've ever seen, besides Sin City, which was just like a moving comic book. I LOVE how Christopher Nolan makes so many comic-booky, i.e. corny and unbelievable, remnants of Batman's history make complete sense. Despite the small things I've pointed out, Nolan has achieved greatness by making Batman almost logically exist. He undoubtedly made Two-Face logically exist. The person he loves the most dies as he tells her she'll be all right. He flips his shit. And the face in oil! What a great way to explain Two-Face's charred left side. In the comic book, some mafia thug threw acid on his face in the courtroom, somehow 'coloring within the lines' and magically disfiguring only the left side of his face. Nolan makes it make sense.
And, my God, did Heath Ledger become the Joker.
I have to stop while I'm ahead, these posts are about tearing movies apart, breakin' them down, revealing their true colors! not complimenting them. I must. not. break. down. and describe how awesome this movie was.
Before I begin, I assume everyone has watched this movie. There will be spoilers.
This review will seem extra picky, because the movie was so good. But, like the director that created it, it isn't perfect. Am I the only one who thought half of Memento was a psychology lecture?
To start off, let's talk about one thing Batman did that was so utterly ridiculous, it strikes deep fear into my heart about the stability and mental resistance of my own mind. The fact that I did not question this impossibility makes me wonder how long I would last if aliens started brainwashing the planet. Could I resist their advanced mind-mushing techniques? I'm not so sure.
About halfway through the movie, Batman extracts a fingerprint originally pressed on a bullet from its bullet hole. (The bullet had been removed from the scene.) It's not even from the original bullet hole, though, he reproduces one - I think - because in some sort of montage-like explanation of the process, he fired five other bullets into similar material to see if the damage matched the damage of the first bullet. He then arbitrarily picked one of the reproductions and... what the fuck am I even talking about? What the fuck was this movie showing me? What the fuck-fuck?
Not only that, the fingerprint wasn't from the Joker, it was from a random guy who lived in some apartment. It was a set-up to get Batman to go to that apartment where decoy sniper fire was set up so that the Joker could assassinate the Mayor from the ground.
The Joker is so fucking smart! He was so intuitive, he knew that Batman was going reconstruct a fingerprint from a shattered plaster wall, leading him to the scene, where he could only helplessly watch the assassination attempt from above. Is there anything else he could have thought of? I mean, Batman could have also released deadly android birds from the rooftops; each honed in on the unholy scent of a man who hasn't washed his hair in three years. That's reasonable.
But wait, there's a loophole here. The reason Batman had to reconstruct the fingerprint from the bullet hole in the wall is because the Joker took the original bullet from the crime scene. He did that so neither Batman nor anyone else could trace it. Yet he still made the fingerprint a decoy?
Another scene confused me even the second time I saw the movie: when Batman and the Joker play chicken. Well, it's sort-of chicken, Batman's on a super-powered motercycle and the Joker is just standing there, and he wants Batman to hit him. It's not really chicken if some guy wants to be hit. Still, Batman chickens out, unable to kill the bad guy, which is appropriate to his comic-book history, so he swerves out of the way and then... crashes? He had so much open room to direct his bike to. I guess he thought too hard about crossing the line he never crosses, and became a nervous wreck.
Come on, how does Batman wreck his bike? And then he lay there in his super-stiff bat suit like a frozen hot dog. I understand his bat suit afforded little movement, but the restriction didn't show when he fought, only when he lay on the ground. Don't you think the director unnecessarily exaggerated his immovability? Those are three of the largest words I've ever used together in a sentence.
Later, Christopher Nolan decides to bring pop conflict into the movie. He brings up the as-of-now highly controversial subject of spying on everyone for everyone's safety. The Big Brother thing. Batman creates a system of SONAR images transmitted from every cell-phone in Gotham so that he can see and hear pretty much everything. It has a great interface, representing Gotham in its entirety on only about 50 TVs, and the program follows whatever you thought you just heard with only a few keyboard strokes. If you look closely, you'll see that one of the screens shows a person in a bathroom- how appropriate to the issue of privacy.
The director asks the question, should we jeopardize the privacy of every person in a city to find a 'terrorist'? Lucius Fox, Batman's trusty assistant, says that he will resign as long as this system is in place, after they get the Joker. Hard to say if he really disagrees. In the end, the voice-tracing, city-imaging, spy web helps them capture the Joker.
So what's Christopher Nolan's conclusion on protecting the privacy of citizens? That privacy can be ignored if the threat is too large. Well, thanks Christopher, you've gotten us nowhere. You've just repeated the same conclusion - and confusion- of everyone involved in this debate. How do we know if a threat is too large? I don't think the government will spend a billion dollars on a cell-phone-based tracking system and then BLOW IT UP after the currently most-wanted terrorist is found. There's always going to be a terrorist, so the system will always be up and running; i.e. voiding our privacy.
So, once again, thank you Christopher Nolan for bringing up a sensitive issue and offering... absolutely nothing.
Close to the end of the movie, Mr. Nolan breaks a scriptwriting rule: never avoid conflict. At the same time, he breaks one of my rules: don't bullshit the audience. In the tense, who-will-blow-up-who, boat scene, he cuts to that huge, rough-as-hell prisoner like four fucking times. Each time, he sneers and looks ugly. I get it, he's going to stand up and cause havoc, take the detonator and blow up the other boat; he doesn't want to die and no one else will follow through. He's the only one mean enough to actually press the button. The time comes and he uses his scary bulk and his understanding of fear and politics to convince the man holding the detonator to give him the detonator. And like the badass he is... he throws it out the window?
This twist is not some 'unforeseen surprise,' it's a lie. Like, I go to the doctor to visit my dying great-grandmother and the doctor tells me she passed away. Of course I believe him. He's a doctor telling me someone died. If he says 'just kidding' it's not like he tricked me, like I'm an idiot for not picking up on it, there's no way I could have known. It's a lie. Films that lie instead of offer clues suck.
Take this puzzle for example: Billy found a blue building block. What color is the building block?
Uhh, blue?
NOPE, ITS PURPLE!
There has to be hints or the game is ruined.
The reason Mr. Nolan concluded this scene like he did was to give audience a ray of hope in a dark movie. Or at least that's what I read in a review, I never thought the film was 'too dark.' I mean, Batman has always been dark and Mr. Nolan does a great job keeping him that way. This scene is a cop out. I know it was rated PG-13, but imagine how crazy it would have been if Batman was holding the Joker by his feet from the top of the unfinished skyscraper; and suddenly one of the boats exploded. That would have been intense. He may have even dropped the Joker, forgetting his anti-killing cree, and then, of course, the Joker would have laughed his way to the pavement. Whether you like my alternate ending or not, don't avoid conflict, scriptwriting 101.
Jim Gordon coming back from the dead? See the previous paragraphs about pointless puzzles.
This movie is the best comic book movie I've ever seen, besides Sin City, which was just like a moving comic book. I LOVE how Christopher Nolan makes so many comic-booky, i.e. corny and unbelievable, remnants of Batman's history make complete sense. Despite the small things I've pointed out, Nolan has achieved greatness by making Batman almost logically exist. He undoubtedly made Two-Face logically exist. The person he loves the most dies as he tells her she'll be all right. He flips his shit. And the face in oil! What a great way to explain Two-Face's charred left side. In the comic book, some mafia thug threw acid on his face in the courtroom, somehow 'coloring within the lines' and magically disfiguring only the left side of his face. Nolan makes it make sense.
And, my God, did Heath Ledger become the Joker.
I have to stop while I'm ahead, these posts are about tearing movies apart, breakin' them down, revealing their true colors! not complimenting them. I must. not. break. down. and describe how awesome this movie was.
Posts
3 comments:
The bullet was still in the wall, but it was shattered (Gordon says: "you're going to do ballistics of a shattered bullet?"). He created a similarly shattered bullet to compare with, so the computer could rebuild the crime scene bullet. Also, the Joker didn't have to anticipate Batman finding out who fired it. It's not unreasonable to believe that the same guy who shot the two victims also allowed for the Joker to use his apartment for his schemes. Batman found out where he lived, but was unable to produce much fruits for his labour (except a nice view of the shooting). no amazingly elaborate anticipation was required for that scenario.
What IS strange is that the fingerprints were lifted from the fired bullet as it is before being shot (jacket + casing), instead how a bullet is after being fired. Unless these were some sort of special bullets that have no casing to discard, that is. I've never heard of such things, though.
Same guy posting again:
You have a problem with the boat not exploding, calling it "avoiding conflict" and "breaking script writing 101". Does this mean that when a potential disaster is averted in a movie, it's avoiding conflict? You'd rather see a big explosion that would, like, totally rule?
It's a lie when the bad guy is foiled right at the end when everyone expects him to win? It's called suspense. The fact that you equivocate surprise ending with "lying" is very odd for someone who supposedly enjoys movies. Perhaps you would enjoy the movie better if you already knew the ending and didn't have to suffer through such inhumane twists in the story.
How about the smoke grenade in the guy's mouth in the bank robbery opening? That sucked too, right? Because you, like, wanted to see explosions, blood and guts all over the place. The hand grenades that the bank customers were forced to hold didn't explode, either! That's so conflict avoiding!
Jim Gordon did get shot, but after it happened, he might as well act dead, being a high profile cop with a family to worry about. What's so puzzling?
But anyway, we can both agree that the movie is awesome, no matter what you think of lost conflict opportunities! :-)
Hi anonymous, thanks for the thoughts!
First, thanks for clearing up some of my fuzzy facts regarding the bullet. Looking back, it also makes sense that Batman wasn't lured into the apartment, he just happened to arrive for the show. If it weren't for the fingerprints, I would have been completely wrong. :p
As for the boat, I don't think conflict was avoided just because the boats did not explode. I actually don't enjoy very violent movies. As the movie was written, without changing anything, I still feel that if the boat had exploded, the movie would have hit me much harder. But plenty of things can stop a couple of boats from exploding.
Scriptwriters can solve conflicts in an infinite number of ways. I felt that they solved this boat conflict in a both lazy and anticlimactic way.
Suspense was built around this very dangerous looking convict. We do not know any of his history. Why was he in prison? Does he have a family? Has he always had a softer side? Has he always sought redemption for his crimes?
You know, anything to make his character more three-dimensional. I would like a reason why the baddest motherfucker on the boat decides to save a boat of innocent civilians.
It's not just that he saved them, it definitely makes the story more heartwarming and hopeful - which is fine with me - I just felt the motivation was weak; which lead to an anticlimactic and frustrating scene.
Thanks again for taking the time to comment.
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