Monday, July 21, 2008

Batman: The Dark Knight

Babygoat playing in daycare while I'm not working for one day has given Mr.Goat and me the unbelievable luxury of free time, which the desert heat dictates that I should spend in a nice, air conditioned theatre, instead of shoveling concrete in the backyard (which would be the practical alternative).
I was pleasantly surprised to enjoy this movie. After years of dreck being thrown from the graphic novel to the screen, I am so very, very turned-off to 'comic book' movies... To the best of my recollection, I haven't really liked one since the first "Spiderman". There were a few that I didn't wholly *dislike*, but nothing that I consider "good". ...but i whatever ads I saw didn't look too horrible, we had the time, and at the very least I could ogle (the very talented) Christian Bale. Yet even though this episode in the series did not contain any Bale-push-up workout scenes, I actually liked it.
A few things I did *not* like: 1) turning the Joker into "a freak who wears makeup". This is not what the Joker is. He has a backstory (as instable as it may be). I know how hard it is to make a bad guy have pathos and still be a bad guy, but his pigmentation is one constant of his character. Blah. 2) The movie was about 30 minutes too long. They could have split the whole 2-face conflict into a separate movie. Instead, I found myself thinking, "omg, ANOTHER fight?" about two story arcs before the end of the show. Really, they didn't need any additional explosions or vehicles. Blah-blah.
Despite these flaws (kudos for at least having the token female in an advanced stage of her career at least looking like she's in her 30s), at some point, I actually thought "this is what I had wished the movie in 1989 had been like". Rated 3.

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