"The Dark Knight Rebuttal" by Ryan Bradley

Summer 2005. I walk out of a Batman Begins and want to slap Adam Slight in the face. How dare he make fun of the world’s greatest detective and my beloved Batman? Batman Begins reinvented a series that Joel Schumacher ran into the ground. For that alone Christopher Nolan should be applauded not to mention the fact he delivered perhaps the best superhero movie ever.

Summer 2008. I do in fact see the err of my ways and now accept some of the criticisms laid out by Adam. Batman Begins suffered from poor dialogued and some very dry scenes. The movie was not the perfect film that I once thought it to be. Nonetheless, it was still a decent comic book movie and has earned a deserved place in the superhero world along side the greats; Sin City, Spiderman 2, Batman Returns and Iron Man.

Despite my new found skepticism in this re-amped Batman franchise, I still looked forward to this The Dark Knight. Massive viral campaigning and what seemed like hundreds of trailers showing the same scenes in different orders were constantly thrown in my face. It looked amazing and it appeared that Heathy Boi (R.I.P!11!) was going to steal the show. When I saw the movie I was somehow surprised and even offended once again by Adam's review. Here we go again. Its him vs. the rest of the world – the nerds, the common movie goers and the newly found Ledger fans. Is he right? Was this movie garbage? Should people read his review and take the ravings of a madman as fact? Or Is The Dark Knight one of the greatest movies of the year? Does Heath Ledger deliver an Oscar rumored performance? Should you go out and add to the $158.4 million that this movie swept in over the past weekend?

The first attack by Mr. Slight is aimed at the soundtrack and quite frankly he mostly nails this one. The music is perhaps my greatest criticism of the movie as there are only two songs used. The movie is constantly intense and the viewer is always on edge of their seat especially in the second half of the film. Track 2 :“This Part Is Very Exciting” unnecessarily adds to the already nerve racking intensity of the film to a point where it becomes annoying. You feel like you cannot enjoy the movie at many points because that grinding song is continually playing. Track 1: “This Part Is Very Sad” is meant to be a relief from the only other song in the movie. If anything this song may be the reason that we will not see a Brokeback Mountain 2 because a certain star could not take hearing it anymore. It seemed to be played on loop just at a lower level than Track 2 so whenever Batman was not in the picture this is all you hear.

Let us now turn our attention to the acting which I do have some problems with. I could not help but wish that Rachel Dawes and Harvey Dent both got blown to millions of little pieces. I think that I showed more emotion during Princess Diaries 2 after the third time watching it. This lack of emotion was only compounded further by having some of the cheesiest and driest dialogue in what was otherwise a cleverly written movie. Nevertheless, the other characters in the movie were pulled off well while Heath Ledger lead the way. Ledger delivers the Joker in a way that I would never expected. He was tortured and torturing at the same time. Intense and scary as hell. That being said, I do not think that at the end the 5 minute Oscars montage of his mediocre movies that he should be awarded as best actor. Adam is correct - he was great but not worth digging the poor guy up for. Do not forget that we saw Sarah Jessica Parker deliver an amazing performance in this summer’s Sex and The City and she is still in the land of the living.

The final issue with this film is linked to the length, although my view on it differs SLIGHTly from Adam’s. This movie was one of the darkest and most intense movies that I have ever seen in theaters. 2 hours in, I needed a break but it continued for another 30mins. I was trying to take everything in but the length hindered me from doing so. I needed a break, not because of uninspired and bland cinematography but because the movie was so good at keeping me involved in the film. The second half of the movie is in no way like a bad case of diarrhea - unless you get diarrhea whenever you are completed drawn into a movie and never want to take your eyes off the screen. The second half is aesthetically and cinematically inspired and is definitely what could make it the best movie of the year.

The themes and ironies are in evident in this movie but it is in no way as evident and annoying as the repetition of the Fear theme in Batman Begins. All superhero movies have these themes tossed in your face which is necessary to stay true to comic book criteria. Justice and forbidden love are mixed in with the moral ambiguity in manner than it is not repetitive, not easily noticed and not annoying (Unless of course you are the Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At World’s End lover Adam Slight).
This movie was excellently executed. Great story, a much better script than Batman Begins, interesting set and costume design, amazing characters and some decent acting – all combine to create a dark and intense movie experience that I have never felt at the movies before. This being said there are some flaws with this film and perhaps it was not exactly the masterpiece that most claim it to be. It was still a great movie and in a year that has not been the best for stellar films The Dark Knight is among the top. It is highly unlikely that you will want your evening back but see it for yourself. Don’t accept this to be a masterpiece until you have thought about it. Ignore the blogs, critics and any chump that tries to tell you that you are an idiot for hating or loving a movie.