Okay, just saw this review of Batman, and I officially hate this critic. I thought I'd share with you guys.
Some douchebag wrote:10 things that bothered me about 'The Dark Knight'
"The Dark Knight" was not a perfect movie. Far from it. In fact, I'm not even sure it was a good movie -- Heath Ledger's pitch-perfect performance notwithstanding.
I saw the film a second time on Saturday, and its flaws were even more apparent the second time around (chiefly, its length -- this 152-minute film could have been brought in at two hours and been fine). But Ledger's performance is so insanely unhinged it forgives many of the film's mistakes -- until you sit down and start trying to apply logic to them, that is.
Here are my gripes with the film, in no particular order. Warning: Spoilers ahead (but, with a record-breaking opening under its Bat-belt, are there people out there who want to see the film who haven't yet?).
1. Christian Bale's menacing bat-whisper. As Bruce Wayne, Christian Bale is smooth, charismatic and debonair. But as Batman, he's a complete stiff. Most offending is the menacing whisper he uses when in the Batsuit. I understand he can't use his normal voice, because then everyone would know he's Bruce Wayne in a big rubber suit. But why does he end up talking like an exaggerated version of Alec Baldwin on "30 Rock?" What villain, police commissioner or elected official would ever take someone using that voice seriously?
2. The quick disposal of the Scarecrow. I haven't seen "Batman Begins" since I first saw it in the theater, and I don't think I ever gave a second thought to the film since the end credits rolled. But I seem to remember Cillian Murphy's Scarecrow being somewhat of a menace to Gotham -- at least enough so that he was the movie's top-billed villain. Why, then, is he disposed of so swiftly in the opening minutes of "The Dark Knight?" He's rounded up in a grandly confusing scene along with a group of Batman impersonators, meaning he's no more swift or villianous than a group of average Joes in hockey pads. Where was the threat?
3. The love triangle. In "The Dark Knight," there's supposed to be some sort of complicated love triangle unspooling between Christian Bale, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Aaron Eckhart's characters. Except that none of them have any chemistry whatsoever, no heat, and the script places very little importance on what is supposed to be one of the key elements of the film. Blame Gyllenhaal's charisma- and spark-free performance, which had us longing for the return of Katie Holmes in the role of Rachel Dawes. Was she really so bad to begin with? (Best Week Ever explores the issue further here.)
4. The clumsy action sequences. "The Dark Knight" is best when it's blowing stuff up, and in the film, warehouses, hospitals, and cars all go boom real good. The other action scenes aren't quite as coherent. Batman's hand-to-hand combat scenes are something of a mess: He's there, punching people, but it's hard to quite make out what's going on on-screen. (The fact that there are almost no lights during these scenes don't exactly help.) Batman flips a massive semi-truck using some batwires, but it's unclear exactly how he flips the truck -- or how he knew that was what was going to happen. Batman appears where necessary when necessary in his Batmobile, but it's unclear how he gets to that parking garage or to that intersection exactly when he needs to be there. Batman shoots sticky bat bombs at windows several times in the film, but it's unclear what those bombs do or how much chaos they cause. Look, I don't expect to understand everything Batman does -- he's Batman, for chrissakes -- but I feel it's the director's job to at least attempt to make sense of some of what's going on, and I feel like Christopher Nolan has a real problem bringing narrative clarity to his action sequences.
5. The guy threatening to expose Batman's identity. A Wayne Enterprises worker bee figures out that Batman and Bruce Wayne are one in the same, and after getting smacked down by Morgan Freeman's Lucius Fox for trying to extort Wayne Enterprises for millions, he goes on TV to expose Batman's identity on a "Larry King"-type show hosted by Anthony Michael Hall (which is a whole can of worms I'm not even going to get into). The interview is on TV for several minutes, and the whistle-blower still hasn't given up the goods, and then the Joker ends up interrupting the show before the secret gets out. So... what did they discuss the first few minutes of the show? Was this interview like "American Idol," where they weren't going to get to the good stuff until the final minutes of the show? Why didn't this guy sing like a bird earlier when he had the chance?
6. The casual dismissal of William Ficthner. The great William Fichtner is introduced and killed off in the film's opening scene. Big mistake. Why not make this guy one of the film's stars? He's slick and sleazy enough to fit right into Gotham City's greasy political circles. Hey, make him mayor! Speaking of the mayor...
7. The mayor's obituary. In one scene in the film, the Joker somehow places an obituary for the mayor of Gotham City in the daily newspaper, as a threat. And not some sort of small classified ad, but a full, half-page article, complete with art. Since I work at a newspaper, I know what it takes to get an article in the paper, the amount of meetings editors partake in discussing pages, the layers of editing pages go through before they go to print; it's not like these things just appear. So how did this article get in the paper? Does the Joker have friends at the Gotham Times? Did no editors ever see the pages? Who designed the page? Who copy-edited the obit? And did no one think that if the mayor actually did die, it might warrant slightly more high profile placement than on the obit page? Put it this way: If some crazy makeup wearing villain were to stroll into The Detroit News asking us to place an obit of Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, it would probably raise a few eyebrows, and the story probably wouldn't make it to print. My only guess is there's a deleted scene somewhere of the Joker hanging out in the paper's newsroom, peering over several of the top editors' shoulders and making minor tweaks to the page as deadline fastly approaches.
8. The mayor's guyliner. Dude, I get that Gotham City is the most emo city in the world. But would the mayor really be wearing eyeliner? And how would that creepy ageless guy from "Lost" get elected to public office in the first place?
9. The cell phone sonar technology. In "The Dark Knight," Lucius Fox tricks out his cell phone to become a video phone using some sort of sonar technology, and Batman uses the software to create a program to somehow make it so every cell phone in Gotham City broadcasts a video signal that he can watch through some sort of lenses that cover his eyes in the Batsuit and are fed through a supercomputer in his secret lair. Um, would you mind explaining that one to me again, please? This is up there with the "rubber lips" gotcha from "Batman & Robin."
10. The ultra-serious tone. I get it. The world sucks. But does there have to be such a super-serious tone in a "Batman" movie? Is this a summer blockbuster or a actor-ly fall drama? Is anyone really going to this film looking for moralizing? I'm guessing they probably just want to see the Joker blow stuff up. And we get that -- lots of it. But the unrelenting blue of the film, the dearth, the depression -- it's all a bit much for a "Batman" movie. Is it too much to ask to lighten up a bit, and maybe throw a Prince song in the movie for good measure? Really, folks.
