The Best Superhero Movie Ever?
The Dark Knight is receiving incredible raves from mainstream audiences, comic book geeks like myself, and most (but not all) prominent movie critics.
For example, Roger Ebert's four-star review begins:
For example, Roger Ebert's four-star review begins:
"Batman” isn’t a comic book anymore. Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight” is a haunted film that leaps beyond its origins and becomes an engrossing tragedy. It creates characters we come to care about. That’s because of the performances, because of the direction, because of the writing, and because of the superlative technical quality of the entire production. This film, and to a lesser degree “Iron Man,” redefine the possibilities of the “comic-book movie.”
But what do I think? Here are my initial impressions:
- Wow, that was a really intense experience
- Definitely the best of all Batman movies
- Probably the best of all DC Comics superhero movies --
(as much as I love Superman, his movies are all kind of lame)
- Ah, but not as fun and lighthearted as the Spider-Man movies
- But... perhaps more realistic? This is the first Joker you can believe
- Do we want our superhero movies to be realistic though?
- Heath Ledger is great in this, but the Oscar talk is a fantasy
- I still have just a few minor quibbles....
this is not a perfect movie, but it's really, really good
- I want to see it again, in IMAX next time, but will wait a few weeks
For now: ***1/2 and highly recommended
2 comments:
Hi Jerry,
It's Elizabeth (Mary and John's sister).
OK. We will go see The Dark Knight on your recommendation. I'm not a comic book geek (at all), but I really liked Christopher Nolan's film Memento, so I figure he could put a pretty interesting spin on the Batman epic.
BTW: We saw Iron Man on Sunday (needed to escape the heat) and I wasn't that impressed. I had lots of trouble willingly suspending my disbelief and I found the Morton Downey Jr. character to be highly unlikeable (even after he had a change of heart). I did like the Gwenyth (sp?) Paltrow character quite a bit, though. And enjoyed Jeff Bridges turn as an evil bastard. How hilarious to see his head in that ridiculously HUGE Iron Man suit!
It is good to hear from you, Elizabeth.
Hmm, now this is why I don't normally recommend specific movies, other than to give my overall rating (which is actually on here just to remind myself how I liked it).
"Highly recommended" in this case means if you already like or are interested in superhero movies, then this is one of the best (in my opinion). Relatively speaking, I also consider Iron Man to be one of the best, although in comparison to non-superhero movies, it has many weaknesses.
At this point in time, The Dark Knight is now the second biggest box office moneymaker of all time... it is not going to live up to that hype, although I did bump it up to four stars upon my second viewing. It is a four star superhero movie, but it is not as special as Memento.
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