This movie, if you didn't hear, was fantastic. The acting is top tier from everyone involved, with special note going to the late Heath Ledger for thoroughly creeping out millions as the joker. The camera work is gorgeous as it paints Chicago into a battlefield for the two juggernaut forces of good and evil while on the side there's the tale of one man's fall from glory. The story is compelling as hell and sticks with you after the credits roll. The action is fucking punch-to-the-face classic and brutal, and it's just a fantastic masterpiece of a film.I was somewhat conscious of it, but note that I did not once mention neither "comic book movie" nor "superhero movie" which are both applicable descriptions of the film's genre. The fact is, this film transcends those labels. In those confines this is one of the best ever made hands down. Outside of it is the more impressive element. IT STILL HOLDS UP QUITE HIGH. The reason I'm dwelling on this is because I'm getting a little irked that people can't help but look at it from that lens. It's too narrow. This lens is dangerous and not merely from the standpoint of limited options for comparison. What I'm talking about is this group of hardcore fans. The actual comic book readers or tv show viewers. They feel some sort of sense of entitlement to a film that will be loyal to a favorite character. I am often seeing the phrase "holds true to the comic" or nonsense like that. There have been so many takes on Batman by DC Comics themselves that this phrase has just about no meaning. In some he's just a vengeful vigilante out for justice. In others he is a torn and tortured soul who will never get full satisfaction for witnessing the murder of his parents. It's really pretty open ended and explains the polar oppositions of Christian Bale's Batman and Adam West's. This phrase simply does not matter, and moreover, this method of thinking only serves to keep the comic book medium in the lower echelon of art that it tends to dwell within.
Consider the fan I'm talking about who is so strongly attached to this character that s/he'd fucking flip if Batman held a pistol and so much as beat someone to a pulp with it. Imagine if Christopher Nolan had directed a scene wherein Batman does exactly that, and it's so brutal and visceral that it has a self-contained resonance, revealing even more about Batman than could be stated. This fan will not be considering this at all. All he will consider is that will be on in his head is how fucking blasphemous the scene was. Batman does NOT HOLD GUNS. HOW CAN THEY DO THIS TO ME?
Fans, these filmmakers owe you nothing. DC Comics? They owe you nothing too. If they trust what Nolan has in mind, that's the end of it. Welcome in a new twist on a familiar face and look how glorious it can be. A thing about art is that it's dynamic and always changing. This includes characters in stories. If you don't allow for this growth, you're only wanting a novelty to sustain a comfortable status quo and entertain you. This is not constructive. This is not art. You are effectively being unfair to both the character to whom you are irrationally loyal and to his source medium, forcing it due to economics to never grow and thus look silly ALL THE TIME AND FOREVERMORE. Please get over it. You will find a wealth of possibilities can lead to both bad and good outcomes. Let it happen, let there be growth. An entire industry depends on it. If you don't like what changes, don't buy it. But Jesus... give these options a chance!
And also, I want to take this opportunity to go ahead and say, without having read The Dark Knight comic saga, that Frank Miller is a hack. After having read his Robocop comics and having seen Sin City and 300, I am convinced he is a man who can do nothing more than make creative settings for action, tits and violence. Character development is nil. Perhaps Dark Knight is an exception given that he's dealing with a firmly-established character and not one of his creation. Sure, Mickey Rourke was great in Sin City, but I still didn't care about his story because it was more about the pretty moving pictures than anything. That goes for everything else in the film and ditto 300 which got praise for being a bloody action movie. That's the one constant I've experienced thus far. And the fact that the dude behind 300 is directing The Watchmen certainly doesn't bode well for it. Oh yeah, he also did Dawn of the Dead. Any substance that graphic novel boasts will be squandered if this track record has any indication. But that's not the focus of this paragraph. What is is that Frank Miller probably sucks.
