The Dark Knight Sucks » Heath Ledger

Why "The Dark Knight" Sucks…

tdksucks — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 01:31:08 +0000

If you haven’t already figured out, this site is focused on explaining why the movie “The Dark Knight” (2008) sucks. Part of the reason for putting this site together was to counter the seemingly unquestionable hype surrounding the movie. The viral marketing campaigns, the massive buildup, the fanboys… all leading so many movie-goers to pause critical reasoning and tout the movie as some kind of masterpiece. Further, whenever a dissenting voice is heard to even question such blind praise, it’s as if a blasphemy has been uttered.

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

Is it in the Cards for Heath? (with Poll)

tdksucks — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 07:20:16 +0000

When many people think of Heath Ledger, I would gather the following words come to mind: sympathy, sadness, good actor, gay cowboy. He’s played: a patriot, a drug addict, Casanova, a surfer, a knight, and most recently a deranged psychotic. Regardless of how mediocre “The Dark Knight” was overall, he did succeed in out-shining all the other actors – although that wasn’t too hard since most of the acting in the movie was quite wooden.

The disturbing part about his role as The Joker was that it’s resulted in some kind of mania in the public’s eye that has so many people clamoring for him to get a posthumous Oscar. The problem is it wasn’t some kind of genius role, it wasn’t even anything really standout, it was just a decent execution of a somewhat extreme character. Most people who can’t act can have makeup put on their face and told to act like someone disturbed and it can be pulled off. One of the easiest kinds of characters to play is someone that’s crazy or psychotic.

Some actors have done superb jobs in such roles, such as Anthony Hopkins as Dr. Hannibal Lecter in “Silence of the Lambs”, Joe Pesci as Tommy DeVito in “Goodfellas”, or Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrance in “The Shining”.

Heath Ledger has done nothing special in his role as The Joker and the only reason it’s even being suggested that his role as The Joker deserves an Oscar is because:

He’s dead
He lifted the movie up from being abysmal to at least mediocre
Most people are sheep
The movie is making a lot of money
A lot of critics forget that their role is to critique, not ass-kiss the box office

One other factor is that the role was “different” and anything “different” in Hollywood (if it’s meant ot be serious) is considered ground-breaking. For example: Viggo Mortensenhas a 5-minute nude brawl in a bath house in the movie “Easten Promises” and the next thing you know he’s being applauded. Seriously, I don’t want to be enjoying a fairly decent sober movie only to then have the equivalent of a Borat hotel scene (minus the censoring) shoved in my face. I guess in Hollywood when an actor allows his small shriveled prune-looking dangling bits to be exposed at length in a movie, it’s considered groundbreaking. “Different”? Yes. “Groundbreaking”? Um, no.

Although no shriveled bits to speak of in Heath’s role, the same concept applies. The role is different but that doesn’t mean it’s groundbreaking or astounding.

Speaking of Borat – THAT is someone able to stay in character for a whole movie and with significantly more screen time. Should Sacha Baron Cohen have been nominated for an Oscar? If he died, would people be clamouring for that?

And now the poll:

View This Poll

Maggie Gyllenhaal, America's Next Top Model

tdksucks — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 09:03:27 +0000

She may also receive an Oscar nomination for best supporting male actor, although I hear she’ll be up against the likes of Heath Ledger. She wasn’t available for comment but her brother Jake, who starred alongside Heath in a highly acclaimed movie, may be a presenter for the award and will probably want to give it to his sister as much as he wants to give it to Heath.

Life is Like a Box of Jokers

tdksucks — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 10:16:56 +0000

Apparently, crazy is as crazy does, and needs no further explanation. The Joker is first introduced in TDK rather brilliantly, as dangerous, psychotic, and reasonably well-played by Heath Ledger. The problem is, other than his own dialogue in 2 moments of the movie about his father that he hated who gave him is facial scars, and some rambling dialogue about some female he was in love with who seemingly experiences the same fate (it was a bit jumbled), there is no other background about him as a character. He just exists, and has no rhyme or reason, no motivation, other than he wants to kill “The Batman” — but then later he… uh… doesn’t want to kill “The Batman”.

Perhaps this equates to how the writers perceive people being disfigured as immediately and definitely correlating with them turning into homicidal maniacs. Harvey Dent was the epitomy of do-gooder, until 1/2 his face burned off. Insta-crazy!