I saw it…
- when: 21 Jul 2008
- where: Theater
- why: Batman is my favorite comic book superhero and I <3 Christian Bale ever since I saw him on Little Women . ^_^
EDIT: (07/22/2008.) I’m already tired and sleepy, so I’m too lazy to write my usual, sort of full-length movie review at the moment. I’ll just edit this tomorrow or sometime this week. Anyway, for the meantime, here’s my super short and mini Batman review…
Synopsis: With the help of Lieutenant Jim Gordon and District Attorney Harvey Dent, Batman sets out to destroy organized crime in Gotham for good. The triumvirate proves to be effective, but they soon find themselves prey to a rising criminal mastermind known as the Joker, who thrusts Gotham into anarchy and forces the Dark Knight ever closer to crossing the fine line between hero and vigilante. (from Yahoo! Movies)
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and some menace.
*** Warning: May contain spoilers ***
Thoughts/Review: This film is much, much darker than Batman Begins.
Christian Bale is brilliant, as always. I love how he portrays Bruce Wayne acting as this flamboyant guy with a dry sense of humor as his character in the social circle. Heath Ledger did a fine job as the disturbingly menacing and crazy Joker (who totally creeped me out! >_<). Morgan Freeman as Lucius and Michael Caine as Alfred are still as amusing as they were in BB. Batmobile is even more awesome this time around, with settings of “loiter” and “intimidate” xD, and there was a cameo of a sweet Lamborghini. It doesn’t have much funny and witty lines, but I loved the fact that it still has these kind of lines despite the darkness of the film. One of my favorites was between Alfred and Bruce when they’re discussing Bruce’s decision to reveal his secret identity… Alfred notes he might be named as an accomplice to which Bruce jokingly responds he will say that Batman was Alfred’s idea. xD
Everytime I think the problem has been resolved, it always proves me wrong… some twist always comes up! The Joker totally creeped me out. It might be influenced by the fact that clowns frighten me, but seriously, he was creepy. The film dealt with human nature in a city that has been thrown into chaos by the insane Joker. Will they be influenced by evil? Will people take the easy way out or will they make a stand for what is right? We get to see a very angry Batman, proving that he’s only human, prone to be emotionally affected as well. The Joker provokes him which results to Batman yelling at him and beating him up until he tells where Rachel and Harvey are. I get what the Joker is trying to say with his so-called “experiment” on human nature, that people have limits and can be corrupted when faced with extremely difficult predicaments. Harvey Dent gave in to this. Of course, Joker’s insane methods in “proving” this theory of his are obviously totally wrong, inexcusable and unacceptable in so many levels. The boat part is another example of this, where the good and bad sides of people show. People are capable of choosing whether to take the easy way out and give in to the dark side or stand firm on what is right. The boat scene where blowing up the other boat could spare your life, it shows the good side of people despite such a desperate circumstance. On a lighter note, Batman’s sonar eyes are so cool! For a moment there, with the sonar monitor thingy on, I thought Batman would really let Lucius resign since he told Lucius to “type in your name” after the mission is done. It turned out that typing in his name meant self-destruction for the sonar thingy system.
It had some funny lines here and there, but overall, the film was dark and quite brutal. It had nice stunts too (I liked the hitch-on-a-plane-to-escape-from-Hong-Kong one ). Have I mentioned it was dark? It was good, but I don’t think it’s something that I’ll watch more than once… Okay, not more than twice.
Since I’m lazing out on writing more about this film, To end this so-called review, I’ll throw in this Christian Bale wallpaper that I made a couple of years ago that’s housed in my indefinitely inactive personal site:
