Sunday, July 20, 2008

I’ve read two three reviews of The Dark Knight by bloggers whom I respect. Their opinions are sharply different.

First is Kevin D at Dean’s World. A snippet:

Unlike, say, Iron Man, I didn’t walk out of the theater completely excited.  I knew I liked what I saw but I wasn’t giddy like I was after even Batman Begins.  This made articulating my feelings about the film difficult.  Looking back I think I now know why.

Many people are calling The Dark Knight a great superhero film.  Maybe even the greatest.  But in my ears it sounds like they’re saying, “The Dark Knight is great - for a superhero movie.” As if the film was king of its own genre and should be happy with that.  And, maybe it should.  But then I realized why I didn’t feel giddy.  I didn’t feel that way because in my heart I didn’t feel I really saw a great superhero movie.  I just saw a plain great movie.

And I think that should be the legacy of The Dark Knight.  It transcended its genre like The Return of the King did for the fantasy movie genre.  They’re each great films, not just great superhero or fantasy films.

He then goes on to discuss Heath Ledger’s performance and the themes within the movie.

Next is Brant Hansen of Letters from Kamp Krusty. A snippet:

At one level, this movie is a bunch of violent, purposeless noise.

But there is a second deeper level.  At that level, “The Dark Knight” is a discourse on the nature of evil.

And then… there is a third, still deeper, final level.

At that final level, this movie is a bunch of violent, purposeless noise.

[...]

“The Dark Knight” is cultural rigormortis.  It’s what happens when we are done, and we are done.  Jacques Barzun had it right, when he wrote a history of western culture up through the 1990s, and said, certainly, that our age is defined by boredom.  We are excited by nothing, really, but maybe for a moment here, or a moment there, we can try to be turned on.  Sex can do it (or fake sex, much more likely) but brutal violence can work, too, if for a short time.

Our culture is lying on the table, and “The Dark Knight” is just another jolt before the flatline resumes.

Brant didn’t like the movie at all. Go read his entire review - it makes one think twice about seeing it.

So will I see it? Probably, but I’ll wait for the DVD. I doubt we’ll be able to get to a theater to see it, and while Kevin D liked it, his and Brant’s reviews have given me enough misgivings about it that I’m reluctant to spend the money on the tickets and a babysitter to see it in the theater.

[UPDATE 7/20]: The third is Philip of The Thinklings. He is a Batman fan to the nth degree. A snippet:

This is the Batman movie that mature (or should I say adult?) Batman fans have been waiting for. I thought it was “Batman Begins” which is awesome, but nope. The Dark Knight is it. “Finally”, we grown-up Batman fans are thinking, “the rest of the world will understand why we like Batman so much.”

This the Batman the world has been deprived of for so long by all the other attempts. Batman is not a superhero, so much as he’s the anti-anti-hero. Batman, as we fanboys know him, is a dark, conflicted character that escorts us into a journey into human nature that is so scary that we’re glad to have him as a guide, even though we know he’d never let any of us actually be friends with him.

I kept asking myself if I liked the movie throughout the movie. I realized when it was over that I should have been asking myself, “why so serious?”, which is the promotional tagline of the film, and is spoken by The Joker. I was so serious because this is a serious film. It is not a summer super-hero popcorn flick. It explores the dark side of human nature in such a way that forced me to ask “where is the hope?” when I left. There is an answer found in the self-sacrifice of some of the characters of the film. But wow, what a journey.

He likes it and gives a good review for why he likes it without giving too much away in spoilers. Thanks for the warning to parents, Philip.