The Dark Knight (2008) with comment

 is the single most misreviewed movie of this year (2008)
thus far. All too many movie reviewers are pandering to what they
believe their readers want to hear, rather than what they actually
believe. As a result, what is actually a movie with a confusing plot and
a tendency towards speechifying, especially in its last half hour, has
been hailed as one of the greatest movies of the year, if not this
decade thus far.

Why has The Dark Knight been so widely labeled a great movie by the
critics? Basically because movie reviewers, particularly critics for
print publications such as newspapers, have been pandering to what they
believe that their readers want to hear. Since the conventional wisdom
is that The Dark Knight will be a blockbuster, the critics want to get
on the “right side” of the public and so they write these pandering
reviews that overlook the problems with The Dark Knight.

Why are the critics engaging in this behavior? Newspapers are downsizing
and dropping their in-house movie reviewers and are either replacing
them with syndicated writers or not even running movie reviews at all.
Casualties of the recent downsizing trend include Terry Lawson of the
Detroit Free Press and Michael Wilmington of the Chicago Tribune. A big
reason for this trend is the increasing belief that movie reviewers are
irrelevant as far as the movie going public is concerned. Flicks
denounced by the critics score big at the box office while films that
win critical praise bomb out. As a result, the critics are praising
movies that they think will attract huge crowds so that they can “prove”
their relevancy and as a result, keep their jobs.

While a better movie overall than Batman Begins, The Dark Knight suffers
from the same basic flaws as its prequel. The plot is poorly thought out
and has several improbably moments such as the Joker being able to
escape at least 3 different times and in hard to believe ways each time.
The acting is average at best & the script is not much better than okay.
If Heath Ledger were still alive, practically nobody would be singling
out his performance as the Joker as being Oscar worthy. Ledger’s Joker
is lame and inferior to Cesar Romero’s Joker from the mid-1960’s TV show
Batman and the 1966 movie version of the same show. About the only
saving grace for The Dark Knight is the fact that its first 2 hours is
so fast paced that it flies by so much so that you would almost swear
that substantially less time had elapsed. Too bad the last half hour is
loaded with characters making speeches to each other and the like that
causes the movie to suddenly drag.

Like Batman Begins before it, The Dark Knight is basically a perversion
of the original Batman created by Bob Kane. As such, it should be
avoided by all those who read and respected Batman in the comic books.

As for those pandering print movie reviewers, if all they can do is
praise the movies that they think are going to become hits, and trash
the flicks that they believe are going to bite the dust, then they
richly deserve to become an endangered species, if not altogether
extinct.

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2 Responses to “The Dark Knight Review Rough Draft”
ben says:
August 12, 2008 at 8:14pm
wow… I have to say that I strongly disagree with your consensus. First,
the best reviewers never cater to what they think people will perceive.
Any critic can stand on his own opinion regardless of its popularity.

And calling Heath’s performance lame… I have to say I was skeptical
going in and have never truly been a fan of the actor. Nor did I feel it
necessary to base my opinion of his performance upon the sentiment of
his death. You watch him and you don’t see Heath Ledger. You see the
joker. A deranged man with a creepy demeanor and a moral compass that
points to its own north. If you can’t find yourself getting lost in his
performance then maybe you need to take on a new hobby. It may have not
been the most riveting plot but it was a very entertaining movie that
did not fit the traditional ‘action movie sequel’ mold. I think that may
be why you did not like it. It was different, and you are one of the
simple minded individuals of the viewing public that is addicted to the
same old formulaic performance/production duo that doesn’t know what to
do with something that is actually novel. So before you begin your
conspiracy theories as to why the critics aren’t on the same page as
you, maybe you should take a step back and ask yourself what did they
pick up that went over your head?