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Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger
It also has some glaring issues, as pointed out by another poster, so I won’t list them all. I’ll just reiterate that, much like it’s successor TDKR, it has a totally nonsensical plot.
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No, you should, because I didn't see them. Or at least refer to what you're talking about. TDKR was absolutely full of plot holes, and was disjointed - it didn't flow well at all and the twist at the end also fell pretty flat. TDK was a fairly character-driven film, and the character in question was Ledger's Joker, who is probably the best villain of any superhero movie I can think of. He's certainly a more interesting character than Thanos is. I haven't watched TDK in a while, but I'm trying to think of some aspect of the plot where I went "wow, that was stupid".
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I also don’t think it represents such a watershed moment for gritty superhero movies. That belongs much more to Batman Begins.
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Batman Begins is fine and all, but none of the performances were great (and all of the better ones were by actors who reprised their roles in TDK and by and large did a better job in that film). There was plenty of "wow, that was stupid" in Batman Begins, and as mentioned above, it was a much more paint-by-numbers, plot driven action movie.
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IW also can’t be looked at without considering the other 20 or so movies that tie into the Avengers story. TDK is fairly standalone, despite being a sequel.
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This is a fair basis for not comparing the two, but I don't think it's a plus for IW. For one thing, it's not terribly consistent with some of those earlier movies - Vision basically turning into a weakling after effectively being a god-being in the previous couple of movies was a bit stage-slappy for me.
Look, I liked IW plenty. It's a spectacle and there's not a lot of "weak" there. But I am primarily looking for three things in a movie. First, I want a well-written script with strong characters who drive the story. Second, I want the movie to be nice to look at and listen to - not in terms of bright lights and explosions and "whoa" factor, but in terms of colour palate, lighting, and atmosphere. Third, I want some strong performances from leading actors.
In all of those categories, TDK is a better movie than IW. In fact, IW didn't really stand a chance - its script, while well executed in the usual fun "Marvel" way, had to be plot driven because the source material was, and because the story was basically set in motion throughout the preceding films, and simply had to play out to its inevitable fruition. It was the biggest blockbuster in years, so it had to favour big giant CGI-laden visual fests over actual craft in terms of what the thing looked like. And it had far too many characters and plot threads in play to give any of the actors an opportunity to really shine. It was really fantastic
for what it was, but I don't think there was any way to do it so that you wouldn't have to add the "for what it was" on the end.