The Dark Knight

Despite the hype I wasn't expecting a whole lot from The Dark Knight, seeing as I really didn't like Batman Begins at all. I won't bother recapping my distaste for that one since the review is right off the sidebar over there >, but I know people don't care much for reading these days so I'll just do a brief recap: it was trying way too hard to be Serious Business, yet it went and threw in some Himalaya white ninja cult where Batman got trained by Qui-Gon Jinn, and there was just no way I could take it seriously with that as a plot foundation. Still, the very tiny handful of movie critics who I trust had almost unequivocal praise for this new one, along with the recommendations of personal friends, so you know what ol' Jack Burton always says at a time like this, he says "What the hell."

I'm happy to report that I had a good time at the theater and felt my money was not wasted. There's a few niggling little things about the film I really don't like, like the way they insisted on hammering in clumsy political messages here and there, or Christian Bale's ridiculous "Batman Voice" (get that man a throat lozenge, stat!), but that stuff wasn't nearly enough to ruin the overall experience.

I think a big improvement is that the movie doesn't suffer from the aimlessness of the first one, nor does it have weak forgettable villains dragging it down. Right from the start we've got the Joker causing mayhem in all his insane glory and the movie manages to sustain a fairly intense pace for over two hours. I really liked the minimalist soundtrack, it established great tension without the usual John Williams knockoff typical Hollywood symphonic crap that most other big-budget action movies lean on. It also actually manages to be intelligent, not exactly deep or profound, but definitely a cut above the usual action movie (and two cuts above the rash of comic book movies breaking out on the ass of popular culture the last few years).

So yeah, I don't see much point in going long on this one since it is like the biggest grossing movie ever now and gallons of energy have already been burnt wanking off over it, if you need the Jack B. seal of approval on this one you got it. Good job broody Batman.