SpiderVS.Evil
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Hello fellow members,
Let's wind the clocks back about 3 years ago to talk about a very praised and respected action flick that was anticipated the moment the teasers and marketing were released. I'm of course talking about "The Dark Knight"
If you haven't guessed it already, it's a Batman flick directed by Christopher Nolan starring Christian Bale, Gary Oldman, Aaron Eckhart, Heath Ledger, Michael Caine, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Morgan Freeman.
It is also a sequel to the 2005 film "Batman Begins".
Let's start with the up sides of it. TDK has recieved an amazing amount of positive feedback from the day it was released all the way to even now. Those who haven't watched it are probably going "Wow is this just an overrated fan boy thing or is it really that good of a movie?" and I'll give my honest opinion later on.
Nolan does think outside the box in terms of realism and how you can combine that with Batman, even though Batman doesn't have any powers. The "Begins" suit is scraped and replaced with a thinner, more mobile Batman so he wouldn't have to carry the excess weight and he could finally turn his head. The weapons range from a "mine gun", grappling hook, and blades that shoot from the top of the gauntlets. The Batmobile still has the missile deployment, but is quickly replaced by a "Batpod" motorcycle that has grappling lines and mini firing ammunition to remove obstacles ahead. It sticks with the intelligent Batman that uses gadgetry and strength over superpowers.
The lineup of actors and actresses pull off astounding performances for the most part, most notably Heath Ledger as The Joker. You can definetely feel the range of emotions within almost every scene, one in particular the "Interrogation Room" where Batman and The Joker come face to face and talk for the first time. This shows how different these 2 characters can be: Joker is in a fun mood, Batman is in a serious state, Batman is quiet, Joker can't shut up. A very interesting rivalry. Gary Oldman gets more of an important job as Commissioner in this film and plays a key part in the relation and downfall of Harvey Dent. Aaron Eckhart has the chops to show people what a "White Knight" can be and also reveal what happens in his downfall as "Two-Face" and that is mainly a revenge quality after Gordon and Batman couldn't save Rachel in time yet leaving him alive. In other words, the emotions connect with every character in a fluent way where everyone is involved.
Now for the downsides. Some of you may go "OH, OHHHH TDK WAZ PERFECT, DER IZ NO FLAWZ BECUZ NOLANZ IZ A GAWD!" and to that I say shut the **** up, it's my review and I'm going to say the flaws I saw whether you want to hear them or not. If not, don't ****ing comment any negatory stuff and don't read the review. It's that simple.
I'm going to start with the design of the new batsuit. When TDK was starting to show teasers and stuff, I figured "That's cool, I loved the Begins suit and it'll be cool to see it in action again.". So when there was news about the suit becoming more mobile, people thought "So it's not gonna have any major major changes to it and still look 90% like the Begins suit right?". Wrong. Basically what they did is slimed down the suit and chopped it into pieces to the point where it looked like a ****ing jigsaw suit or a small Transformer that looked like Batman. It's that bad. The cowl has this lightbulb shaped head that looks God awful and the neck is like a ****ing slinky with some random triangle that serves no purpose whatsoever. The torso is all jagged to look like a hundred different body parts or bones, even the rib cage. So it's all broken apart and leaves a variety of different vunerable spots to attack Batman. It's the dumbest concept I've ever seen in a batsuit besides the nipples.
Next thing is the combat. The fighting style is so sloppy, basic, and slow. For a mobile Batman, he's kicking ass a lot slower than he did in his old suit so it's basically going against the whole point of changing it. Way to think ahead, idiots. Batman takes a 2 second length to do a move whether punching, countering, or preparing a strike that looks powerful but ends up doing squat. Terrible, terrible fight scenes.
Also, Bat-voice is ****ing terrible. Does he have lung cancer or something?
Here's one thing that bugged me: what the hell happened to stealth? "Begins" had loads of stealth scenes for surprise attacks and it's definetely a classic Batman strategy. TDK basically throws Batman in for chase scenes and humongus fights, almost like there was no prep advantage point. No, just go in and beat the **** out of people. That is disappointing.
Small thing, where the hell are the batarangs? Nowhere, so pointless to invent them along with smoke bombs that are never to be used again.
Believe it or not, I saw flaws with The Joker. They have abandoned the fun, wild side of the character and replaced it with a serial killer that blows **** up and cuts people. That's probably the average murderer in a Michael Bay film. There are no wacky, demented traps or fun/sick ways of killing people or setting things up.
"Batman must take off his mask and turn himself in. Oh and every day he doesn't, people will die."
Yeah, we kinda figured that since you have this thing with knives. While I'm there, why the **** does Joker have an obsession with knives? That's Zsasz's obsession, Nolan. Not Joker's. You basically gave bombs to Zsasz in clown makeup.
"If Coleman Reese isn't dead in 60 minutes, I blow up a hospital."
"At midnight, I blow you all up."
He also has a bazooka, a phone that detonates, and kills Rachel with, you guessed it, oil tanks rigged to explode. BE MORE CREATIVE WITH YOUR KILLING TECHNIQUES AND STOP DOING THE SAME **** OVER AND OVER AGAIN! Cutting people and blowing **** up. It's an emo Michael Bay.
"Do you wanna know why I use a knife? Guns are too quick."
Really? You shot one guy in the opening bank scene, attempted to blow up an armored van with a bazooka, shot the mayor and Gordon, ran people off the roads with a gun. Way to stick with your own ideas, Nolan.
Overall, this movie was disappointing for me. What I saw in "Begins" was a true Batman film and this was more of just an action film that combines the elements of modern day filming. Is that entirely bad? No, but it is when you jump from one style of a setting to another completely different one.
The Dark Knight: 7/10
Let's wind the clocks back about 3 years ago to talk about a very praised and respected action flick that was anticipated the moment the teasers and marketing were released. I'm of course talking about "The Dark Knight"
If you haven't guessed it already, it's a Batman flick directed by Christopher Nolan starring Christian Bale, Gary Oldman, Aaron Eckhart, Heath Ledger, Michael Caine, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Morgan Freeman.
It is also a sequel to the 2005 film "Batman Begins".
Let's start with the up sides of it. TDK has recieved an amazing amount of positive feedback from the day it was released all the way to even now. Those who haven't watched it are probably going "Wow is this just an overrated fan boy thing or is it really that good of a movie?" and I'll give my honest opinion later on.
Nolan does think outside the box in terms of realism and how you can combine that with Batman, even though Batman doesn't have any powers. The "Begins" suit is scraped and replaced with a thinner, more mobile Batman so he wouldn't have to carry the excess weight and he could finally turn his head. The weapons range from a "mine gun", grappling hook, and blades that shoot from the top of the gauntlets. The Batmobile still has the missile deployment, but is quickly replaced by a "Batpod" motorcycle that has grappling lines and mini firing ammunition to remove obstacles ahead. It sticks with the intelligent Batman that uses gadgetry and strength over superpowers.
The lineup of actors and actresses pull off astounding performances for the most part, most notably Heath Ledger as The Joker. You can definetely feel the range of emotions within almost every scene, one in particular the "Interrogation Room" where Batman and The Joker come face to face and talk for the first time. This shows how different these 2 characters can be: Joker is in a fun mood, Batman is in a serious state, Batman is quiet, Joker can't shut up. A very interesting rivalry. Gary Oldman gets more of an important job as Commissioner in this film and plays a key part in the relation and downfall of Harvey Dent. Aaron Eckhart has the chops to show people what a "White Knight" can be and also reveal what happens in his downfall as "Two-Face" and that is mainly a revenge quality after Gordon and Batman couldn't save Rachel in time yet leaving him alive. In other words, the emotions connect with every character in a fluent way where everyone is involved.
Now for the downsides. Some of you may go "OH, OHHHH TDK WAZ PERFECT, DER IZ NO FLAWZ BECUZ NOLANZ IZ A GAWD!" and to that I say shut the **** up, it's my review and I'm going to say the flaws I saw whether you want to hear them or not. If not, don't ****ing comment any negatory stuff and don't read the review. It's that simple.
I'm going to start with the design of the new batsuit. When TDK was starting to show teasers and stuff, I figured "That's cool, I loved the Begins suit and it'll be cool to see it in action again.". So when there was news about the suit becoming more mobile, people thought "So it's not gonna have any major major changes to it and still look 90% like the Begins suit right?". Wrong. Basically what they did is slimed down the suit and chopped it into pieces to the point where it looked like a ****ing jigsaw suit or a small Transformer that looked like Batman. It's that bad. The cowl has this lightbulb shaped head that looks God awful and the neck is like a ****ing slinky with some random triangle that serves no purpose whatsoever. The torso is all jagged to look like a hundred different body parts or bones, even the rib cage. So it's all broken apart and leaves a variety of different vunerable spots to attack Batman. It's the dumbest concept I've ever seen in a batsuit besides the nipples.
Next thing is the combat. The fighting style is so sloppy, basic, and slow. For a mobile Batman, he's kicking ass a lot slower than he did in his old suit so it's basically going against the whole point of changing it. Way to think ahead, idiots. Batman takes a 2 second length to do a move whether punching, countering, or preparing a strike that looks powerful but ends up doing squat. Terrible, terrible fight scenes.
Also, Bat-voice is ****ing terrible. Does he have lung cancer or something?
Here's one thing that bugged me: what the hell happened to stealth? "Begins" had loads of stealth scenes for surprise attacks and it's definetely a classic Batman strategy. TDK basically throws Batman in for chase scenes and humongus fights, almost like there was no prep advantage point. No, just go in and beat the **** out of people. That is disappointing.
Small thing, where the hell are the batarangs? Nowhere, so pointless to invent them along with smoke bombs that are never to be used again.
Believe it or not, I saw flaws with The Joker. They have abandoned the fun, wild side of the character and replaced it with a serial killer that blows **** up and cuts people. That's probably the average murderer in a Michael Bay film. There are no wacky, demented traps or fun/sick ways of killing people or setting things up.
"Batman must take off his mask and turn himself in. Oh and every day he doesn't, people will die."
Yeah, we kinda figured that since you have this thing with knives. While I'm there, why the **** does Joker have an obsession with knives? That's Zsasz's obsession, Nolan. Not Joker's. You basically gave bombs to Zsasz in clown makeup.
"If Coleman Reese isn't dead in 60 minutes, I blow up a hospital."
"At midnight, I blow you all up."
He also has a bazooka, a phone that detonates, and kills Rachel with, you guessed it, oil tanks rigged to explode. BE MORE CREATIVE WITH YOUR KILLING TECHNIQUES AND STOP DOING THE SAME **** OVER AND OVER AGAIN! Cutting people and blowing **** up. It's an emo Michael Bay.
"Do you wanna know why I use a knife? Guns are too quick."
Really? You shot one guy in the opening bank scene, attempted to blow up an armored van with a bazooka, shot the mayor and Gordon, ran people off the roads with a gun. Way to stick with your own ideas, Nolan.
Overall, this movie was disappointing for me. What I saw in "Begins" was a true Batman film and this was more of just an action film that combines the elements of modern day filming. Is that entirely bad? No, but it is when you jump from one style of a setting to another completely different one.
The Dark Knight: 7/10
