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.

“
If I understand it correctly, Gordon faked his own death (even though it’s edited to make it look like he got shot for real) to protect his family. Batman then decides to announce who he is but Dent takes his place. The Joker intercepts the Dent convoy but is himself intercepted by Batman. Carnage ensues including the destruction of large parts of the Gotham road system and various buildings and, seemingly by fortune, Batman, the Joker and, the driver of the convoy who is, of course, Gordon, reach a point at which the Joker is captured. Unfortunately for them that’s what he wanted all along.

So: doesn’t make very little sense when you try and add it up from characters’ POV. Why would Gordon legitimise such a ridiculous plan: there’s no guarantee it would work and he’s placing the lives of his men and Dent in very real jeopardy because he knows the Joker is coming for them. Batman may suffer from incredible pride but there’s no way he could have planned, forseen or even imagained such a successful scenario as him flipping the Joker’s truck, faking his defeat and Gordon’s reappearance because it all happened just metres away from his vehicle. The Joker needs Dent for phase 2 of this particular plan os his attempt at killing him is self serving. He needs to be caught AND he needs the guy with the phone in his stomach to make it with him otherwise he’s got no way to get Lao or the money. He surely should have walked into the station with his men a la Se7en!

I put this to a friend and he suggested the whole ‘agent of chaos’ angle which doesn’t work for me because Dent, Gordon and Batman ren’t agents of chaos and that’s the force they’re fighting against. If the Joker had initiated this then, yes, I could agree. But this is their party which the Joker crashes.

(I also have another one which is a little smaller and more of a quibble. But all of the Joker’s plans are well prepared, well researched and devoted entirely to a double aim in which everyone looks one way while he goes the other. The only case that’s not true for is the boats. There’s nothing the Gotham PD can do OTHER THAN look for him. That does seem a) out of character (this is supposedly the beginning of ‘the game’… he doesn’t seem to have prepared particularly well) amd b) a writer’s convenience. The end of the Joker Batman story comes again through circumstance. Not sure on this one but thought I’d mention it while I’m writing).span>

But am I wrong? Maybe I missed something? Thoghts comments and flames wanted and expected…!
”

Lots of salient points in there.

At the showing I went to for “The Dark Knight”, the theater I was in was packed.  Clearly everyone there was hoping to see a great movie, whether fans of the character, comic, hype, actors, director, whatever.  Whatever the case, it was packed.  So if it was so good of a movie as claimed by the majority of people with Internet access and a desire to share their opinion, why was there practically no audience cheering or clapping that I observed?

I’ve heard from many people this was their same experience.

Movie ands and its… “clap…[pause]…clap…[long pause]… …. clap” and then silence and everyone starts getting up barely before the credits start to role, and start walking out.  Pretty much everyone has a deadpan look on their face, and nobody (literally nobody) has a look on their face that they just saw “the best movie ever”.  Rather, the opposite look like “WTF? Was I supposed to have liked that?”  This wasnt a surprise – it completely matched my own perception.

During the movie, there were only 2 or perhaps 3 moments where even just a few members of the audience reacted to what happened on screen with clapping or hooting.  One was when Gordon showed up behind The Joker pointing a shotgun at him (indicating he was alive the whole time).  About 5 or 6 people clapped and that was it.  The second was that stupid idealistic prisoner moment with Tiny Lister (Debo)… same 5-6 person clap.  I don’t recall if there was any other clapping or reactions which would indicate more than a few people were enjoying the movie.

In contrast, when I went to see “Iron Man” earlier in the Summer, the audience enjoyment was significantly more apparent.  This was in the SAME theater, SAME night of the week, SAME midnight style showing, and same packed theater.  During “Iron Man”, the audience was fantastically engaged – laughing when things on screen were actually funny, cheering when particularly action-filled moments were taking place, clapping fairly regularly when it seemed pretty appropriate, and at the end a roar of applause.

Now, do I think “Iron Man” is the greatest movie ever?  No, it was cool, entertaining, and well-made, and clearly deserved the kind of audience reaction it got.  Had it been lauded online as some kind of flawless piece of cinematic art, I would consider that bizarre but could shrug it off as an oddity and temporary insanity of the masses.  The reaction to it in the media and online pretty much matched the reality I observed.

“The Dark Knight”, on the other hand, had the poor audience reaction, yet somehow online and by critics is being lauded as some kind of masterpiece.  This contradicts common sense and it’s a wonder what is really going on here… that perhaps the Internet hype marketing machine for the movie is still going on and people’s opinions are still being influenced by others, by brand, by media, but not by the true opinion of the masses.  Sure, it got a huge opening box office and held steam, but that could only mean a “follow the crowd” behavior, especially during economic times where other forms of entertainment are far more expensive.

So… what was YOUR theater experience and observation?  Did your audience cheer, hoot, and clap or did they just sit there like lumps on a log?  Was there a massive applause at the end or did people just silently scuffle out of their seats to go home?  Did they have happy and entertained looks on their faces when walking out or did they look like they were on their way to work on a Monday morning?

The general premise of the movie is that an average man from 2005 who’s put in deep freeze in a U.S. Army experiment is forgotten about — then gets revived 500 years later.  The world he re-enters is a future that predicts what would happen if present-day society (whose culture is becoming more and more fixated on corporate brands, celebrity, sex, money, and superficial trivializations) is taken to it’s most extreme.  It’s by no means a Shakespearean effort, but the many moments of comedic commentary are truly brilliant.

The people of the future are so stupid that the lead character effectively becomes the smartest man alive. If you don’t mind spoilers, a full description is at Wikipedia.  For anyone who hasn’t seen the movie, this article might not make complete sense, but at least the general point will probably still be clear.

“The Dark Knight” marketing in many ways was pretty effective at what it intended to do: Indoctrinate the masses into believing that the movie would be amazing by immersing them into it before it premiered.  A large number of viral websites were launched that gave peeks into the background of the movie’s storyline.  Further, the actor playing the role of the lead villain passed away tragically 2 months after production was completed and his death became a pseudo-marketing vehicle in and of itself. People who otherwise would not have had an interest in seeing the movie in a theater were now fixated on it.  When the movie finally premiered, the conditioning that all the marketing and hype induced caused the vast majority of people who saw it to believe it truly was an amazing movie and not just a mediocre run-of-the-mill action movie.  So many people invested themselves in the belief that it would be amazing, that dissonance kicked in and caused them to believe it was, even though it wasn’t – because to believe otherwise would mean that they would have to contradict their own consistency.

In the future presented in “Idiocracy”, one of the running gags is there’s a drink called “Brawndo: The Thirst Mutilator” and apparently the company that markets it, Brawndo Corporation, apparently buys up so many government agencies that it can go unhindered when marketing (and institutionalizing) Brawndo for everything imaginable, including crop irrigation, and water is only used in toilets.  The tagline for the drink is that “it’s rich in electrolytes”, although nobody knows what that means, everyone accepts it because “it’s what people crave”.  Why is it used to irrigate crops?  “Because it’s what plants crave.”  Which of course results in massive crop issues, and nobody knows why, because everyone is too stupid to figure it out.

Also in the future, the most popular movie is called “Ass” and it’s entirely just a movie of someone’s ass (just doing nothing, occasionally farting, etc).  The most popular TV show is “Ow My Balls” which is about (and only about) a guy who constantly gets his balls smashed, banged, hit, whacked, etc and yells “ow my balls”.

The mass of people who proclaim “The Dark Knight” remind me of the sad citizens of this future.  They don’t know why they think TDK is “awesome”, they just know it is, because everyone else thinks it is.  “Because it’s got electrolytes.”  The hoopla over TDK is a hint at what’s happening in society now.  For example, the Internet’s existence, instead of helping people get smarter (by making access to information easier) is just causing them to become dumber.  Just look at any random MySpace page or peruse the kind of moronic questions people ask on “Yahoo! Answers“.  Take a look at the current US President – is he a representative of the people?

The sad thing is, I’m pretty sure that only a small number of people visiting this site or reading this will ever comprehend the irony of what’s happening in society, and the majority of others are just reading this and thinking “you fag!” and will never know exactly how far into the depths of “Idiocracy” the world is actually spinning.  That’s because for those who the movie makes fun of, they will never actually comprehend that it’s a parody of them and a satire of where society is going because of their consumerist behavior.  If that’s you, then you probably found this article hard to follow, difficult to understand, and one of the few things running through your mind is “what a fag”.  If so, go back to ‘batin.

How in the world can a big yellow school bus crash through a bank and nobody on the street seems to notice?  Further, after the bak robbery, the bus COINCIDENTALLY pulls out of the bank and into the middle of a line of other school buses in broad daylight, with cops right up the street and no one decides to pull the bus over?

Has wnyone ever seen a school bus line?  They follow each other closer than elephants, they barely give inches of space between them yet somehow The Joker had enough room to pull out of a gaping hole in a building into traffic in the middle of a bus line and everything continues as normal in traffic as if nobody could have possibly noticed.

This was the end of the opening scene of the movie.  It pretty much matches how the rest of the movie goes – “This is supposed to be real – oh wait, now we have something completely unrealistic happen. But, serious, it’s real, don’t suspend your disbelief just yet. Oh, but wait, actually do suspend your disbelief.  No, it’s realistic. OK, it isn’t.”

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

Here are the days so far:

• July 25, 2008 (# 31)
• July 24, 2008 (# 40)
• July 23, 2008 (# 55)

Today so far it’s #45.  Not bad considering WordPress.com hosts (as of this minute) 3,651,183 blogs (this site is hosted on WordPress.com).

I launched the site on July 20.  The message is getting out, getting thousands of hits daily.  Let’s spread the message even more – Digg it, add it as a favorite to a Technorati, link to it, whatever.  Also let me about any honest reviews I’m not aware of – go the the contact page to send me the links.