Veronica (Veronica) says:
(Posted July 20th, 2008 at 10:17 pm)

I wholeheartedly disagree. I feel this version of the ‘homicidal genius’ is closer to the original created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger than any other. The Joker has been a mass murder since his first appearance…in Frank Miller’s Dark Knight returns he kills a troop of boyscouts with cotton candy…he is violent and psychotic. How else is he suppose to be portrayed…how can it be portrayed any other way but sadistically. I do not buy tickets to go see films like Saw, Hostel, and although I do see similarities in scenarios between films like Saw and the type joker put those people on the ferry through, I feel it was necessary to show that the people of Gotham are worth saving. Overall, I feel the joker is supposed to be frightening, a flip-side to Batman’s own madness, his most persistant and menacing nemesis and in my opinion, it was done successfully.

ThatGuy (ThatGuy) says:
(Posted July 21st, 2008 at 3:01 am)

Dude. Why so serious?

Marty (Marty) says:
(Posted July 21st, 2008 at 9:22 am)

Nice comics blog. Sincerely, you don’t think that this Joker was a homicidal genius? He was sadistic of course. He’s a murderer! Any incarnation of the Joker should be sadistic. Have you read The Killing Joke? Or Arkham Asylum? Even Jack Nicholson’s portrayal was scarring women, shooting henchmen, and gassing people.

Had they used Joker Gas rather than using knives, and bombs, it would not have been as realistic. Which is what Nolan wants. And what consumers want these days, yes me too.

Nolan doesn’t want anything supernatural, as far as he can control. And the videos the joker made? They are a modern version of his first radio broadcasts in Detective Comics #1, where he promised the same thing, he would kill. And not for anything but murders sake. He promises to kill a guy and steal a diamond. But he stole it already and yet he keeps his promise to kill the man even without the diamond.

Someone will always find fault with things that are great because in earnest, people need conflict. Even though this was a perfect Batman film, you needed to be against it because you can’t stand unanimous approval, which is exactly the point of the film.

Mary Z (Mary Z) says:
(Posted July 21st, 2008 at 11:12 am)

Matt, I am going to have to respectfully disagree with everything you said.

One of the things I liked about The Dark Knight was its ability to portray truly disturbing characters and situations, without resorting to having a blood-and-pus parade. For all of the disturbing acts that took place, I felt Nolan made an excellent choice to omit the carnage, or edit the scenes so you didn’t really see it. A great example is the “3-guys-one-broken-pool-cue” scene. In a movie like Saw 45, they may have actually spent screen time on this fight, but Nolan chose to leave it up to our imaginations, which made it a whole lot scarier.

And personally, I think watching Pierce Brosnan sing and dance to Abba is more disturbing than anything in The Dark Knight.

Matt Knicl (Matt Knicl) says:
(Posted July 21st, 2008 at 12:29 pm)

Hey guys! Thanks for posting and sending emails (oh lord the emails).

It was a good movie, but not a good PG-13 super hero movie. Batman is an inherently cheesy super hero, and trying to make it dark and realistic comes at the price of the comic fans. There’s one thing reading a cartoonish comic where the Joker may kill someone, but it’s something else to watch it with real people acting that out. And there’s a difference between killing someone and showing us the victim suffer and then killing them. Again, I’ve been exposed some messed up stuff, like Dexter, which also show victims suffering and then graphically killed. The thing about that show is it’s on Showtime and on the sidelines of popular culture. Walking into a PG-13 movie about a man who dresses up like a bat, where the usual portrayal is simplistic and comic book formulaic, and seeing Dexter in a mainstream Hollywood movie is problematic. The movie was good as a true crime type movie, a thriller, but not true to Batman.

What’s happening here is a few incarnations of the Joker are misrepresenting Batman and his world - specifically Frank Miller’s Dark Knight (an alternate reality) and Alan Moore’s Killing Joke, which Moore now regrets writing, as he does regret writing Watchmen. Amateur writers lined up and photocopied the artistic grittiness as all out bloodbaths, even in series where thematically it didn’t fit. This new film takes us back to the 80s, essentially making mainstream super hero comics into something they are not and shouldn’t be. The tourists who’ve googled Batman or read a few trades are not realizing that this movie will inadvertently set the pace for DC comics in the future, ruining the stories we comic nerds love.

But my criticism isn’t just a fan disappointed in portrayal, it’s as a general movie goer seeing America loving absolutely pointless and depraved acts of violence. This was a sick and perverse movie, apart from what Batman is or should be.

Carl Newman (Carl Newman) says:
(Posted July 21st, 2008 at 1:21 pm)

Wrong. Guess again.

Ledger’s Joker is exactly the kind of character America needs. Not the generic bad guy or psychopath, but a well drawn nemesis who is evil. And why is he evil? Because he lacks all feeling for any human being on the planet. The fact that he tells different stories to explain his scars is probably my favorite part of the character description, because it makes the character’s actions separate from an excuse. The most important question the film asks is what is evil, and how do we discern it from “bad” or even just from people we fundamentally disagree with. That’s what I thought was fascinating. And I’m not a comic book kid, but I always thought the reason comics, and superheros were interesting was because they explored (even if only in a formulaic way) the battle between good and evil.

Dark Knight did that.

edkat (edkat) says:
(Posted July 21st, 2008 at 1:23 pm)

Well, per my usual approach to action films, I only decided to see this one after I had been sufficiently convinced that it contained more than “pointless and depraved acts of violence.” Violence was of course a necessary vehicle, but coming to full knowledge of the Joker’s inverted worldview (exposing, perhaps, a few carnal aspects of the human psyche that none of us are normally prepared to confront) provided the real chills and thrills. And from paying attention to the different approaches taken to the film’s situations by various characters, I felt like this was a very human-centered film. For me, all the thrills were “internal.” The outer carnage had little to do with my enjoyment of the film except to intensify the mental terror (in a delightful way).

So, you may well be right that the film doesn’t represent the Batman universe to the satisfaction of some comics fans, and you may also be right about the aptness of the rating (I also might’ve pegged it for an “R” film). But I must disagree with your dismissal of the film as “pointless violence.” And personally, I am glad when derivative interpretations of a familiar concept are allowed to thrive. Otherwise we’d just have the same stories over and over, right?

Matt Knicl (Matt Knicl) says:
(Posted July 21st, 2008 at 1:44 pm)

I’ve seen worse acts of depraved violence in movie and books, but this is a child’s character. All this justification for the violence is the same response to every time violence is excessively used. The violence was pointless and the movie people knew people would stand up for the “artsyness” of it - killing just to kill is hack writing, and while every instance of violence can be written off with some rational behind it (even if the killing was irrational, that just rationally shows the Joker’s irrationality etc etc), I’m talking about how the killing was portrayed - not as a quick bullet to the chest or an off panel ARRRRGH, but as a sadistic serial killer worse than Hannibal in a PG-13 mainstream Hollywood movie using characters that are currently in a WB cartoon.

Jeff Brandt (Jeff Brandt) says:
(Posted July 21st, 2008 at 7:01 pm)

Saying it’s flawed because it’s not like superhero movies is like saying THE SHINING was flawed because it didn’t subscribe to Stephen King’s vision of the story. Stanley Kubrick is smarter and created a more compelling product than Stephen King, and Christopher Nolan is smarter than and created a more compelling product than most comic movie directors. Not fitting the standard is not something to discourage.

steve (steve) says:
(Posted July 21st, 2008 at 11:29 pm)

If the Joker wasn’t sadistic and mad, what his motive be? Money. It’s not about money.

Marty (Marty) says:
(Posted July 22nd, 2008 at 9:29 am)

Well, Batman hasn’t really been for kids in a while. The comics have gotten darker, and that’s Nolan’s source material. Even the great Mark Hamill-as-Joker, Batman the animated series was growing dark. No, I don’t think this is a kid’s comic at all. I think statistics will show that nowadays, more 18 or older people are reading comics.

I understand that a movie like this should NOT be PG-13. That I can agree with. I mean, c’mon, phones and bombs sewn into people. That’s questionable. I’m sure Warner Bros was able to throw around a little weight to get that rating.

But, it’s not that America loves violence. People leave the theater scared and exhausted. This film has an effect on you. And it’s about questioning people’s apathy, which eventually turns to nihilism, and in the Joker’s case, violent psychosis.
But one can ask this - Both the Joker AND Batman are trying to inspire people to do more. What side they fight on is the difference.

And Batman isn’t for kids, he’s an American icon. Nolan can turn it on it’s head because he’s Australian.

Jeremy Cook (Jeremy Cook) says:
(Posted August 13th, 2008 at 4:24 pm)

Your POV is very fucked up to say the least.

Do you read graphic novels? Hush, Long Halloween, etc? Im not sure what comics you have read. Maybe you are used to Spiderman and Superman, but before Batman became a pop culture icon, TDK was a serious story and there still are serious versions being written today.

If this isnt your kind of movie, then stick to Forever and Begins..as well as the Adam West TV show. This adaptation of Batman is sticking to the dark side of the story and showing a real life struggle.

What were you expecting? Something with Robin and “Its the hockey team from hell!”. People want scary, thrilling, disturbing, etc. The Joker is a sociopath/psychotic. If you know anything about the character, then you would know that. I think its clear that you were just looking for another Batman and Robin and just dont want to accept this.

This story telling is anything but mainstream, did you even watch the movie at all? The reason this is so good is because it affects us on a personal level. We can understand how Bruce Wayne feels because it is so real. The story is one of the most unique that I have ever seen in a movie, not just a comic book movie. There is no happy ending, loved ones die, the main hero is on the run for his life.

Its unique and brilliant story telling that went outside the box from your normal ‘hero’. Saying it isn’t true to Batman, is completely false and makes it very evident that you have not read anything but the cheesy comic books

Matt Knicl (Matt Knicl) says:
(Posted August 15th, 2008 at 11:59 am)

I do read comics, and have read the above mentioned stories. The Joker as a sociopath is fine, but the movie’s darkness was an attempt at realism, which is a foolish pursuit dealing with a man who dresses up as a bat-themed super hero. This was a great cop movie, but you can tell the Batman was an afterthought, the evil genius made to be the Joker. It’s a good movie, but a bad Batman movie.