Just so that everybody can tell me how wrong i am - The Dark Knight

First thing - this film has nothing to do with the graphic novel of basically the same title. Not a bad thing, in my opinion, because there is so much backstory in that series that would be almost impossible to put in a single movie, and would be necessary to make a halfway decent film that would also be understandable to someone who hadn't read it.

Now, this is a comment (somewhat expanded as things have occured to me) that i posted in the long string of comments replying to Anna's post about how much she enjoyed the film (repeating it here so that people who don't read that string can have a chance to tell me how wrong i am):

Okay, i saw the film.

I'm impressed.

If nothing else, i'm impressed that it wasn't the flaming disaster that Speed Racer apparently was.

Not impressed enough to go back and see it again any time soon - this film is like Pulp Fiction, in that after you see it you know all its tricks, and its tricks are all it has going for it, not like, say, Once Upon a Time in the West or even Dark Star or Get Crazy.

Basically, i rate it tied for second for the summer with The Hulk.

The only reason i can see for the Oscar buzz surrounding Heath Ledger's Joker is that he died. It's a serviceable performance, consisting mostly of a lot of little tics and no real characterisation. The "demonic" tongue business Anna mentioned mostly put me in mind of a lizard. The wonderful voice performance i read raves about seemed most effective when it made me think of Jack Nicholson. (The best Joker voice ever is Mark Hamill.)

Throwing away an important and long-established character (longer established than Joe Chill, for that matter) who ought to be in future films ia almost as annoying as the way that they screwed up R'as al Ghul in the first film.

When i first saw a still of the Joker makeup online, i hoped it was a fakeout to hide the real makeup. Not only is it, in my opinion, something that a little kid getting into his mother's makeup box in order to play the Joker in a game of "Batman and Villains" with his seven-year-old buddies, but they couldn't even keep it consistent from shot to shot.

An enjoyable film, but, honestly, i prefer Burton's first two to either of these most recent films - except in the matter of effects and action sequences, which is just a matter of technological progress.

That bike is ludicrous; you couldn't possibly ride that at any kind of speed on any surface; much less on low-traction surfaces. And where does it carry all that ammo? And how does Batman make sure that all that big stuff he's shooting here and there doesn't do any collateral damage?

Rather amused to see two gimmicks that were last seen in James Bond films - one of them about forty-five years ago, and one of them presented as something wonderful...

Oh - and firing an RPG (not once, but repeatedly) inside what amounts to a smallish metal box with other people in it - one of them, at least once, standing directly behind the launcher. I believe that RPGs have backblast...

The first thing we see the Batman do is bend a rifle barrel with one hand. Sure.

I guess the problem is that it didn't live up to the advance buzz but then, nothing could.

(Interestingly, one important makeup more resembled the animated Batman series version of the character than it did any other version of the character...)

Actually, i wouldn't be surprised if Watchmen blows it away.

One thing that fascinated me is that, while Gordon has a wife named Barbara (as in the latest version of the comics for the most-nearly-corresponding period in his life), and a son (whose name is in the end credits), he also has a daughter, who we barely see - i don't recall seeing her face - and who is not named either in dialog or in the end credits.

Wonder if she's named after her mother?