VIDEO: The Dark Knight (2008)

by · July 19, 2012

Mendo again risks the wrath of geekdom by reviewing The Dark Knight, the much-acclaimed blockbuster starring Christian Bale as Batman and Heath Ledger in an Oscar-winning turn as the Joker. It’s certainly not a bad movie, but the filmmakers way overcomplicated things, adding pointless political commentary and contrived twists, creating tons of plot holes to annoy Mr. Mendo. Here are his biggest nitpicks about The Dark Knight!

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Tag: The Batman Films

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  • I’ll always think you’re the greatest Mister Mendo… but I will always believe the same thing about this movie too. :)

    I also have to comment on the lack of a mustache… yours, not mine that is. Without it… and I REALLY hate to say this… you kind of look like Harry S. Plinkett. No offense or anything…

    • The_Stig

      Do you want a pizza roll? Leave a comment on this web zone if you want a pizza roll.

      • MichaelANovelli

        I’m so confused…

        • ElfShotTheFood

          Harry S. Plinkett says that line in most of his reviews.

      •  Who’s f’ing with my medicine?

  • StevePotter

    I know you’re expecting people to complain about the fact that you’re reviewing this, but I have a much bigger, more important issue with this review-

    WHAT HAPPENED TO THE MUSTACHE?! I saw that it was gone and my soul died.

  • edharris1178

    Good stuff, Michael.

  • But, but, I can explain #2 D: 

    • MichaelANovelli

      How so?

      • Personally, I’m not too concerned with details. This is mostly due to the fact that if they did explain how Joker got the explosives into the hospital… would it really have made the movie that much better? As far as I’m concerned, the corruption within the police force runs so deep that they might as well all be in the mob or The Joker’s pocket. Speaking of which, when that fat guy exploded(and this is just a guess), but the explosion took out the entire bomb squad? Talk about your sad irony, huh? As far as I could tell, the convoy also wasn’t in a position to shoot back at the Joker. From what I could tell, the joker was firing on them from the drivers side, so the drivers would have to blindfire and drive through a very dangerous obstacle course at the same time. I’m not sure that’s such a viable option Mister Mendo. If the target is directly in front of you, that’s a different story, but the Joker is in their blind spot, so to speak, so the convoy is in no position to shoot back. They weren’t really armed to do so… imho.

        • MichaelANovelli

          All I’m saying is that if one of our convoys got ambushed, them being on the driver’s side wouldn’t even factor into it.  Of course, we had top-gunners, so who can say?

          • Not everyone can be as great as you Mister Mendo. :)

          • MichaelANovelli

            It’s better for the universe, that way!

  • Ricardo Cantoral

    “Here, he’s just a terrorist”. THANK YOU !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    This “Joker” is just a silhouette meant to further hammer in the blatantly obvious
    “post 9/11” themes of fear. This “agent of chaos” clearly has an agenda
    on mind and he isn’t a far cry from the villains we have seen in the
    Die Hard movies or Speed.

  • Russell Brin (Facebook sux)

    Mr Mendo I can’t believe you’d question the planning skills of the Joker…as a master strategist yourself you clearly know how to set up a thousand dominos and have them all fall in a particular way to set off events, while everything is in motion and being nagged to shave by your wife while your dad tells you the lawn needs mowing.  I wish I was as talented as you good sir.

    • MichaelANovelli

      What can I say?  I’m just awesome.  ;-)

  • Tim Terrell

    Batman did use that sonar to spy on the whole city in a couple of scenes. But yeah, you are right about the rest. And I was cool with the parts that didn’t quite make sense because if I can enjoy Spider Man 3, Transformers, Superman and the silliness in all the other SF/superhero/ fantasy movies, I can overlook some of the plothole in this movie and enjoy Nolan’s Batman meets Law and Order. Because I sure didn’t enjoy his non Batman movies much.

    P.S. I also appreciate Sophie not showing up. Very much.

  • Zorha

    Mendo’s just pissy because Mirror Sophie out bitches him.

    Interesting nitpicks, though many of them are arguable in intent. I agree that the film could have been trimmed up a bit, the Hong Kong and Bat Sonar scenes especially. Still, I had a hard time predicting what this interation of the Joker was going to do next, so it kicked up the suspense factor for me quite a bit.

  • MichaelANovelli

    Well, to those of you who’ve mention my lack of ‘stache in this episode, all I can say is: it’s too damn hot!  It’s July and I’m in Virginia, what do you want from me?  But, because I worried it would be too different, I sweated out wearing the jacket and hat, because I love you.  :-)

  • Zero_miles_per_hour

    Quoting Heisanevilgenius’ review of ‘Beneath The Planet Of The Apes’: “People, allegory in fiction is a bad thing.  It’s a cheap attempt at making your story seem smarter than it is, it’s a clumsy way to insert a message into your story, it’s pretentious, it’s not always clear what message you’re trying to convey, it makes people go to ridiculous lengths looking for patterns that usually aren’t even there, it makes them act like douches trying to explain to you what the story is really about, it rarely makes sense within the context of the story, and it ruins suspension of disbelief by taking you out of the story just to understand it.”

    • Ricardo Cantoral

      The same exact reasons why I question Network’s status as a great film; I love many of the performances but it’s pretense is heavy. Personally, I think A Face in The Crowd ,made almost twenty years earlier about the same subject, was far more effective.

    • MichaelANovelli

      Or, as a great Hollywood mogul once said, “Messages should be delivered by Western Union!”

  • Ricardo Cantoral

    I am glad someone has finally said that Joker was just a terrorist in this film. No longer the unpredictable time bomb who would kill people over the copyright of fish, this “joker” is just a silhouette made to hammer in the already obvious post 9/11 themes in a hollow film that tries so hard to be important.  

  • StevePotter

    While it’s fine if you complain that this movie didn’t “get” the Joker, Tim Burton didn’t “get” him either. Nor did he “get” The Penguin (although I know you didn’t like that movie, so it’s kind of a moot point). Spider-Man 2 definitely didn’t “get” Dr. Octopus and that’s considered one of the greatest superhero movies of all time. I don’t think fidelity to the source material should automatically decide if a movie or character is good or bad, just if the change is better or worse.

    • Ricardo Cantoral

      I think the Joker was Joker in Tim Burton’s Batman but the problem I had was the character was given too much screen time.

      • MichaelANovelli

        I think Burton’s Joker was a little closer to the comic version.  That part in the museum, and especially the line where Vicki asks him what he wants, and he says, “My face on the one-dollar bill!”  THAT’S the way to do The Joker!

        • Ricardo Cantoral

          I love when Joker was upset about his balloons being stolen and shot Bob because he didn’t tell him about those “things” Batman had and then simply said he needed a minute or two alone in a crowded city square.

          • MichaelANovelli

            Exactly!

    • Matthew Hickman

      It was worse and all those movies suck too

  • Sofie Liv

    You know… my big number one problem with all of Nolans movies.. and I mean all of them. It is that they are only great to watch ones.

    I’m glad I saw the dark knight in cinema, it was an amazing “Wow.” experience, I cannot sit down and watch it on home DVD, it’s just to heavy. Same with inception and you know what, I am looking very much forward to see “The Dark knight rises.” tomorrow evening in a cinema hall filled with fellow fans.. but I am not going to buy it on DVD, why bother.. so well, I find them to be “Event.” movies, they are brilliant as a one shot event.. and that is sort of it. 

    I talked about this in the comment section of Jills Batman Begins review.
    Nolan doesn’t write characters.. he doesn’t even write story arching.. he writes symbolism.. all around the place, symbolism-allegories and more symbolism. No characters, just representations for stuff. And.. as much as I will ALWAYS prefer character, it can be sort of interesting to dig into. Like, this entire movie is really about the fight of Harvey Dents soul and image representing the city. And the final solution means to indicate that neither Batman nor the Joker wins, nor do they loose. They both have a weird half win.

    As for not getting the Joker… I don’t know, I do firmly believe that the only reason Batman lives on so strong is that he has so many different versions, that every-time he has been re-booted it has been new! Adam West was new and different from the comic books, Burton was new and different from Adam West, Batman Tas was new and different from Burtons Batman and Nolans Batman is new and different from Batman Tas. That is why it works, that is why it lives on, every-time here, the people behind the franchise does some-thing new with it, and that is why he is still living so strong.. if you want my humble opinion.

    noooh, Mendo managed to make Batman without me, *Runs out to fix my break into peoples sites thingamabob.* all though you know guys, I like it here.. it was kind of lucky I landed here instead of Channel Awesome back then isn’t it?

    • Tim Terrell

       Lucky for Channel Awesome.

      • Sofie Liv

         …. erh, that could both be taken as a compliment and a insult.. can you ellaborate?

        • Tim Terrell

           Just a joke.

  • Ricardo Cantoral

    Ironically, the character Nolan has downplayed so much is the only one he has gotten right, The Scarecrow. Johnathan Crane is only one in all of these films who doesn’t have a boring, preachy motivation.

    • MichaelANovelli

      Such a waste…

  • Sammy

    I’ll defend certain parts of the Joker’s planning (i.e. that window opening distracts the snipers whether Batman’s there or not), and add that the movie improves if you decide the Joker doesn’t care if he succeeds because it’ll be fun either way, and then succeeds through sheer dumb luck.

    But I wanted to add how irrelevant Batman feels in this movie; it seems like everything after the thirty minute mark is him running damage control, and he has to literally fight off the cops to get the Joker in the end.Also you can totally sleep without closing your eyes if you shift them left and right really quickly. (Eventually you develop a pattern and they’ll do it on their own.  Sometimes when you don’t want them to) Or just bury your head like a snake.

    • Ricardo Cantoral

      I can’t believe that because of the opening bank heist and the assassinations he already pulled off without a hitch. Even when they captured Joker, he already had Dent and Rachel kidnapped and a bomb planted in one of his henchmen so he can escape. His insanely precise timing of these acts of terror contradicts the motivations of his character entirely. If anyone should have been doing this shit the whole time, it should have been Harvey Dent. Dent should have collaborated with the mob, pretending to corrupt and bringing them down from the inside out and with the Joker observing all this, help to push him over the edge and hoping Batman would follow his fall. Now THAT would have been a great movie.

      • MichaelANovelli

        Actually, yeah, that would have been a good movie.  Like The Long Halloween…

        • Ricardo Cantoral

          The Dark Knight pretty much was The Long Halloween and Dark Victory combined but with the characters doing all the wrong things.

          • MichaelANovelli

            That sounds about right…

      • Sammy

        Even when they captured Joker, he already had Dent and Rachel kidnapped and a bomb planted in one of his henchmen so he can escape The “so he can escape” part is the part you don’t have to assume.  Just assume he blows up the place because he can, and so happens to survive. (honestly it’s pretty stupid he was able to survive that when apparently no one else did.)

        • Ricardo Cantoral

          Again, I don’t buy that because Joker had plans set up so far in advance that he got away with everything. Hell, it’s hard believe Joker was captured at the end when the entire film was working in his favor on a constant basis.

      • CBob

        Well, IMO the thing is, we know the Joker lies constantly anyway. Why would anyone take his stated motives at face value? I don’t think he actually cares about being an agent of chaos, or whether morality’s a lie, or any of that rubbish: he’s basically a guy who takes trolling to a single-minded, fundamentalist religious sort of extreme (lol, unintentional political metaphor).

        The only actually consistent theme he has is forcing people to make ugly choices… which he shows from the very beginning with his asking half the mob’s profits to fix their Bat problem (by his own assessment they’re sociopaths who only care about money, so for them that would be the closest to how something like having to choose between two lives would be for a normal person). Like a true troll, he’s never invested in the substance of what he’s saying, just as long as it’s whatever will get under the current target’s skin. None of what he does or says is actually about anything beyond the satisfaction of fucking with people in the most catastrophic ways he can think of.

        For this reason I feel he’s not a terrorist any more than he is a mobster. A terrorist has an agenda they’re trying to intimidate people into complying with. A terrorist is trying to break people for a reason, but for the Joker breaking people IS the reason, so his apparent agenda shifts freely as he levers his way from one victim to another. Terrorists don’t care if you never want to do what they want, as long as you can be bullied into doing it it anyway. The Joker actually wants to make you want to do something you normally never would. For him, that all by itself is the entire point.

        • Ricardo Cantoral

          “Why would anyone take his stated motives at face value? ”

          Because it’s Nolan’s weak writing skills but his alleged “genius” for everyone else. Every character in his Batman films have constantly reiterated their purpose on a regular basis. Joker’s pretense as genuine as the other villains.

          Now I will admit, I actually did like the fact that Joker got his way by making people have ugly choices. But again, everything ended up falling down like dominoes in an all too precise order so I still can’t believe he’s just a troll with no real agenda. Yes, he was lying to the mob but he definitely would not be lying to Batman, the only person he seems to have any real interest talking to and was delighted at the fact that he was being beaten by him and almost killed when he fell off that building.

          • CBob

            No, IMO like with everyone else, he was only telling Batman what he thought would get under his skin. Every time he monologues at someone, what he says is tailored directly to that person’s worldview and insecurities. Batman was just special to him as an ultimate prize. To him, Batman was the ultimate thing to be destroyed, but he was still just another thing. The joker didn’t respect him or connect with him, he just loved the challenge and accomplishment breaking him would represent.

            He shows the same cavalier attitude to his own health and safety no matter who he’s dealing with, Batman just required more extreme methods to attack. That’s why I said “single-minded fundamentalist religious”: he has that same hollowness of self you see in the most cracked-out religious zealots, where they’ve given themselves over so fully to an ideal that their own existence becomes nothing but a conduit. His own life, well being, and identity have absolutely no intrinsic value to him, only what value he can extract from them as tools for his big ideal.

            It’s just that his big ideal is the personal destruction of other people. He’s a troll with a total and self-sacrificingly philosophical commitment to tolling. And unlike with most zealots, that ideal practically requires him to lie about it, most especially to the people who’d matter most to him (like Batman).

            You’re right that his plans are too perfect to be plausible, going beyond just knowing how people will react and into clairvoyance/prescience territory, but that’s a flaw with the story writing, not with his characterization. 

            It is possible he’s written in a way that’s intended to represent chaos as an ideal (you’re right that characters in Nolan’s movies tend to be like this), but accidentally ends up representing trolling (for lack of a better word) as an ideal instead. That would reflect badly on the writers, but it doesn’t reflect badly on the film IMO, as the film still makes sense (in this respect, at least), even if it’s not the sense the writers intended. It only breaks if you try to hammer it into fitting outside (and unverified) assumptions about the writers intentions instead of just rolling just with what’s actually in the film.

          • MichaelANovelli

            Except that going strictly by what’s in the film, The Joker either has a workforce the size of IBM or access to a time machine because all of the so-called “random” things he does call for a sheer amount of planning and prep-work that supercedes the possibility of him just making things up as he goes along.  It’s not like he’s Jack Sparrow firing a cannon at the mizzenmast in hopes that the rope would swing him over to the other ship, this is like Jack Sparrow firing a cannon at the mizzenmast, knowing that the pattern of debris will hit two guys carrying pistols aimed at a pair of seperate cannons which sink a third ship in such a way that Jack is able to catch the ropes in midair and tie them to the topsail before surfing down the line on his sword…

          • Sofie Liv

            *SPOILER FOR THE DARK KNIGHT RISES!!!*

            But what if… Bane swapped place with what the joker was supposed to do in the Dark knight rises?
            What if the unknown Joker (hench why he is unknown and can’t be identified.) grew up in the pit (And was scarred there as Bane ended up being.) and was Talias protector.. then it would really have been Talia whom planned all of that shit AND the joker would have the league of shadows to help him, whom would be able to plant bombs and so on pretty fast without people noticing.. what if he was meant to be that agent and throw-away image. Which is why he would dress up like that so you would only watch him, no one else. Which means he didn’t plan all of this.. She did. She is the big master planner taking back-seat playing puppet master, much like Rash-all Ghul.. this all makes to much sense to be a coincidence..

            What if in Dark knight, the joker had been send by Talia so he could test the city, giving it another chance to prove that it’s worth saving, but the city lost cause it ended up living on a lie, which is why it now needs to be destroyed.

            What if there was all this stuff to explain and “The Dark knight rises.” were the movie supposed to explain that, but because of leadgers death they decided to do an protagonist swap loosing the importance of all the questions left open in “The Dark knight.” ????

          • MichaelANovelli

            That…would have made much more sense, actually.  Nice work, Sofie!  :-)

          • Sofie Liv

             hehe, I’m smart. B)

          • CDiehl

            I suggested something similar on the message board of this site. I kind of noticed it initially when I watched the trailer and saw the bridges into Gotham getting blown up. It reminded me of how the Joker tried to seal off the city in The Dark Knight. I imagine that everything about Bane in The Dark Knight Rises would have involved the Joker had Heath ledger survived to reprise the role. I also imagine it could, have, if nothing else, provided a definitive explanation for his scars.

          • Ricardo Cantoral

            Hell, he even said in the film “This town deserves a better class of criminal and I’m gonna give it to them. Tell your men they work for me now. This is my city.” This was a GIGANTIC contradiction of his character and invalidates all his declared motives of “chaos” entirely. He wanted power the whole time and he had a plan to get it which worked perfectly.

          • CDiehl

            Well, the simple answer is, his declared motives are a bunch of crap. That, or he decided he needed a better organized group to carry them out on a larger scale. I know that’s a paradox, needing organization to cause chaos, but even people who want to defend order must engage in chaos to succeed. It explains how a vigilante and a group of corrupt police can fight an anarchist to save an entire city from anarchy and ruin.

          • Ricardo Cantoral

            So he wants “orderly chaos” ? Want to run that by me again ? Now I know Joker has had henchmen in the past for the sake of executing his crimes but to take over the mafia really is a stretch because no one would follow a man not interested in profit.

          • CBob

            Yeah, but that’s talking about how implausibly neat his plans and logistics are, which I agreed with. 

            I was talking about his motives, not his abilities.

          • Ricardo Cantoral

            You can’t separate bad writing from what was the writer’s intent; You have go by what the film shown and not assume things were well executed. All those times Joker was willing to kill himself (threatening to blow up the mob bosses with grenades in his jacket and putting a gun to his head for Harvey to pull the trigger) he already had everything, and everyone, else set up to fall in a neat, precise order. Joker was a generic movie terrorist, period.

          • CBob

            You have no choice but to separate writing from intent if you don’t actually know what the intent was. Making an assumption and slapping a sense of certainty on it is not knowing. Without verification in an interview or a commentary or whatnot, intent can only be hypothesized, and separation is necessarily as a caveat.

            It’s not a matter of assuming things are well executed, it’s a matter of working with you have without even asking the question of intent. Unless the intent is truly unambiguous, assuming it’s badly executed is just as intellectually dishonest has assuming it’s well executed.

            On that note, aside from his success, there’s no reason to think the Joker was taking any less of a risk with the mobsters or Harvey than he was with Batman. The only difference is that unlike with the mobsters, with Batman his own survival was actually the failure condition (with Harvey it was merely beside the point: as long as Harvey turned murderous, he wins that one, regardless of whether Harvey kills him or not), and that he did fail with Batman repeatedly where he succeeded with the others. He thought he had Batman all set up too.

            And no, he’s not a generic movie terrorist. Regardless of which way he’s intended, he’s not a terrorist (seriously, that word has an actual definition, it doesn’t just mean “anybody who kills lots of innocent people for any reason”). He’s a psychopath, a sadist, and a multiple murderer, possibly a serial killer depending on definition (“serial killer” is not as specifically defined as “terrorist”), but not a terrorist. Nor is he generic, whether he’s well written or not. His motives and MO are relatively unusual among movie villains.

            Not that that makes him better: Hans Gruber *is* a generic movie terrorist, and he’s actually considered a pretty good villain, so it stand to reason that not being generic isn’t necessarily a saving grace all by itself.

          • Sofie Liv

             To be a terrorist you have to kill in the name of some-thing.
            You will have to represent some-thing. A nation, a religion, an ideal, any-thing. You are a part of some-thing bigger.

            The Joker, as far as we know, doesn’t represent any-thing else than his own idea of Anarchy being the true colours of the world, thus he is not a terrorist, thus I have to agree with that one. Then Bane is more of a terrorist because he fights for the ideals of the League of Shadows and wants to purify the world by.. destroying one of its tomours, namely Gotham city.

            The joker is just an psykopathic anarchist…

          • MichaelANovelli

            Except that he specifically says in the film that he’s killing in the name of chaos.  To him, chaos is an ideal, an ideal he is killing in the name of.  Ergo, terrorist.

          • CDiehl

            I think you believe too much in the phony image that many terrorists have of themselves, or that they present to the rest of the world. Their defining trait is not fighting for some “noble cause”, it’s that they spread terror. Why they spread it is irrelevant. It’s why we call them “terrorists” and not “idealists”. By that definition, the Joker is most definitely a terrorist. He is also a psychopathic anarchist, but the two ideas are not mutually exclusive; what sort of people do you think commit terrorist acts?

            As for Bane, his alleged “ideals” are complete bullshit. He’s really just a self-centered totalitarian who gets off on destroying people in the name of his imagined superiority. The League of Shadows’ “noble cause” really boils down to “we’re better than the rest of you, so we can destroy you on a whim”. People like this, in fiction and in real life, always have the same solution to the world’s problems, and it always entails killing vast numbers of innocent people. Like Mal Reynolds said in Firefly “so, me and mine’s gotta lay down and die so you can live in your perfect world?”.

          • Sofie Liv

             People whom believe they are right, believe they have a course and believe they are fighting for some-thing to proof a point.

            Yes it’s miss-guided, no ideal ever justifies killing, ever.
            But as they say, one persons freedom fighter is another persons terrorist. We had “Freedom fighters.” here in Denmark doing the occupation of second world war, the only reason we call them freedom fighters today is because we won the war and got the country back, had germany taken over they would have been terrorists. It’s a lot more blurred than just “Black n White.”

          • Ricardo Cantoral

            I am going by what was presented in the film and the film clearly makes Joker a terrorist, a terrorist for anarchy as was stated by the character several times; The post 9/11 themes are pretty obvious i.e. the fear caused by the joker with public broadcasts and much of his dialogue. This isn’t a Rorschach test. He really isn’t unique because despite his motivation, his movements is what made him a far less interesting character which amounts to bad writing. Had Joker actually acted like a truly chaotic character, killing people for making his own sick little joke, then that would have been a real character.

            And secondly, why not give the character his trademark “Joker venom” ? That would have been so much better than bombs all the time. However, Nolan let Scarecrow have his fear gas. I really don’t get this realistic/unrealistic Nolan Batman universe.

          • MichaelANovelli

            Because Joker Venom and Laughing Gas aren’t *serious*, man!

          • Ricardo Cantoral

            As Al Gore may state “Laughing gas ? Not serial”.

          • MichaelANovelli

            Oh, Al Gore!  He always puts a smile on my face.  :-)

  • I just had a revelation! Mr. Mendo is the son of Harry S. Plinkett! lol;)

    • MichaelANovelli

      No, I’m the Son of Sam!  LOL

      • Ricardo Cantoral

         Close enough. XD

        • MichaelANovelli

          My dogs would disagree, were they still here.

  • Rmeddy

    I agree that most of the Plot induced stupidity and implausibility can be lampshaded or use the excuse of how corrupt Gotham is.

    Remember the mafia’s tentacles are everywhere.and they gave Joker full control of that.
    I disagree with your point about Batman choosing Rachel, it’s not his lack of belief in Harvey but his lack of stocism in the scenario, he is still growing as a person and hence would be prone to be having emotions trump his reason.Also they couldn’t pin the murders on Joker because the story would have too many holesI’ll admit Nolan must for some reason make his movies into a puzzle which is largely unneccesary also him being super serial by making terrorism the issue is for hype and appeals to be to emotion.It’s a product of the times we are living in and he exploited that

  • MichaelANovelli

    Well, I can say this for The Dark Knight: it wasn’t The Dark Knight Rises, that’s for fucking certain…

    • Sofie Liv

       I’m just looking more and more forward to watching that movie…

    • StevePotter

      Because Rises is better? 

      Just kidding. I loved The Dark Knight Rises, but I eagerly await your Hack Attack.

  • Gasmaskangel

    You look so very, very wrong without facial hair.

    • MichaelANovelli

      And you look wrong WITH facial hair, so we’re even.  :-)

      • Gasmaskangel

        I just have a goatee now.

        • MichaelANovelli

          But the Mr. Scratch *I* knew looked like Uncle Fester!

  • i still think hes at least the nephew of Plinkett, lol.

    • MichaelANovelli

      No, but I have an Uncle Grandfather!

  • Drumstick00m

    Not sure if the Joker was actually planning anything as oppose to winging it and trusting that everyone’s fear and or pride (in Batman’s case) would get the better of them. I think that was what was revealed in his conversation with Two-Face. If that is the case however, yeah everyone else in this movie is the following: stupid and or really susceptible to fear (is that the point of the story?) and or insanely arrogant (Batman certainly is), and  definitely staid to the point of being boring. Seriously why are the heroes in Nolan pictures incapable of emotion? Not that the actors are not trying to wring what they can out of the script, but still I definitely am in agreement on this point.

    • MichaelANovelli

      Because lack of emotion makes it *deep*, man…

  • Cristiona

    Something I’ve always wondered…

    He’s using, what, 5 million cell phones to make a sonar map of the city, and he did it by hanging a couple hundred small cell-phone sized screens from the ceiling?  Why not one huge screen?  Or a dozen wide screen monitors?  Seems that would have been a lot easier than disassembling a few hundred smart phones.

    Fair point on the Joker’s plans, too.  They were a little insanely complicated and relying too heavily on chance.  That’s the kind of plan Loki would come up with, and it works with Loki, because he’s a freaking god (or, close enough).  The Joker’s just a vanilla mortal.

    • Ricardo Cantoral

      This is what happens when you try and make a fucking comic book character “realistic”; You start questioning the so called “realism”.

      • MichaelANovelli

        Just goes to show: reality is over-rated!

  • Jeremy Johnson

    Sorry, man. This review IS nitpicking – poorly. Let’s look
    at all of your points.

    #1 Many of the cops ARE on the mob payroll, as explained in
    the movie.

    #2 The eulogy was part of a trap, as explained in the movie.

    #3 The point of the chase scene was to capture the Joker, as
    explained in the movie.

    #4 If the fingerprints and a MASSIVE SCAR on the face turn
    up no ID for the Joker, washing his face probably won’t help.

    #5 The cop in the Jokers room seemed to have a grudge, as
    explained by his dialogue… of the movie.

    #6 Good point. A bomb squad would be helpful… as long as
    they weren’t cops on the mob payroll.

    #7 Bruce saves Rachel, because Dent’s not gonna suck his
    dick. C’mon.

    #8 Good point. Two-faces physical afflictions were a
    distraction. They overdid it.

    #9 The Joker convinces Two-Face that random chaos is the
    only justice. Dent’s already suspicious of Gordon. I think that point is not
    played up enough in the movie, but it is there.

    #10 Two Face killed like 5 guys in the course of a day
    including cops. What do you want?

    #12 Blaming the Joker for Dent’s killings wouldn’t make
    sense. He was seen by cops and heard by millions plotting the boat scheme
    during those deaths.

    #13 War on Terror references? What movie were you watching?
    Just because you see a parallel on two unrelated things doesn’t mean it’s
    intentional.

    #14 The Joker made no plans. The Joker just prepared for the
    plans of others.

    #15 The batman’s tech was unrealistic. Good point.

     

    It’s obvious that you’re reviewing negatively only to
    be controversial. I can’t watch the rest of this. Sorry. You’re inserting ideas
    that aren’t in the movie, and ignoring points that were made in the movie.
    There are plot holes that you could certainly critique, but I guess you didn’t
    notice them. Leave the movie bashing of well-received movies to others. You’re
    not watching these movies close enough to do that.

    • MichaelANovelli

      You are aware that it is entirely possible to watch the same movie as someone else and get a completely different view of it, yes?  I’m sorry if you don’t care for me *criticising* the film, but, as a *critic*, that is, in fact, my job.  If the level of negativity here bothered you, be glad I didn’t shove my first draft (of rough notes) on the air; I went straight Spoony on this film!

      You certainly shouldn’t come back for the scathing review of Dark Knight Rises I’ll be doing when it comes out on DVD, as I thought that movie was SHIT!  But, there is one part of your post I feel the need to address specifically: you claim that the War on Terror references are just something I imagined and are not actually there.  You clearly have not read the comments for this video, or visited any forums where this movie is discussed, read Cracked.com’s multiple articles pointing out the same parallels, or been on the internet at any time in the last four years.  If you had, you would notice that a lot of other people besides me have noticed this.  This is a commonly accepted subtext of this film.  Nobody but you is denying this. 

      As for why I didn’t sweat some of the smaller details of this film, I clearly stated at the beginning of this review that I wasn’t going to do that.  Maybe YOU weren’t “watching close enough”…

      Have a nice day.  :-)

      • someone

        MichaelANovelli  you forgot 1The mob is stupid,joker plan for killing batman or unmask him is very very simple                       but they never think                     2Joker is just a plot device and one-dimensional because we don’t know        when he tells                         truth or lies so other them his stupid impossible plans we couldn’t characterize this                        guy                     3Dent:”you die a hero or you long enough to see yourself becoming the villain ”                      =i know that the power corrupts but i want it anyway .So his arc is not about his rising                         and falling but about his falling + one more reasone to call the ending bad                     4In Begins Batman save the town from its doom + Batman 
        kidnaps that  mob without                       who dent cannot do a thing=stupid ending

    • someone

      Jeremy Johnson is wrong
      #1 Many of the cops ARE on the mob payroll, as explained inthe movie. = not all, most of them are stupid like Gordon

      #2 The eulogy was part of a trap, as explained in the movie. = a stupid trap made by stupid cops

      #3 The point of the chase scene was to capture the Joker, asexplained in the movie. = cops were lucky and stupid, joker wanted to be capture

      #4 If the fingerprints and a MASSIVE SCAR on the face turnup no ID for the Joker, washing his face probably won’t help. = joker didn’t live under a rock there may be something in his past
       
      #5 The cop in the Jokers room seemed to have a grudge, asexplained by his dialogue… of the movie. = the other cops were stupid because they let him, he was stupid because he could beat the joker in other ways

      #6 Good point. A bomb squad would be helpful… as long asthey weren’t cops on the mob payroll. +if they do nothing they die if they do something they might live so they are stupid

      #7 Bruce saves Rachel, because Dent’s not gonna suck hisdick. C’mon. = bruce is very stupid and out of the character that way

      #8 Good point. Two-faces physical afflictions were adistraction. They overdid it. =yes Two-faces is his name because of the coint with no tail

      #9 The Joker convinces Two-Face that random chaos is theonly justice. Dent’s already suspicious of Gordon. I think that point is notplayed up enough in the movie, but it is there. = Dent’s already suspicious of Gordon what about suspicious of Joker
      Dent is very stupid

      #10 Two Face killed like 5 guys in the course of a dayincluding cops. What do you want? =Joker’s men and him killed 7+ the mob , blame someone else not batman

      #12 Blaming the Joker for Dent’s killings wouldn’t makesense. He was seen by cops and heard by millions plotting the boat schemeduring those deaths. =blame someone else not batman

      #13 War on Terror references? What movie were you watching?Just because you see a parallel on two unrelated things doesn’t mean it’sintentional. = no and the director doesn’t usually hardcoore themes

      #14 The Joker made no plans. The Joker just prepared for theplans of others. =these are plans made fast but they are logical resposes to others actions so they are plans because they have a premise(others actions) which leads to a conclusion using an algorithm

      #15 The batman’s tech was unrealistic. Good point. =yes but the movie lies to us, they want us to belive that this is realistic

      i wrote fast– there may be some mistakes–

    • Sammy

      Well since one person responded to this already I might as well.

      1.  The “cops are on the mob payroll” idea is undercut by the filming; the city is depicted as basically squeaky clean during all the day shots, and bad things only happen either at night or indoors out of the light.  (Then the Joker gets his tentacles in there and things get hectic.)  You can’t bring yourself to worry about the cops being in the mob’s pocket when the movie’s atmosphere is doing its best to convince you otherwise.
      2.  The eulogy was never explained in the movie to be a trap.  If it was a trap it was a terrible one.

      3.  And taking him alive is worth a dozen people dying?

      4.  “Probably” means “possibly not” and it’s stupid not to try.

      5.  Which would have been okay (still stupid, but character-stupid not script-stupid) if he had started behind the glass and let himself get coaxed in.  There’s no reason for him to be in the room to begin with.

      6.  I doubt the mob pays well enough that the bomb squad will die for them.  Put them in the blast zone and they’ll defuse it.  (for any bomb squad people out there; procedure, schmocedure, make them stand in the blast zone.)

      7, 8.  Basically.

      9.  I just chock it up to the massive amounts of diabolus ex machina that follow the Joker around in this film.  He’s constantly surviving stuff he shouldn’t.

      10.  I want more than one day, because the movie builds Two-Face up the whole time and then just drops him off a cliff.

      12.  I agree with you on this one, not to mention it would make the good guys look a lot less sympathetic.

      13.  Watch The Dark Knight Rises and tell us again how there’s no political commentary in Nolan’s Batman.

      14.  The Joker had scads of plans (though I think it improves the movie to believe otherwise).

      And this is from a guy who greatly enjoys The Dark Knight and still watches it regularly.  An enjoyable movie is not the same as a flawless one.

      • MichaelANovelli

        I’m always glad when I prompt discussion!

        • Sammy

          Looking forward to The Dark Knight Rises; I’ve got stuff to say about that one too.

          • MichaelANovelli

            I’ll try not to let you down!  :-)

  • someone

    Jeremy Johnson :
    #12 Blaming the Joker for Dent’s killings wouldn’t makesense. He was seen by cops and heard by millions plotting the boat schemeduring those deaths. 

    Sammy :
    12.  I agree with you on this one, not to mention it would make the good guys look a lot less sympathetic.
    I:
    12 NO: -batman has a tank whit rockets
               -he kidnaps a guy from china, (them that guy appears somehow in the police cells=batman helped the american 
               police or he is an american agent=political tension between Usa and china(a communist country)
                                                               =the public opinion changing,
                                                               =others countries left with a bad impression about the ways of USA,economical                                   
                                                     chaos
              -Gordon forgets Dent in the hospital
              -Batman is  wiretapping
              -Batman gives up so in the next movie he is responsible for the city semi-destruction
              -Dent(the guy’s image they want to save) – is pointless without batman not kidnapping that 
                                                                                           guy
                                                                                         -“you die a hero or live long enough to se yourself a villain”
                                                                                           meanig: the power corrupts but i still want it so dent is 
                                                                                           falling from the beginning of the movie, we don’t have 
                                                                                           any idea about what he did before the events of the movie.
    make the good guys look a lot less sympathetic, they should be already very “non-sympathetic”
                  

    • Hey It’s That Guy

      Are they allowing Mr. Holmes to post comments from prison?

      • someone

        Jeremy Johnson:
        #7 Bruce saves Rachel, because Dent’s not gonna suck hisdick. C’mon.
         
        Sammy :
        7, 8.  Basically. 

        I:
        So batman will rather have his 
        dick 
        suck than the city saved(Dent isn’t the savior of the city but because Batman isn’t a good detective in this movie, he doesn’t know it so for him Dent is the savior of the city in other words -if someone would test Batman with a lie-detector about Dent the machine will “tell” us that Batman tells the truth/because here is not about the truth or lie, is about Batman beliefs – so in the end Batman will still go against hid beliefs)
        Conclusion:it doesn’t matter in what way you are looking at this problem because  in both ways Batman is “non-sympathetic”

        • Sammy

          Fine, I’ll give a more thoughtful answer.

          Harvey Dent is the face of justice for the city, but Rachel Dawes is the soul.  She’s the one who was willing to stand up to the mob in the first movie, when they still had total control of the city.  She’s shown she’ll do the right thing no matter how difficult, while Harvey hasn’t been tested to the same extent; he can lead the city to new heights, but she’ll bring it back if it hits new lows, which it’s in the process of doing.  And Bruce Wayne is still a man with a childhood friend in danger.

          If you think capturing a money launderer with mob ties from a foreign country is unsympathetic then I don’t know what you’re doing watching a movie about a vigilante in the first place.  They’re not unsympathetic for bringing bad guys to justice, but they become unsympathetic when they start pinning crimes on people who didn’t commit them.

  • Iamcleggster

    Thank you, thank you, thank you.  I thought I was the only one who felt this way.  I don’t hate The Dark Knight, but I didn’t like it.  Which is odd given that I LOVED Batman Begins.  One of the best superhero movies ever, never-mind just Batman.

     Every reason you stated was something that just sat wrong with me.  Towards the end when they have the hostage situation, i’m sitting in the theater wondering why the only intelligent cop in the city (Gorden) was falling for the obvious setup of fake hostages.  And that damn ending.  Why not one of the goon on the ground.  They were going to lie about it anyway.

    It’s good to know that I am not the only one who was put off by all this.  I did like the last one though.  Even with all the glaring plot holes.

  • someone10

     !!!!!!Blaming the Joker for Dent’s
    killings wouldn’t makesense. He was seen by cops and heard by millions plotting
    the boat schemeduring those deaths.

                     WRONG         WRONG          WRONG           WRONG        WRONG

    The truth will set you free:

    1-if dent is dead batman is the only hope of
    the city.

    2-the city spirit won’t be broken because
    batman prove in “Batman Begins”(when he save the citizen

    he was/is their savior, in that movie he
    save the city from a huge but stupid  treath)so  the

    city spirit will rather be broken by the
    fall of batman than the fall of Dent + batman keept on fighting

    the corups.

    3-The Joker did these things at night while
    Dent did kill when the sunn was + Recording himself.

    Gordon, his wife, his children and Batman are the only witnesses.

    The Joker’s men kidnap dent, kill him and kidnap Gordon’s family
    plus they deafeat

    Batman and run away because the cops arrived.

     

    4-The Joker had more stupid, convoluted plans plus there are +
    everyone knows that he is a liar.

     

    5-Batman is still important for the city because guy like Joker
    appear out of nowhere

    and guys like Gordon are not good enough to face them, not that
    Batman isn’t stupid but he is better than Gordon or the others.

    • MichaelANovelli

      Uh………I don’t think you’re supposed to *drink* the bongwater…

      • someone10

        wtf my layout?
        what is the meaning of bongwater

        • Everything he says all of a sudden now makes sense. And I don’t mean that in a good way…

          • someone

            Proof it, i think he is right.

  • someone

    Watch this:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fx3rlE3MVxEThis is a very good review

    • MichaelANovelli

      Bold move…

      • someone

        C’mon it’s just an other good review. Speaking of good reviews watch this(…just kidding…)

      • someone

        C’mon it’s just another good review.
        Speaking of good reviews watch this(…just kidding…)

      • Sofie Liv

         well that guy in the video agrees with you, so it’s not all bad is it?

    • Alex_geo_12

      The idea is: i saw just 2 negative video-reviews of TDK so when people don’t think that you are right, and they are ready to bitch in the comment section this will prove them that they are wrong and you right.

  • someone

    “Harvey
    Dent is the face of justice for the city, but Rachel Dawes is the soul.
     She’s the one who was willing to stand up to the mob in the first movie,
    when they still had total control of the city.  She’s shown she’ll do the
    right thing no matter how difficult, while Harvey hasn’t been tested to the same extent;
    he can lead the city to new heights, but she’ll bring it back if it hits new
    lows, which it’s in the process of doing.  And Bruce Wayne is still a man
    with a childhood friend in danger..” 
     
    NO: Batman saved the city in the first one, Rachel couldn’t do a thing there,
    in that city 
    Yes she was willing to stand up to the mob but she stood up in the wind, she
    couldn’t do  something. 
    Pus Batman should belief that Gordon will save her. 
    To save Dent means to save a symbol of the city.(even if Dent is
    “falling” Batman doesn’t know it) 
    Dent is tested after Rachel’s death, the only test that Dent might fail before
    he becomes too powerful, and takes the system down with him. 
    To save Rachel means to save a personal symbol she is not the symbol of the
    city. 
    Rachel cannot do what you say she is powerless, Batman can do that now with or
    without her as shown in the movie. 
     
     
    “If you think capturing a money launderer with mob ties from a foreign
    country is unsympathetic then I don’t know what you’re doing watching a movie
    about a vigilante in the first place.  They’re not unsympathetic for
    bringing bad guys to justice, but they become unsympathetic when they start
    pinning crimes on people who didn’t commit them.” 
     
    This is wrong: 
    Bringing that guy to justice create tension between two very powerful
    countries, two very different countries. 
    What about a cold war 2, and an economical crisis, almost all the big
    players(countries) 
    will found USA method wrong(because is very hard to prove that Batman didn’t
    worked with the police) and USA will pay big time.Because of the Batman all
    people from USA will suffer in some way. 
    Vigilante could work as long as the public opinion help the hero when that
    thing changes, sometimes even before that change, the hero is taken down by the
    law(government). 
    If the government want it could take down Batman easy, he is bound to a huge
    company, that makes him very visible.

  • Would any critic on this site collaborate with Harry S. Plinkett, if he sent you a nice invitation to come do a review in his creepy basement, and promised pizza rolls would be served afterward?

    • MichaelANovelli

      I’m not opposed to the idea, but it seems to me our sites do two different things…

      • Sofie Liv

         Honestly… when I found out that Mike, the guy who voices plinkett in the original reviews and is the face of red letter media (he does not play plinkett in the half in the bag episode, there he plays himself.), was coming to Denmark, I was soooo very frustrated that I could not make it to Copenhagen to meet him!
        The notion was very short, it stood on his website about a week before he came here, had he announced it earlier, I would have done all that I could to get over there (no I am not from Copenhagen, I am from the rest of denmark.) to meet him and say hey.

        So well, if he ever comes to Denmark again.. all-though that admittedly seems unlikely, i would do what I can to go meet him.

        Btw, i have a hard time managing which reviewers are going where, I didn’t even know Spoony had just been in Ireland before after he caught back.. so if big name reviewers comes to countries as Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Germany.. close to me.. you can forward the message to me and i will look at the possibilities…

  • someone

    2
    more problems with TDK: 
     
    1. At the bank, Joker and his man give grenades to the bank employees, this is
    a mistake because: 
    The bank employees have many occasions to use them because the grenades aren’t
    strap to their hands: 
    a)when the mob guy attacks(he can tell them to use the grenades) 
    b)when the Joker arguments with his man 
    c)when they load the money 
    d)when joker specks with the mob guy 
    This goes against what Joker beliefs in the movie.(that moral choice)So either
    here or later joker acts stupid. 
     
     
    2. Batman calls Gordon to tell him where Joker is but doesn’t call Gordon to
    tell him that the hostages are the Joker’s men and the other way around. 
    (this is a stupid reason for Batman to fight Joker’s men, SWAT team, and save
    the hostages all together+he fights the Joker=unrealistic and stupid)

    •  *le sigh*
      1. You SERIOUSLY want hostages to use the grenades against their heavily armed captors especially when their captors are watching them every second of the robbery?

      2. You want Batman to take the time to call Gordon when he’s only got a short time to act before SWAT busts in and kills the hostages? Like seriously… you’re not even supposed to use a CELL PHONE WHILE DRIVING and you expect him to call Gordon under these circumstances? He needs to be talking to Fox the whole time because he needs to know what all is going on. You want Batman to put Fox on call waiting and call Gordon under these circumstances when every move that’s made could lead to the life or death of these hostages and every second counts?

      • someone

        1. Yes because: a)they  have just 2 guys running from the mobster,(perfect time to use them) he could tell themhem to use them b)they  have just 2 guys arguing (perfect time to use them)  c)they will be sure about their survival. d)this thing with giving grenades to the bank employees contradicts what Joker will make with the boats and the moral choice of killing others for your own life, so this or that is a stupid plan  2. Yes because: a)he already called him to tell him where hostages are. b)fighting SWAT,joker’s men and save the hostages is stupid. jokers’ men and save the hostage with the help of SWAT is smart. Batman puts the life of the hostages at risk because he might not be able to stop all bullets coming from so many direction, also he might not be able to stop all SWAT guys coming from so many direction, c)Batman has the technology to call two people at the same time(if not, that would be stupid because he has the technology to do bigger things) d)put Fox to call Gordon he has a lot of cell phones there. 

  • someone

    ANOTHER PROBLEM WITH TDK 
     
     
    When the Joker starts detonating the bombs he is in the Hospital and he is walking slowly. 
    PROBLEMS: 
    a)no explosions harms him 
    b)no explosions starts a chain reaction which will destroy the hospital completely 
    Why this is a big deal:Joker’s chances of dying are huge or Joker will certainly die, and the plot will completely change because of it.

  • Radraccoon

    God, I hate the Batman voice.  It makes MY throat hurt just to hear it.  

    • MichaelANovelli

      Do cough drops help?

  • someone

    TDK  problems:  
    1. That coin cannot be burn just on one side. The power of hat explosion should destroy it.  
    The incredible heat and pressure of that explosion would melt that coin, making it unrecognizable.  
    This is a problem because the coin becomes a central part in the way Dent acts.  
    Plus Batman finds it (somehow), and decides to give it back to Dent, this is not the best idea.  
      
    2 If you watch carefully when Dent tries to get in the mob guy’s car, the guy who close the door for the mobster can see Dent plus he can also be seen in the mirror situated on the driver’ side.  
    This is important because Dent could die in that situation.  

  • someone

    TDK  problems: 

    1. The
    Joker finds out (somehow) where the mob will have a meeting, The security for
    that meeting cannot stop him (somehow).Someone could slink and shoot him where
    he was talking (not one of the mobster’ bodyguards) or do something.

    This is
    important because normally the security for these guys is incredible and Joker
    would be killed.

     

    2. The
    Joker’s plan is very simple:

    He will
    kill cops until Batman quits and he is vulnerable, and then he will kill him.

    This is a
    problem because the plan is very simple and the mobster should be smart enough
    to find that out.

     

    HUGE HUGE

    3. If you
    watch carefully there is enough space for the cops to go around the burning
    car. Plus to go down to the lower level means losing your helicopter backing.
    They never say why they couldn’t go on other routes.(their new route has also
    traffic)

     

    4. The
    trap for the helicopter makes no sense . They guess the altitude, the route of
    the helicopter, the route of the police car on which the route of the
    helicopter depends.

     

    5. Police
    cars appear and disappear(even if we know that they wouldn’t make a difference
    in this movie in the normal they would).

     

    6.
    Joker’s men survive even if it seems imposible to.(they were needed later plus
    Batman doesn’t kill, “garbage truck guy and the ninjas from the fist
    movie”).

  • I normally wouldn’t say this, because it’s the ultimate cop-out and sounds a bit too much like a hackneyed and cliched excuse, but I’d like to see any of you do better than Christopher Nolan. I guess it all comes down to how good of a story-teller is he? Like seriously these days I can’t walk into a film anymore without having a seriously critical eye about every and any conceivable flaw. Nolan’s story-telling for me is so good that any perceived flaws are superfluous, bordering on so f’ing what?! It doesn’t matter how the Joker did this this or this or why this this or this happened. What you’re basically asking for is for the movie to derail itself just for the satisfaction of answering your inconsequential nitpicks. In a comic book, you can do that, in a movie… especially a fast-paced character-driven crime thriller, you cannot.

    • someone

      Story-telling is built on plot holes. Characters are flawed in this movie. This is a  fast-paced movie to cover up the plot holes. The  nitpicks are huge plot holes, my comments present “nitpicks” that could change the plot completely. It’s not about movie making, it’s about logic. 

      • Okay your first statement “Story-telling is built on plot holes” is… I don’t even know where to begin with that one, but that’s already a very flawed statement on its own. And what’s wrong with characters being flawed? Everyone’s going to be flawed, and that’s not an excuse, it’s a fundamental truth in both real life and fiction. As far as I am concerned, as long as I can make a reasonable inference about something, it’s NOT a plot hole at all. Everything you complain about, I can make a reasonable inference about. And I guess they couldn’t have been plot holes that big and readily apparent because the critics and the audience both seemed to love the film equally, if not more so.

        • someone

          YOU:
           

          “Nolan’s story-telling for me is so good that any perceived flaws are
          superfluous” 

          “It doesn’t matter how the Joker did this this or this or why this this or
          this happened.” 

          I: THIS IS STUPID: 

          The movie tells a story, the story is about the fight between Batman and
          Joker(the fight between good and evil. The fight between two very different
          ideologies. A fight that affects so many  humans ) That fight is built on
          contrived plot points. The fight isstupid illogical so the story is illogical, now
          let me ask you if telling a stupid illogical story (the characters action made
          the story, so they act stupid and illogical) is so impressive do you love
          Batman and ROBIN, Jack and Jill(I don’t compare TDK with this movie TDK is a good movie not as good as you
          think but still good i HAVE just gave an extreme example, why extreme because
          you need one to understand my point)  The
          critics gave this good reviews but: 

          a)they see 3/5 movie a day which mean less time to think about them, plus they
          have to write the reviews as quickly as possible so there are huge chances to
          be wrong (ex: Ebert thought that Batman F was better than Batman R) 

          b)they didn’t expected to be so good, this being a pleasant surprise added some
          points 

          c)the movie is to fast-paced you will remain with the interesting plot but you
          won’t be able to see that it makes no sense at all, they saw some plot holes
          but you need to see a lot of times this movie to see them all
          Please do it but as a new comment not a response because i need space to proof you wrong “Everything you complain about, I can make a reasonable inference about.”  

          • I have no idea what you’re talking about, but nevertheless I am through arguing with you. Try to see where I’m coming from before you reply for now on, k?

          • someone

            I have no idea what you’re talking about. What is that you don’t understand?May be the second reply is more easy to understand.

          • Let me put it this way, your articulation needs work.

          • someone

            I used steps, to be for you easy to understand, and the Green Goblin reply is understandable.

        • someone

          Let me give you an other example in Spider-Man
          3 The Green Goblin loses his memory,(the memory that the plot wants him to
          lose) that is possible, but the movie using something like that it’s bad. This
          is a weak way of progressing the story, just like what Joker does or the other
          little, big things that happen(ex:  That coin  ) 

    • MichaelANovelli
      • Sofie Liv

         Holy crap… you didn’t tell me you were an all-ready published author… if i buy a copy can I have it signed?

        • MichaelANovelli

          Of course!  You thought you needed to ask?

      •  no no no, I mean a better Batman MOVIE. You can address potentially everything in a book but it’s not always possible in a film.

        • MichaelANovelli

          Ya can’t change the rules in the middle of the game, old boy.  ;-)

          • That sounds like a plot convenience to me Mendo! I’ll check your book out sometime btw, should be a fun read. :D

    • Sammy

      I think he pointed out several flaws that could have been easily fixed if anyone had taken the time.  For instance, have the mob (or literally anybody besides the Joker) set off the human bomb.  It blows a hole in the interrogation room, Joker escapes and there’s no stupidity about people guarding him from inside the room or him standing through something that killed everyone else.  And make all the other bombs toxic gas like Burton’s Joker used.
      But yeah, the film’s strength is the flow, and I think the flow holds up even as the story breaks down.

      Also, I hate that “let’s see you do better” argument.  Partly because I can’t help but think there’s someone who did make something better but gave up on it because they didn’t think it was good enough, and partly because it implies that something bad is always better than nothing.

      • someone

        Sammy how the flow holds up even as the story breaks down, if you break down the movie you will see that it’s flowing in a bizarre and contrived way.

  • someone

    For the
     people that didn’t understand my comment that begins
    with:YOU:”Nolan’s story-telling for me is so good that any perceived flaws
    are superfluous”  
    Let me use steps to explain: 
     
    Step 1 The movie tells the story,the story is about the fight between Batman
    and Joker(the fight between good and evil. The fight between two very different
    ideologies. A fight that affects so many  humans ) 
     
    Step 2 In order for the story to progress in the way that the movie makers
    wanted(and not in a more logical way) they use contrived plot points 
     
    Step 3 Because of the contrived plot points the story begins illogical and
    stupid. 
     
    Step 4 The Joker makes most of the actions that progress the story and the
    others respond to Joker actions. 
     
    Step 5 Because the story is illogical and stupid and the story is made from the
    characters actions, the characters action are illogical and stupid 
     
    Step 6 A men is define by his action, so the characters are illogical and
    stupid. 
     
    Step 7 Why the plot points are contrived?(read my other comments)

  • someone

    Your “nitpicks” could change the plot completely.
    I’m sure you are not nitpicking.(nitpick means to be excessively concerned with or critical of inconsequential details.So you are not nitpicking.)

  • WavyRancheros

    “Does anyone ever smile in this movie?” and a couple of seconds later you’re showing Bruce and Harvey smiling. 

    • MichaelANovelli

      So, that answered that question, eh?  :-)

  • Chimaera

    Thank you! The Harvey Dent thing was what bugged me the most. I was sitting there at the end, literally sputtering, “What…but…crazy clown…killing people! Pin the murders on him!” It felt incredibly forced and contrived.

  • Russell Brin (Facebook sux)

    Mr Mendo would you like her to join the Agony Booth?  Check out this video http://blip.tv/CiyReviwes/ciy-reviwes-heroic-trio-5642224

    • MichaelANovelli

      Well, she certainly has my vote!  :-)

  • someone

    He showed us some “nitpicks” that could change the plot completely.
    I’m sure he is not nitpicking.(nit-pick=to be excessively concerned with or critical of inconsequential details.So he is not nitpicking.)

    • someone’sbrother

      Him complaining about them not washing away Joker’s make up isn’t a nitpick? Because that would have completely changed the direction of the plot. Completely, just, utterly. He complains about a gun being snuck into a courtroom, and then there wasn’t a major investigation about it (even though there might have been, but it just wasn’t shown because it had little relevance to the plot. The scene as a whole was there as an introduction to Harvey’s fearless character, which it does quite well, while showing Gotham still is corrupt). 

      Yeah even calls it nitpicking. I’m pretty sure he’s nitpicking. 

      • someone

        He showed
        us some “nitpicks” that could change the plot completely. 
        I did say that all the facts that he showed us aren’t nitpicks, that part with
        the make up, is a part of a bigger complain, the police could find something in Joker’s past, he might not have an id but i think he didn’t live under a rock, he
        learn the stuff that he did somehow so they can find some elements of his past
        by working together with the people of Gotham,you know like real police would do. The make up is stupid, because it doesn’t cover up his face, actually his
        face has the same distinct elements which can be seen even when he doesn’t have the make up on, so at that ceremony a
        real policeman would see that the Joker is there, the only thing that make the
        difference between joker’s face and his make up-face is the color as for the
        rest the same elements, that can be used by a real policeman to identify him and
        stop him right there with a bullet. 
         
        That part with the gun, there you are wrong if the movie doesn’t show it or
        doesn’t imply it, it never happen. No let’s say that everything that misses
        from a movie really happened but we didn’t saw it, the movie it’s not real life, for a thing to exist in a movie, it has to be shown or implied. 
         
        He said that these are nit-picks because he didn’t want to upset the people who
        loved this movie.

        • someone

          I wanted to say ”
          I didn’t say that all the facts that he showed us aren’t nitpicks ” and
          Now let’s say that everything that misses

  • MichaelANovelli

    For those who were worried, yes, I DID grow back the mustache!

  • someone

    He showed us some “nitpicks” that could change the plot completely.
    I’m sure he is not nitpicking.(nit-pick=to be excessively concerned with or critical of inconsequential details.So he is not nitpicking.)He said that these are nit-picks because he didn’t want to upset
    the people who loved this movie..

  • Pywaket

    Joker’s 2 boat scheme was defused by random prisoner deciding to be the most heroic person in the film.
    For Joker this was a Dent-like but pointless plan. For Batman, how was that a good plan?

    • MichaelANovelli

      The power of wishful thinking, I guess?

  • I dont think the Dark KNight was the first $200 million dollar superhero movie!!!

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