The Dark Knight

Last night I finally saw The Dark Knight. Given the enormous hype surrounding the movie I was pumped all year to go see it, but life got in the way and I had to wait a whole 2 weeks to take it in. I'm kind of cheating, because I never actually watched Batman Begins. Whatever, its a comic book movie; its not like the plot is going to be that complicated. Plus I've seen every episode of the campy 1960s Batman TV series, so I got a pretty good idea of who's who in the Batman universe. Sadly, there was no sign of Julie Newmar in her classic catwoman getup.



MEOW!







After seeing the movie, the only word that comes to mind is INTENSE!!! Not intense. INTENSE!!! You have to capitalize the word just to come close describing how incredibly heavy and dark this film is. It never lets up. This movie is 150 minutes of violence, action, depravity and horror.

Did I like The Dark Knight? Yes, of course, totally and in all ways. Did I love it? Eh. I think its certainly a good movie, and a superior comic book movie, but somehow it still felt a little empty. Maybe since I'm not really a comic fanboy I can't connect to the story on a deeper level. Or maybe I was just so damn exhausted after watching it that I was a little shell shocked and so unable to really judge it properly. Whatever the case, I do recommend it, but I warn you to prepare your mind to be put through the ringer.

Anyone who goes to the movies knows that your choice of film affects your choice of preview trailers you will be exposed to. In this case I was assaulted by ads for at least 5 scifi/action films. Only Quantum of Solace, the new 007 film, interests me. The rest were bad to forgettable, but the very worst was a preview for a remake of the 1951 classic The Day the Earth Stood Still, starring... I can't even say it. Ok... here goes: Keanu Reeves. Yes, that's right, one of the all time classics is being remade with Neo as the lead. Granted, the original movie had the Robot Gort as a main character, so it could be that Reeves is the new Gort, which is perfect casting given Reeves's acting ability.







<-Gort Knows Kung Fu!->


The original TDTESS had a timely and powerful message about the dangers of Nuclear War. I can only hope this remake will send a powerful message about the dangers of defiling classic movies in order to squeeze a few lousy box office dollars from the movie going public. But its probably some stupid thing about global warming or the dangers of checking your email every 8 minutes. Too late for some of us.