The Dark Knight Returns (kind of spoilery)

[ScottWinston]

I'm kind of surprised that nobody has posted anything about this yet, but I saw this last night and it fucking rocks. Like, I wish I could be watching it again, right now. It almost makes me want to fire Batman Begins, but I know Amber will want to watch that with me tonight so I'll wait.

I seriously did not expect it to be that good. In fact, it may be better than even the best comics. The Dark Knight Returns was pretty great, but there was something just so much deeper about this. Ebert said in his (spoiler filled, don't read before you see it ) review that most comic book movies put a sort of screen up, while this movie investigates everything very close and personally. In fact, that's a great way to think about it - this movie portrays everything with a kind of realism to it, yet it never seems campy, or stupid. Its like its actually as good as everyone naively figured a movie like this could be when they were teenagers and thought a more "mature" Batman movie would be somehow be a masterpiece. I had started thinking that the notion was absurd and never going to happen - but this movie seems to have done it by evolving into something that is damn near better than the source material that spawned it.

Okay, maybe I'm going too far and need to see the movie again to be sure about that. I mean, I guess it would be possible to nitpick things about the movie, such as its incredible length, but that would kind of twitty and stupid and no one should do it.

Anyway, I'm still almost on edge a 14 hours after the movie ended. It was so good. Its the kind of movie you're sad to have seen, because you'll never be able to see it again for the first time. And despite my best wishes, I can't help but keep replaying parts of the movie in my head.

Something else really impressive with this movie is the sheer amount of stuff they put into it! It reminded me of all those TV shows where in the story, a super hero or adventure movie is being filmed and they'll always show random things and you'll think "how can this all be related?" Yet this movie managed to do it and keep the quality up the whole way through. I heard someone call it the Godfather II of comic book movies, and I think that's a fair description (though I've never seen Godfather II).

I think I'm going to see it again later this week at the IMAX, since I heard parts of it were actually filmed with Imax cameras. :O

[Mr. Films]

Myself, Eric and Andrew saw it opening night.

I thought it was really really well done. Very entertaining. However, I didn't think it was the second coming of Jesus as most reviews seem to believe (user ratings on imdb have it currently at #1- first time the Godfather has been dethroned in a long while). I thought the pacing was all fucked up- like it couldn't build any momentum and would stall here and there.

Also, the relationships between certain characters didn't work. For example, Rachel Dawes and ANYONE. I didn't buy the chemistry between her and Bruce and, to a lesser degree, her and Dent.

But all the hype about Ledger was true. I found myself wishing he was on screen whenever he wasn't- plus I like the idea of a villain with no real rhyme or reason.

There were some silly plot devices (cell phone sonar and Gordon faking his death for example) and some useless characters (Lao, or whatever his name was- in fact the whole trip to Hong Kong seemed useless) but overall it was pretty damn great. I really don't mean to be nit-picking or hating on it because it's so popular cuz I really did enjoy it a hell of lot and want to catch it again in theaters and then DVD. But I think it's neck and neck with Begins and not necessarily better.

It also feels like they're setting up a nice, self contained, trilogy and possibly no films past that. Both Christian Bale and Christopher Nolan stated they'll do a third and then be done. Hopefully Warners doesn't try to continue with other people. These movies damn near erase the original franchise.

[Musica42]

(spoilers)

I saw this thing twice, once with Matt and Andrew and then again yesterday in IMAX. While I don't think it's a perfect film, I think it was easily the most bad ass movie I've seen in a while. The only major gripe I have is I felt the film's real climax happened about 40 minutes to an hour before the film ended (the capture of the Joker). Then when my brain is saying "roll credits" a whole new story arc begins with Two-Face. But despite that, I gotta say I loved every minute of the movie. There were a few seconds that were kinda silly, like Harvey Dent's little display in the courtroom. And Batman's raspy voice had a tendency to sound stupider and stupider the longer a sentence went. But whatever. These thngs don't change the fact that, especially on second viewing, this was a damn well-crafted story.

A lot of hyperbole has been thrown out about this movie and while it simply all can't be true I really think this is *one of* the best comic/superhero movies ever made. So good in fact that it breaks out of that category and one can pretty confortably say its one of the better crime dramas ever made - which is a HUGE feat considering we're talking about a set of characters with one of the worst film pedigrees in existence.

[PauloftheWest]

I finally saw it today. I think Bale has come a long way in playing Batman. I like the "seconds arc" and it is defiantly a great movie.

The only thing is, I want to like the ending, but I don't yet for some reason.

~PauloftheWest

[Mr. Films]

"seconds arc"

I assume you mean the second's (as in second movie's) arc.

bleh?

[ScottWinston]

Speaking for him I think that's what he meant.

Not since Castlevania- Symphony of the Night has there been such a glorious "the end isn't really the end!" moment. This film gives you some serious runtime for your buck, and since it's all good I liked that. I can understand people being fatigued by it though.

[PauloftheWest]

Mr. Flims,

Ya, the movie could have ended right after they caught the Joker, but it didn't. =)

~PauloftheWest