The Dark Knight

[Kal]

Ledger for Best Supporting/ or Best Actor? Yes definitely.
Best Sceenplay? Maybe. Probably. This is damned good writing.
Best Picture? I don't think so.

I loved it. Spoilertown: Is there anyway they cold make a third? Does Two-Face die at the end of this? I was a bit confused.

Answering to your spoilers: Yes, a third one is already in the works as far as I know. Two Face seems like dead because they had a funeral for him and everything, but who knows. I think the next one had the riddler as the villain if I recall correctly.

[john]

Anything I could say about this film is only echoing most of the superlative filled reviews I've read thus far. They are all correct. Except, no matter how many I read, I still was left staggering from the brilliance of it all. Not only that, but it's devistating. In any context, regardless of Ledger's death looming over this film, it haunts you.

Death and loss, physical, moral, and emotional, are dealt with in such articulate strokes that it still takes me a second to realize I'm discussing a Batman film.

Regardless of how the third one turns out, good or bad, this film exists wholly on it's own. To allude to who would be the villian in part three would have cheapened what a singulat experience this film was.

Hell, it rendered Batman Begins completely irrelevant. Begins always seemed to be well crafted formula - nothing more. It was an orgin story made up entirely of exposition... build up that leaves you bored by the end. By comparison, Begins just seems simple and silly now.

Fucking wonderful.

[Pozer]

There's a long sequence closer to the end that had me riddled...

i haven't seen it, but is this a spoiler? 

[I Love a Magician]

no

[Pozer]

[OrHowILearnedTo]

Anything I could say about this film is only echoing most of the superlative filled reviews I've read thus far. They are all correct. Except, no matter how many I read, I still was left staggering from the brilliance of it all. Not only that, but it's devistating. In any context, regardless of Ledger's death looming over this film, it haunts you.

Death and loss, physical, moral, and emotional, are dealt with in such articulate strokes that it still takes me a second to realize I'm discussing a Batman film.

Regardless of how the third one turns out, good or bad, this film exists wholly on it's own. To allude to who would be the villian in part three would have cheapened what a singulat experience this film was.

Hell, it rendered Batman Begins completely irrelevant. Begins always seemed to be well crafted formula - nothing more. It was an orgin story made up entirely of exposition... build up that leaves you bored by the end. By comparison, Begins just seems simple and silly now.

Fucking wonderful.

Why y'all so serious?


ugh, i suddenly feel so dirty...

[SiliasRuby]

I was ordered by some higher ups not to post about this film until it was released. I saw it July 3rd in a special screening. Everything that has already been said, I second it. This is something that will rock the house on my HD Widescreen TV when it comes out on DVD and Blu-ray 3 days after my birthday.
Amazing! Amazing!  Amazing!

[Sleepless]

The domestic box office went into overdrive on Friday as Warner Bros.' Batman sequel "The Dark Night" stood ready to deliver the best opening day gross ever, taking in an estimated $60 million to $63 million in ticket sales from a record 4,366 theaters.

"Dark Knight," toplining Christian Bale and directed by Christopher Nolan, could nab the highest opening ever for a non-holiday weekend if business stays as strong as expected on Saturday and Sunday. Previous record-holdover for both opening day and best opening for a non-holiday weekend is "Spider-Man 3." "Spider-Man 3" made $59.8 million on its opening Friday, and $151.1 million for the weekend.

The critically acclaimed "Dark Knight" is Nolan's follow-up to "Batman Begins," which grossed $15 million on its opening day in June 2006, and $48.7 million for the weekend.

"Dark Knight's" Friday haul includes an estimated $18.5 million in midnight shows, beating the previous midnight record set by Fox's "Star Wars, Episode III: The Revenge of the Sith" which grossed $16.9 million from 3,663 venues.

Source: Variety

[Fernando]

Box Office Mojo is estimating 66.4 mill for friday, that alone almost outgrosses Begins' 72mill five-day opening, wow, bye bye spidey.

So glad that for once a great film is doing spectacular.

I haven't seen it yet 

[ponceludon]

I felt close to tears the entire time I was watching this because Heath Ledger was so incredible, and that is all we are ever going to see. They cannot ever do another Joker ever again; Ledger has taken it to quite another level. Rips the bandage right off my heart.

[john]

Why y'all so serious?


ugh, i suddenly feel so dirty...

Don't want to come off as too serious... but it would be dismissive to disregard what I felt following this film. That said, it was tremendously fun... though, to just say that would be equally dismissive.

Don't feel dirty. You enjoy the film exactly how you want, and I'll do the same. Afterwards, we'll both be right.

It's probably the most immersive, awed experience I've felt watching a Batman film theatrically since I was a little one watching   Burton's interpretation. And, just like Burton's, I think it reinvented the entire legacy - making an audience appreciate it in a way, until now, wholly unseen.

[cinemanarchist]

Source: /film

On Thursday we told you that 4,591 Internet Movie Database users had rated The Dark Knight a 9.7 out of 10 (or a 9.0 out of 10 from regular IMDb voters), good enough for the #4 spot on the top 250 movies of all time life. We expected the film to slide down a few slots as a larger sample of votes came in. We were wrong.

It's now Saturday night, and with 19,000 more votes counted, the film has propelled into the coveted #1 spot! Of course, The Dark Knight is expected to slide down the list as more and more votes are added to the average, but it's worth noting this almost unprecedented accomplishment.

The top spot has been held by The Godfather since sometime in the late 1990's (this late 1996 capture of the chart from the early days of IMDb shows Star Wars in the top slot).  As far as I can tell, no film has unseated The Godfather from the top spot in the last decade. The last film to get even close was The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, which got a high as the #2 in 2004. Return of the King currently sits comfortably at #14.

[modage]

I LOVE THIS FILM. 

I grew up with the Tim Burton Batman films.  My dad took me to see Batman in the theatre on opening night and I returned to see it 4 more times in the theatre.  When the film came out on video, we had pre-ordered a copy (even though it was available in every drugstore) and I watched it so many times I had the opening credits memorized.  I could recite the names before they appeared onscreen, and that's not even considering the actual dialogue.  I have seen the film, and Returns many times since and they remain some of my favorite films of all time.  Despite even my dad's nitpicking of them, they remain, to me, perfect.  So to say I had expectations for Batman Begins is an understatement.  After following news of potential restarts to the series for years, by the time the film was released I was rabid with anticipation.  I wanted to believe that this film could make me feel the way that the original Batman had in 1989. 

But when I finally saw Batman Begins I left the theatre disappointed because the movie had failed to live up to my expectations.  While I liked the film a lot, it had not been the movie I had built in my mind from endlessly replaying the trailer and couldn't come close to the feeling I got from the Burton films.  Rewatching the film recently I find even more I could nitpick about it.  But with the final scene of that film being my favorite moment, I wanted to believe The Dark Knight could deliver on that promise.  But feeling my excitement growing dangerously out of control as the reviews started to pour in I began to worry that this too could not possibly live up to what I wanted it to be.  I tried to keep my excitement in check, telling myself if I could just watch it the first time without finding anything to nitpick, if it could make me forget for 2 1/2 hours that anything had preceded it, then I would be happy. 

And so it came.  Midnight on Thursday at my favorite screen in the city (Theatre 1 at Lincoln Square), with about 15 friends I saw the film.  And somehow, impossibly it lived up to my expectations.  For 2 1/2 hours I never thought about the length, I never groaned at a line, I never thought about how the film could have been because the film I was watching was so engrossing.  I saw the film a 2nd time today and it made me appreciate how great the audience was at Midnight and how much that helps the viewing experience.  I feel bad for anyone who see's the film for the first time with a group of people who doesn't appreciate how good what they are seeing is. 

SPOILERS PROBABLY

The last 2 minutes of this film are perfect.  They're the absolute antithesis of the ending of Begins and I get chills just replaying the scene in my mind.  I actually teared up watching it for the 2nd time today. 

I love every actor in this film.  Everybody plays their part perfectly.  Everybody has just enough to do.  They can't recast Ledger.  He's left big shoes to fill for the next actor in my lifetime who has to try.  I love the shit out of Gary Oldman in this movie.  I believe him as that character and it still bugs me out to think about his real voice not sounding anything like Gordon's.  Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine are both great at adding moments of levity and responsibility in their parts.

The script is brilliant.  The movie does such an amazing job creating REAL SUSPENSE.  I realized most of the time when you watch a movie you're going through the motions as an audience member.  Iron Man is blowing shit up, it's fun, you know he's going to save Gweneth Paltrow, but here the film creates an atmosphere where outside of Batman dying you feel like ANYTHING COULD HAPPEN.  Every single sequence where The Joker threatened someone I was on the edge of my seat because you really don't know who might die.  The film did such a good job convincing me that anything could happen that I was SURE the boats were going to blow up.  (1. I thought that the remotes were going to blow up their own boat and that would've been Jokers twist or that either remote blew up both boats instead of just the other one.  2. Subliminally I think at the final moment I thought it was still going to happen because Joker says "here we GO" which in all the trailers is followed by an EXPLOSION.  This was no accident.  Nolan is a genius.)  In Spider-Man he goes to save a traincar of people and you're thinking "this is where Spider-Man saves all these people" not like "those people are going to fucking DIE I'm SURE of it!" and The Dark Knight made me believe it.

The score makes this film.  The sounds effects (screeeeeech, TONE) and silence do just as much to create a mood as the music.

The marketing is amazing.  I watched every trailer for this film and it still managed to hold so much back.  The scene with the batpod and Joker in the trailers I had always thought would be the final showdown. The fact that this occurs midway through was great because then you werent sitting there going "I know that scene is coming up cause I saw it in the trailers".  The entire final hour of the film (outside of breaking the batsignal?) was not in ANY trailer or promotional material.  The fact that Two-Face a MAJOR VILLAIN has not been spoiled by T-shirts, action figures, posters, trailers, etc. is INCREDIBLE.  How the fuck did Nolan get away with this!  How did he convince the studio NOT to sell more shit, it boggles my mind.

The worst part about this film is knowing that there is NO WAY the inevitable third film will be as good as this.  In the rare instances where the 2nd film surpasses the original (or at least lives up to) they always screw up the third one.  Probably the best threequel I can think of is Jedi which has some great stuff (but it also has Ewoks).  More often 3's are Batman Forever, Terminator 3, Spider-Man 3, The Godfather 3.  So even if they can get Nolan to return, he is going to have a hell of a time trying to top himself.  If he doesn't return I think it will be because he realizes he already created his masterpiece and exhausted himself thematically and that none of Batman's remaining villains can come close to The Joker and the performance that Ledger gave.  So the most disappointing thing is just knowing this is the best Batman film we will see in our lives.

More later.  Can't wait to hear why GT doesn't like it.  I will fight you.

[Gold Trumpet]

More later.  Can't wait to hear why GT doesn't like it.  I will fight you.

Haha. You're right, I don't. Thought I would love it but it was pretty terrible. My review is coming shortly.

[abuck1220]

damn, this was not very good. how disappointing.