Each article posted here will point out a specific problem with the movie.  Suggestions for additional articles can be submitted to the suggestions page.

Well guess what? Unless the franchise is taken out of Chris Nolan’s hands, it will never happen.

You see, that’s because in the “trying to be super-real” Nolan world of Batman, everything has to be believable as being possible within reality.  Now, if he had pulled that off as well as he did in “Batman Begins”, there would be little to complain about - but the reality is broken constantly in “The Dark Knight” while simultaneously trying to reinforce “this can be real”.  “This can be real… ignore the man behind the curtain…”

Either one has to let go of the whole “super-real comic adaptation” or make it a given that there are many fantastic things which can only exist within the world of comics – one of the greatest reasons comics have such great appeal.  You can’t ride the fence.  BB didn’t ride the fence, and it worked.  TDK rode the fence in ridiculous ways, and none of them because fantastic scenarios were presented, but because it was presented as realistic yet completely unrealistic things were utilized to move the story along.

Just step back and observe the tone of “Batman Begins” and compare it to “The Dark Knight” and given the background of how Gotham was presented in either one, how the story was played out, how the theme was established, think about which version of the Batman “reality” one could possibly see Superman showing up in.  Only in the world of “Batman Begins”, but now that possibility is gone.

So, if you ever hoped for such a team-up in a movie, and realize that will not be possible, you can only blame yourself for having gone to see TDK 2, 3, 4 or more times, shooting the box office for it up, and reaffirming to Warner Bros to keep Nolan on the ticket for the next one.  Pat yourself on the back.

There’s no contact information for the article, unclear who wrote it, so could someone out there somewhere PLEASE find a way to contact that writer or the AP or even Yahoo’s Entertainment News & Gossip section and point them here?  If not successful with Yahoo, possibly the Associated Press at www.ap.org.

So one would think that given this degradation of bat suit quality, there’s a prime opportunity in the movie for the addition of cool new gadgets.  Ya know – to make up for the stupidity.  What we get is: some sharp stuff that shoots out of his gloves.  Wow, cool.  Sharp things that fly out of the forearms of his gloves.  And the Bat Pod (motorbike) which lasted all of a single segment before getting trashed because, although he could control it enough to do a 180 against a wall, he can’t keep from crashing it when trying to avoid smashing into The Joker.

I almost forgot – we also got the amazing new addition of a short-lived hydraulic glove which allows him to bend steel… only in the first minutes of the movie.

So in anticipation of Batman 3 (or is it 6?), here are some thoughts for new gadgets and costume ideas:

• Taser guns, so he can keep The Joker from getting close enough to beat him nearly bare-handed when endless ninjas can’t
• Mace, so when The Joker or a small child with an attitude does manage to get too close he can distract them long enough to run like a bat out of hell
• A stick, so he can hit people and inflict actual damage – like causing blood to come out of their face (apparently as the interrogation room scene shows us, his fists can’t make blood come out of The Joker’s face even when he punches him dead-on and hard multiple times)
• A piece of steak so he can distract ravenous puppies
• A muzzle – not for puppies but for himself so that nobody has to listen to his rock-gargling voice as batman

I know it’s a lot of expensive-sounding gadgetry, especially for a billionaire, but we’ve got to suspend SOME disbelief, OK?

Yea yea I’ll have more writeups soon. Trust me this is worth watching.

Secret Pants Sketch Comedy presents “Bush or Batman”

Well anyway, so he’s got all this nifty sci-fi 30-million cell phone bat sonar 3D thing hooked up to his headgear, and is able to “see” every everything up until just getting to the floor The Joker is on.  So, uh, what – he couldn’t see that there were dogs up there and be prepared?  I mean, maybe if he’d have taken that one tiny precaution since he was doing that pretty thoroughly floor-to-floor anyway, he’d have thought to stop by a Ralph’s on the way and picked up a couple juicy raw steaks for the puppies.  That’s usually the way every other protagonist in all other Hollywood movies distract guard dogs.

My friend also mentioned something else that was odd about that scene – The Joker had Batman pinned and he uses those projective “knives” (or whatever they were) to quickly get The Joker off him.  So you would think they would be gashing into The Joker’s face based on the angle, otherwise if they were just a distraction then it was a pretty lame use of that gadget.  This one I’m not so sure about (maybe he did have huge gashes or slices on his face or neck when hanging upside down?), but worth mentioning.  Still, with all of Batman’s fighting skills, he couldn’t get a single scrawny Joker off of him from that position?  Even a low rung UFC guy can do that with a simple leg grapple.  Maybe Bruce needs some tips from Randy Couture or Chuck Liddell?

Some moments in the movie, the score worked great, in others it distracted.  The disjointed execution of the music scoring was mediocre, which is easy enough to ignore when trying to enjoy a movie, but there were moments that it was simply done so wrong as to be distracting.

Maybe sub-titling could have helped.

Such is the case with the people on the 2 ferries loaded with explosives.  In reality, it would take all of 30 seconds for someone on one boat or the other to turn the key on the trigger to blow up the other boat.  The Milgram Experiment proves this.

Someone also mentioned: “The power gets shut off of the ferry boats and they sit in the water for an hour… yet no rescue boats come and ask what’s up. In real life a rescue boat or coast guard [or other form of patrol] would show up in 10 minutes.”

BTW, is Tommy “Tiny” Lister wearing the same orange jumpsuit from “Next Friday” (1999)?

I’ve heard some fanatics try to explain this away (“there are no nearby buildings”, “the buildings are too far”, “maybe people would think he’s wearing Batman pajamas”) but then there’s this other dangling question: Clearly in every scene when he’s in his costume, he’s got black face makup all around his eyes.  Where was that makeup if he had just plopped down in the chair to stare so meditatively out the window?  His eyes should have looked like those of a raccoon when Alfred came around to bring him breakfast.