The Dark Knight Criticism

[Azrael]

I couldn't tell if he was saying "pads" or "masks" the first couple of times I saw that scene.

I've read people say that they couldn't understand what Bale is saying in this bit:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhJYt0UL7AQ&feature=related (Keaton makes a cameo, too)

"You're peanut butter jell forever"

LOL, hahahahaha.

[Azrael]

Let's all remember this video (we all watched it last summer of course, but it's still funny)

[Dark Knight Detective]

"You mind, uh, saying that one more time?"

(Speaks w/ a growl) "WHY DO YOU WANT TO KILL ME?!"

Hilarious!

[Бетманијак]

What I dislike about Nolan?s version is that sometimes I am under the impression that I am watching a documentary and not a film ? there is no mystery (which is, in my opinion, essential to Batman). I really can?t see what makes it more realistic, in any way, in comparison to Burton?s interpretation. It is enough to look at the sets. Burton?s Gotham is disorganized, claustrophobic, it is a city that cries for help. It demands cleaning, and it justifies Batman?s existence ? and I don?t have that feeling in Nolan?s version. Most of it looks like an average, relatively clean city, and the characters talk throughout the film about corruption suffocating the city. And that?s not convincing or ?realistic? to me.

[Grissom]

It's not a matter of the city looking clean but in my opinion the nature of Gotham itself. I have read dozens of comics from the 40's and 50's through tot he 70's, 80's and nineties and some of the most recent ones, and have always realized Gotham as a character within itself. There is decay and corruption and although parts of the city are clean it is still punctuated by grimness, dirt and filth. In Burton's films we see very nice, beautiful areas of Gotham but at the same time decay is right around the corner. Gotham to me is never a fully "normal" city with just Batman and his villains running around, there is individualism in the city itself and true character.

[Azrael]

The real world is full of buildings that "satisfy" this image we usually have about Gotham - historicist, eclecticist, gothic revival, classicist etc. architecture. Real buildings that have been used and are still used in the real world as libraries, offices, universities etc. Maybe a disappointment I have is that the films didn't have enough such locations - only Arkham Asylum came close. Too many glass buildings 

Of course corruption has nothing to do with how a city looks, sometimes you can say that the shinier and taller the skyscrapers are, the deeper the ordeal of the common folk is (see: China, Dubai and other places) - it's just that the image of a Furst-like city is more visually satisfying, or striking.

I insist however that we should separate the two "Burton" cities. Furst's is much more of an "Urban Dystopia" than Welch's - with a few exceptions (like the oppressive Plaza with the enormous statues that pull the levers, an image that stayed with me after I watched the film as a young boy), Welch's Gotham was more like a Gothic Dreamland and maybe too fantastic. I would never believe that there was a mob running the Returns Gotham - only a vampire-like industrialist like Max Shreck and a circus from Hell. Furst's Gotham was owned by the mob.

Anyway, these are some random thoughts. I just hoped that the way BB and TDK were shot had some more iconic images, using buildings of the real world, but it's obvious they wanted to visually separate them as much as they could from the "fantastic" Batman films.

[zDBZ]

I actually enjoy The Dark Knight quite a bit - it's probably my second-favourite Batman movie. The fact that it is surprises me, because Nolan's overall take on the character is so far off from my own. I don't agree with trying to bring Batman into "our world," I've been consistently disappointed with Nolan's visual style, and I prefer a more visual approach to storytelling in film as opposed to the dialogue-heavy scripts Nolan has relied on. But The Dark Knight's story is very interesting and well told and the film has a great pace for its 2 1/2 hour running time. I think the two things that edge it over Batman for me are a more consistent tone and the fact that, while I consider Jack and Heath's two Jokers equally valid and spectacular, I've come to slightly prefer Heath's characterisation.

So far as criticisms go - I think (and no offence intended here) - that the tendency has almost become to fault The Dark Knight for being a different approach than Burton's rather than go after what's actually wrong in the film itself. I've done that to some extent, but at the end of the day, that's a matter of taste. I may not like the Batman suit or the fact that Gotham is Chicago, but that's not necessarily a mistake or flaw in the film. Gotham being Chicago is a little more substantial a criticism IMO because I do think that the more you recognise this supposedly fictional city as a major metropolitan area, the more you risk taking the audience out of the story, but overall, complaints about visuals and tone, while valid, aren't really faults.

Certain things within the movie that I have a problem with and don't consider a matter of taste are:

1. Rachel Dawes. This is a character who I think was a mistake from the get-go. To begin with, I've never understood why the childhood friend of Bruce's who grows up to become Batman's ally in the DA's office in Begins couldn't have just been Harvey. I accept that Warner Bros. requires a love interest in these films, but there was no need to have that love interest take a spot in the story that would have been perfect for Harvey. There's not even a reason for the love interest to be a major character at all - Julie Madison was enough for them in Batman & Robin (and that will be the ONLY time I use that film as an example of a good idea for future Bat-films). But beyond that basic complaint about where the character is put, Rachel's just an unattractive character to me. I find her to be whiney, overconfident, and condescending to anyone she doesn't think is in public service. Some of this came from Katie Holmes's performance in Begins, and I will say that Maggie is far less obnoxious. But I do think a lot of that attitude is in the character in the script, not in the performances. I also never bought her romatic relationship with Bruce Wayne. In Begins, we see them as childhood friends. Then we see them during the Chill trial, which is supposedly the time that they're supposed to be together. The problem is that we never get any indication of that until the end of the movie. They don't hug or kiss, they don't acknowledge their relationship, they don't get along in the scene...the only clue anyone would have that these two are dating is Carmine Falcone calling Rachel Bruce's "lady friend," which I do not usually interpret as being the same thing as "girlfriend." The next time Rachel and Bruce are connected is when she's told that Bruce is back in Gotham, to which Holmes's Rachel gives no reaction. When they meet, she tells him off because he's (as far as she knows) a wild playboy having fun, not a public servant. There's no way to argue that a wild playboy is morally superior to a public servant, but that doesn't mean a public servant can act like a snotty brat. This is even more annoying to me when, once Rachel finds out who Batman is (in one of the worst "reveal" scenes in any of the films IMO), she rejects him for being completely obsessed and committed to fighting crime in Gotham. Why? And how does she instantly know after *just* finding out about Bruce's secret identity that "this is [his] mask. [His] real face is the one the criminals now fear." How the hell would she know that? (More on this later)

I realise all of that has to do with Begins, not The Dark Knight. But the character's very weak introduction in Begins made it impossible for me to care about her in The Dark Knight or to have a reaction to her dying. The "love triangle" sub-plot doesn't hold up to me because I never bought that Bruce and Rachel were in love to begin with, and it doesn't help that neither Katie nor Maggie have any chemistry with Bale whatsoever. I do buy her relationship with Harvey Dent, where I think Maggie had great chemistry with Aaron, and I will repeat that I thought Maggie made the character overall less obnoxious. But the flaws from the first film are largely still there in my eyes, a key example being that she tells Bruce in her letter "I'm certain the day will never come when you no longer need Batman." Again, how the hell does she know this? It was just a poorly designed character from the get-go, and I'm quite happy to see her gone and hope that she's not referred to in any way in the third film.

2. Bale's Batman is not my preferred take on the character, but I don't fault him for that. I may not choose his Batman over Keaton's or the one from TAS, but I do think he does a good job and I don't think the take on the character in these films is bad. His Bruce/Batman comes off to me as a man who, having lost his parents, went out into the world angry and vengeful but, through training and experience, channeled that rage and thirst for vengeance into an earnest zeal to win justice for Gotham City, and in order to achieve that in a dramatic fashion that would inspire others, created the persona of Batman in order to wake up Gotham and give rise to such heroes as Harvey, and maybe one day retire. There's absolutely nothing wrong with playing the character this way, and I think the way Bale and Nolan have played it has made it more acceptable and enjoyable for me than perhaps another team would. The problem, though, is that this version of the character isn't the version that Bale and Nolan have said they want to portray.

Here are some quotes from Bale and Nolan themselves:

Batman is a marvelously complex character-somebody who has absolute charm and then, just like that, can turn it into ice-cold ruthlessness.

You couldn't pull it off unless you became a beast inside that suit.

He's a messed-up individual, as well. He's got all sorts of issues. He's just as twisted and messed-up as the villains he's fighting, and that's part of the beauty of the whole story.

These are all comments by the two key people behind this new take on Bruce/Batman. If that is honestly what they're going for - and to be honest, their quotes don't sound that different from the Burton/Keaton approach, especially that last one - if that was their goal, then I think they've missed the mark wildly, because as I've already said, that's not what I get out of the character in these films. Bale's Bruce doesn't seem a messed-up, rage-filled man as twisted as his enemies and in desperate need for a costume to channel his rage by the time he gets back to Gotham; he seems like a strong, stable, committed individual with a plan for helping the city that involved using a strong persona. And I've already mentioned how annoying I thought it was that Rachel was accusing Bruce of being consumned by Batman when she really didn't know much about his alter-ego, but beyond how much I dislike her saying that, I just don't buy the lines about Bruce being consumned by Batman. I don't buy Alfred's comment about Bruce "getting lost inside this monster of [his]" in Begins. I just don't believe that this Bruce is completely lost and obsessed. There's far too much material in The Dark Knight focused on Bruce hoping that he can lead a normal life and put away the cowl for me to believe that. Even when Batman does such extreme things as spying on Gotham City, they make sure to point out that he gave the power to control that spying to Lucius Fox, and they make sure to destroy the spying equipment at the end of the movie. Again, I'm not knocking Bale and Nolan for presenting a Batman that isn't obsessed and lost in his persona, because there's nothing inherently wrong with that; I'm knocking them because, if I take them at their word (and there's no reason not to), they didn't succeed with their goals.

That, and I just don't like the Batman voice. It isn't inaudible to me, and I don't find it that annoying; it's just a bit too much, and he tries a bit too hard with it.

3. The action scenes in The Dark Knight are far and away an improvement over those in Begins, but they're still not that great and still aren't the easiest to follow. I really hope that Nolan will go and hire a solid second unit director to handle the action scenes with the next film, because he's not doing well with what he has right now.

[Paul (ral)]

I have to agree with almost everything you said zDBZ.  Personally, I have little problem with the realistic approach using "our world", nor do I have a problem with the take on the characters that the film-makers want to take.

My problem is with the execution of that take.

[Azrael]

zDBZ's take has to be one of the most spot-on criticisms I have read about TDK.

[Batnar]

you know... I think I would have liked the movie better if they would have given Bale a better looking bat suit. I dislike the BB and TDK suits/cowls sooo much. It's not even funny.  If Bale ran around in something that looked a bit more 89 or return'ish (cowls), I think I would have opened up more to this film. But his funky suit just spoils it for me. Everything else was acceptable. Even the tumbler..