[Cecil Terwilliger]

In the last 2 nights I've watched Batman Begins and TDK both.

Some thoughts:

BB:

-really solid flick. probably has the most sensical and linear plot of all the films. I'll touch more on this with regards to TDK.

-Nolan did a tremendous job of making sure that the trilogy had a fairly seemless transition from film to film, complaints about the differences in the cities for filming notwithstanding. So many hints about the future movies, themes, conflicts etc that are established here.

-Bale looked quite a bit heavier in this film. His face was fuller.

-Bale's growly voice wasn't as heavy in this one. He really picked it up in the TDK.

-Katie Holmes is never going to win an academy award but I preferred her to Maggie Gylenhall. In hindsight that was terrible casting. More on that later.

-Crane is a bit misplaced. He never truly becomes the scarecrow until the end of the movie but prior to that he's just a really crooked psychiatrist. Just doesn't feel totally natural the way he goes from crooked psychiatrist to crazed villain, and I'm not talking about when he goes crazy, I mean when we first see him wear the mask. He just didn't seem that evil before and now we find out he's in league with Ra's. Minor quibble.

-I never really liked the Tumbler vehicle but now that I'm used to it I appreciated the chase seen when he's trying to save Rachel that much more. (except for the fact he would have killed about a dozen cops)

-Speaking of his car the only thing I still find insultingly stupid is the fact that he goes into this weird laying down position when weapons systems are activated. God that is so stupid when he does it and when Gordon does it.


TDK:

-Ok I'm gonna warn everyone. I'm about to absolutely trash this movie. After watching BB again, I realized that there are certain things I like better about TDK but it's really a mediocre film with a stupid stupid plot and BB is way better.

-Love the first 35 mins or so. Starts very strong. Right up to the point where the Joker starts killing people to get Batman to reveal himself.

-Then it is all downhill from there or at least the next hour is all downhill. I'll talk more later on how I can love this movie but also find it terrible. But it starts going downhill when Batman finds the dead guys in the appartment and their names combine to form Harvey Dent.

-The whole scene with the bullet testing and the fingerprints makes no sense and is quite stupid. In fact it is pointless. Like many other things in this movie Nolan needed a means to an end but the way he filled in the gaps is ######ed.

-So Wayne finds these fingerprints and heads to the appartment where he watches the Joker try and kill the mayor. Why he didn't dress up as Batman is beyond me.

-Not to mention how stupid it is that the Joker was able to plant himself in like row 3 of the cops and not get noticed.

-If they knew there was going to be an attempt on the Mayor's life, why in the hell would they leave him out in the open? Furthermore, when did they plan to fake Gordon's death? Did Batman even know they'd do that? Awful big risk by Gordon there. Minor quibble compared to the stupidity of the Joker being out in broad daylight and not being noticed though.

-Oh going back here but the whole sonar cell phone thing is stupid. Especially when fox uses it in Hong Kong or wherever Lau was hanging out.

-Now we're at one of the stupidest thought out scenes in film history. So they capture the Joker. Very cool fight scene leading up to that but - and that's a major but - it is so ######ed the way they get in trouble while transporting Dent.

-First, why not use an effing helicopter? How stupid. Second, Joker starts a fire and forces them to divert. Once again, how effing stupid. As if they couldn't have just gone around? Or found another above groud route. Why trap yourself? The cop even complains that they'll be sitting ducks. Then why are you doing it moron!!!!!!

-Ok so Joker is caught and they interogate him. Yet another scene that I could watch over and over. At least right up until it goes full ######.

-So the Joker is trapped in this room. Instead of just leaving him in there, for some bizarre, stupid reason they decide to put a cop INSIDE the cell with him. Think about how stupid this is!!! An unarmed cop no less, WTF?!?

-Once again, and like I said I'll touch on this at the end, Nolan needed a gap filling scene. He knew the end result of that scene but didn't know how to get there. So unfortunately he uses a stunningly stupid device to make it happen. God that scene pisses me off.

-I'm gonna jump back again real quick to the scene in Bruce's penthouse. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Once again Nolan wants a scene with Rachel and Batman saving her but doesn't really think through the logic. So Bruce locks Dent in a closet. Joker comes looking for Harvey. Jumps out window with Rachel and when they land she says "Is Harvey safe?" WTF woman? You saw Bruce lock him in a closet! And the worst part is Batman says ####ing YES!! Really? So now the Joker is alone in your penthouse with your guests. He starts searching the place for Harvey, it's not gonna take him long to figure out that the closet with the bar across it is where Harvey is. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

-I bought his yearning for rachel much more in the first one. They just didn't have any chemistry here. I found myself not caring when she died. That's bad.

From there to the end there are some things I don't like (the prisoners on the boat is so dumb and so is the sonar crap) but for the most part it is stuff I can live with.

It is that middle third of the movie that really just falls apart. How I see it is that Nolan knew what themes and conflicts he wanted to explore. Batman's one rule, the chaos of the Joker, balancing Batman with his desire for a real life (although again I don't like the new Rachel, I just didn't feel the love from Bruce to her), human nature, being corruptable etc.

The problem is that Nolan simply didn't have a very good Joker story. The plot of the movie is at times extremely stupid. And not just the overall plot but the way that the plot logically (or illogically in TDK's case) is tied together with the next scene. It is basically a collection of deadly scenes with amazing performances and a great score but the way the scenes fit together seems like a poor attempt at connect the dots. What do I mean by that?

Think of the movie as a timeline. Nolan knew he wanted to have certain scenes or events happen at various points of the movie. He needed these either because they were cool or they helped him showcase some of those themes/messages/conflicts I just mentioned. The problem is that when he was connecting the dots the filler he used to connect them was piss poor.

He could have found a better way to fake Gordon's death, the barrels of gasoline on the boats could have been better, same with the excuse to get the prisoners on the ferry in the first place. The Joker could have bombed MCU (I think that's what they call it) and escaped in a much more sensical way.

Even the part where Dent gets kidnapped because the cop driving his car was crooked was kinda dumb to me. Just didn't like it.

All in all it has by far the best performances. Heath Ledger, nuff said. But it also has the worst story. Just because the Joker is a chaotic character who doesn't make sense doesn't mean your film has to be nonsensical.

Like I said, it seemed like Nolan knew where he wanted to go, he just couldn't find a good way to get there. Really muddles up the film. It has so many cool scenes, cool lines, interactions, messages, themes, characters etc but they are poorly tied together and the result is a very deep movie and a very cool one but story wise it is bad.

I felt somewhat the same about Inception but the thing was it is such a complex film that those weak ties between plot points or scenes are almost easily forgiven because basis of the film seems to mitigate those jumps in logic. Not in TDK.


I'm not gonna say anything about TDKR until I can do so without emotion. I want to try and have an objective take on the film and I'm not ready for that yet. Oh, except that I'll say that in my mind I hear "Dick Grayson" not Robin. Stab in the heart after all the ways Nolan had honored the comics and made us geeks feel warm and fuzzy and then he does that. Gross.