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“This isn’t just some roller-coaster boom boom movie with Batman!” (Yes, actually, it is.) “This is about DEEPER THEMES!” You can tell it’s about deeper themes because the goddam script hits you over the head with it

This is what I don’t get - you seem to be complaining because you feel that the film doesn’t think of itself as a rollercoaster film - which you rightly point out it is - but then complain that it hits you over the head with it’s themes in the script…
Of course it’s going to, it’s a roller coaster ride - you can’t risk leaving someone behind.

That said, Christopher Nolan had his brother co-write with him this time. Now his brother wrote the story Memento was based on, but not the script.
The only other script they’ve co-wrote was The Prestige, and it suffered in the writing department as well.

But the manner in which they tried to combine it made both the fantastical and the real seem silly and shallow.

So the biggest critique is that it’s like every other roller coaster ride film?

Except it’s so dour and self-important that it fails at being the roller-coaster.

Except it’s so dour and self-important that it fails at being the roller-coaster.

I dunno, seems to be a ride people like taking.

I’m starting to think they’ve played a trick.
It’s total roller coaster ride, but they’ve dressed it up so that roller coaster ride fans think it’s deeper than it is,
BUT now people who also like serious films have picked up on that dressing, and it’s switched their brains into the wrong mode for this movie.

It’s like with Batman Begins. I was stoned the first time I saw it, and it seemed really deep and psychological and everything Dark Knight wants to be, and I loved it.
However, I realised that how I perceived the film may not be how the film is at all, so I’ve made a point of never watching it straight, and I still love it.
You just need a similar system.

How does he rig a hospital to explode? How does he arrange for two buildings to explode? How does he find out where the gang bosses are meeting?

He just does. Thats why he is scary. As for how…? He has tons of followers even at the begining. Lots of kids and losers want to get onto his psycho bandwagon. He has cops in his pocket, he has mob goons at his disposal. How does he NOT get it on the ferry?

For someone complaining about how it was so obvious at points, you don’t seem to have followed it well.

“No explanation for anything. How does he, for instance, get hundreds of barrels of oil and explosives onto municipal ferries? Uh, no idea. Unless he has magical powers, there’s no way that could happen, especially in such a realistic movie world.”

It kinda seems like you’ve missed the point of The Joker, as presented in the movie. The contrast between Batman (the guy whose entire process is explained) and The Joker (the guy we know next to nothing about) is very deliberate. The Batman is order, The Joker is chaos- it’s one of the themes the movie beats us over the head with. Of course, The Joker is more of a “planner” than he claims to be, but they’re the sort of crazy plans that could fall apart in 100 places along the way.

I just attributed the insane lack of security to the fact that Gotham is so corrupt that Joker, sitting on sixty million dollars or whatever he got out of the bank, was able to bribe his way into getting whatever he wanted / needed.

And he went after “low-importance” targets, like the ferries and the hospital - not the bridges, city hall, or Gotham Central. That’s what was so scary - he was proof that everything couldn’t be protected, and forced Batman to literally attempt to watch everything in order to catch him.

“For one thing, I, like T., …”

Not fair to the reader to reference someone with so little information.

I have nothing but respect for Joe’s intelligence, but yet again my response to his argument is “true enough as far as it goes, but not really all that important.”

The first Nolan Batman wasn’t about a man resolved to be, or present himself as, a Superhero™ but about a man presenting himself to his prey as a demon, as a supernatural force.

His next Batman movie pitted him against a terrorist who was resolved to confront society with the hypocrisy that is the foundation of corruption as we know it. We can kill half a million civilians arbitrarily invading and occupying Iraq, because it’s going according to a plan. Endanger the life of one little ol’ mayor and everyone becomes unglued, because it represents a lapse of (the pretense of) control. Even the film adaptation of V for Vendetta refrained from dramatizing its protagonist embodying Anarchy as a force of nature, and instead presented him as a superhero.

Your complaints are that these are cliches, but what other movies have presented what I’ve described these movies presenting?

Oh, Joe, what a glutton for punishment you are.

The entire movie is over-the-top. The sci-fi is over-the-top. The Batman voice is over-the-top. The level of corruption (if we’re to take that as explanation for the Joker’s ability to do stuff like get the barrels of gas on the ferries) is over-the-top. And the silly speeches and “deeper themes” (to use your terminology, Joe) are over-the-top. What is there about this movie to take seriously? Nothing.

Which is why I wholeheartedly enjoy the movie. You say that “they went to great pains” to make the movie as realistic as possible, but, did they really? Near as I can tell, the ridiculous outweighs the realistic rather substantially. The explanations of the suit, etc. came off not as attempts at realism but as sci-fi wankery. “ooooh look how cool this is” kinda thing. Worthless, but they just thought their ideas were cooler than they were.

Really, where in the movie does it make a legit attempt at seriousness? I don’t see it. People praise this movie and Batman Begins for their “gritty realism” when what really makes them work is that there’s nothing realistic about them. They’re very solid summer popcorn movies. If there are attempts at seriousness, they fail so drastically that they mesh perfectly with the rest of the over-the-top roller-coaster ride that is The Dark Knight.

Oh, and, Joe, you were entirely right about “Will I Still Love You if I Wet the Bed?”

Let me preface my comments by saying that I enjoyed “The Dark Knight.” Along with “Iron Man,” I think it’s set the bar for superhero films that much higher.

That being said, I did have problems with the film’s attempt to ground the story and characters in contextual reality. I think the Nolans made the mistake of assuming that “realism” equates to “believability.” In the case of the film, however, I think it actually had the opposite effect (at least on me). The world inhabited by the characters and the circumstances of the film were rendered with so much deliberate “realism” that it became that much harder for me to “believe” that a billionaire would resort to wearing a bat-themed costume to fight crime, instead of, say, using his vast fortune and resources to launch a “more realistic” social/political/economic campaign to reduce criminality. The filmmakers’ successful attempt at fostering realism in the film, I think, ended up accentuating the inherent silliness of the adolescent fantasy of punching problems to make them go away.

Granted, this isn’t a problem unique to the Nolan Batman films… to some extent, it’s this same mistaking of realism for believability that mitigates my enjoyment of Alex Ross’ superhero art or the plotting/design aesthetics of Millar-Hitch’s Ultimates.

I must be the only person who doesn’t have a problem with Bale’s Batman voice. I agree it can be a bit much when Batman talks at length but what are you supposed to do? Lip-sync to another guy’s voice? Hire a person with different strengths and weaknesses as an actor but a good Batman voice? Not use a different voice for Batman at all? Didn’t the animated series Batman have a special Bruce voice but the same voice with the cowl on or off around Alfred? Would that even work for live-action?

And ridiculous costumes are one thing that I accept as a viewer “because it’s a superhero movie.” All I care about is that they look pretty cool. Batman’s costume didn’t bother me though I wished he would have been working from the shadows at times (and that probably leads to technical, cinematography issues with lighting a black costume). I thought the Joker costume was fine and that Two-Face looked bitchin’!

“I’m starting to think they’ve played a trick. It’s total roller coaster ride, but they’ve dressed it up so that roller coaster ride fans think it’s deeper than it is,
BUT now people who also like serious films have picked up on that dressing, and it’s switched their brains into the wrong mode for this movie.”

I would mostly agree with this but the only reason I was expecting more from The Dark Knight was because of the previous movie. The reason my brain was not prepared for a sloppy, fun action movie was because of Batman Begins which I thought was a good film all around. And the only reason I went to see The Dark Knight at all was because of how universally well reviewed it is. If had gotten more Rotten Tomatoes, I wouldn’t have seen it at all despite liking the previous movie. Everyone said Spider-man 3 sucked, so I still haven’t seen it though I really like Spider-man 2 (except for “It’s OK, Spider-man. We won’t tell nobody.”)

Yeah, the movie can’t have it both ways - the Joker is a force of chaos with mentally ill followers, and yet he is a highly organised sociopath with competent, obedient followers. And Gordon told the cops to search the hospitals but this wasn’t brought up again; the issue of the clowns/doctors in the building at the end could have been resolved in one phone call (and we know Fox and Batman had access to all the cell phones!) The closer it got to the end, the more organised and controlling the Joker was, and the more chaotic and deceptive Batman and Gordon were!

I’m not here to argue, my post stands as it is. You agree or don’t, no problem. But Lilac and Zulu bring up stuff that I didn’t state so well, because of the way that I am stupid.

And Eliot, ha! That’s good to hear!

Speaking as a huge fan of the movie, i really have to thank you. DK is a movie i’ve spent hours thinking about, but since your main point seems to be that the movie falls under the weight of its own self-seriousness if you think about it too much, so i thought i’d hold it up to closer scrutiny to see if i could pull the movie into sharper focus…and i have to say it holds up and then some.

First of all, the problems some people seem to be having with the alleged realism of the movie is one i had with Batman Begins, a movie i used to have tons of problems with and, frankly, started disliking as soon as DK was over. Begins tried so hard to make the world around Bruce Wayne feel real, to make every choice seem rational that in the end Batman, along with every other bullshit superheroish aspect it shoves down your throat, seem completely out of place.

Not so with DK. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but every aspect seems to fit, at least to me. In part, Batman just is, he’s a given. In a way, he makes sense precisely because he doesn’t. Yeah, it’s pretty unrealistic that a millionaire would choose to dress up as a bat and punch criminals in the face instead of using his money to do something that could actually help the city, but the way it plays there’s enough disconnect between all of Wayne’s facets (Bruce Wayne, Playboy Asshole Wayne and Batman) that it’s pretty safe to question his sanity. At least Joker does. And also, there’s the matter of Nolan paving over Begins’ silly, silly Gotham City in order to build something much more believable, something that feels like an actual place and not a soundstage. I believe in this Gotham City and i don’t care if it’s realistic or not…it seems to me like that’s hardly the point.

But what i’m really getting to is this: Even though there’s “text” in the movie it doesn’t mean there isn’t any subtext. Just like all good art, Dark Knight leaves a lot of room for interpretation, and just because a character is saying something it doesn’t mean that’s exactly what the movie is saying. I’ve heard people describe the movie as blatant propaganda; Steven Grant posted some guy’s thoughts on it, claiming Batman represents America, and Grant himself corrected him, believing Batman to represent Anarchy. To me, this is a movie about ideology, about 3 men having their belief systems put through the wringer. About believing in something so much that you’re willing to make sacrifices for it. For example, at the end Batman says the reason Harvey fell is that he was “the best of us”, and i’m sure Batman believes it, but i don’t think it’s true, i don’t think that’s what the movie’s getting to. Harvey, quite frankly, just wasn’t what everyone cranked him up to be. The dream of Gotham became unsustainable for him because his loss destroyed him, and you know what? Maybe that’s what Gotham needed of him, someone willing to make sacrifices.

And even though Batman claims not to be a hero, his final gesture is way more heroic than anything Harvey ever did. True, Harvey lost a lot more than anyone else, but Batman sacrificed his own image as a force of good in order to give Gotham’s citizens the kind of symbol they really needed. He gave them Harvey Dent, not the man (which is what he was all along, just a man), but the image, the inspiration. To me, this is the story of how Batman became a hero, and all the gloom and doom throughout just seems to punctuate the fact that the ending’s full of hope, even if it doesn’t seem that way.

Now, seeing as all this hope resting on what is basically a lie, does that mean the Nolans believe every Symbol to be a lie? Does the end justify the means?

“I mostly enjoyed it as I watched it, at some points quite a bit. And there are some very, very strong parts of this film. The performances, led by Ledger and Eckhart, are pretty universally great. The direction isn’t perfect but the technical stuff is pretty impressive. They invented stuff to make this movie! But if you spend any time thinking about this film it falls apart like a first-year-teacher’s ability to love.”

This seems to be a common theme in negative reviews of this movie - the reviewer initially enjoyed it, but then talked themselves out of that.

Which is fine, just interesting to me. I liked the movie both while I was watching it and later, but I’m not going to talk anyone who didn’t into changing their minds.

This seems to be a common theme in negative reviews of this movie - the reviewer initially enjoyed it, but then talked themselves out of that.

And that’s why superhero movies should be watched whilst under the influence!
You get so caught up, there’s no talking yourself out of anything.

Except for Ang Lee’s Hulk.
You just end up hating it more.
And yourself for watching it again.

Dark Knight failed for me as a superhero movie, mostly for taking itself too serious as you have pointed out correctly. It worked for me just fine as a crime movie, a modern take on The Untouchables

Dark Knight failed for me as a superhero movie, mostly for taking itself too serious as you have pointed out correctly.

And yet (almost) ironically, Watchmen doesn’t look like it’s taking itself seriously enough.

Thought a lot of these comments were interesting … as a Batman fan and someone who loved Batman Begins I thought The Dark Knight was powerful and filled with great performances and scenes but the movie as a whole … well, like Joe Rice wrote, Bruce Wayne is the mask for Batman and the plot for a lot of the movie was about Batman quitting? Seemed forced, especially taking into account Batman Begins, and didn’t make a lot of sense like a number of scenes/beats in the movie. Plus, not sure Batman would elevate someone like Dent into the savior role like he is in the movie and then the consequent cover-up with the ending didn’t strike me as “Batmanesque”. Interesting thematically but also seemed rushed towards the end as the movie dealt with so much and, again like Joe Rice said, a lot of speeches that I think took away from the movie’s power. I think the movie peaked with the Joker in prison and after that kind of tried to push too much/cram a lot in that minimized the movie rather than elevating it. Also, the plot and even some of the action was a bit confusing the first time around, especially that building scene in the end. The movie might have been better served stretching out and breathing instead of compressing so much into it - though, it did have the effect of leaving you on the edge of your seat.

So, yeah, I thought the movie was problematic and head-scratching at times. Also thought a lot of it was terrific and really powerful - the scenes that worked really were awesome.. Great to read interesting comments as well …

Yeah, the movie can’t have it both ways - the Joker is a force of chaos with mentally ill followers, and yet he is a highly organised sociopath with competent, obedient followers.

I know he says the word “anarchy,” but does the Joker actually say the word “chaos?” Alan Moore points out in V for Vendetta that anarchy and chaos are not interchangeable terms.

“And that costume . . .we get plenty of time, wasted celluloid, explaining EVERY SINGLE THING ABOUT IT. Oh, it’s made of that. Oh, the joints work like this. Oh, he can turn his head. Oh, the things on his arm shoot out. Etc., etc. It gets explained to death in a failed attempt to make it not look like it’s completely out of place in this real-world-based film.”

did they really spend so much time on it? i just thought it went from batman getting bonked by the wall because he couldn’t turn his head to a short “here’s your new head turning suit, mr wayne” scene with lucius, and that was that.

“the Joker is a force of chaos with mentally ill followers, and yet he is a highly organised sociopath with competent, obedient followers.”

i rather liked the idea that he’s constantly making out to everyone that everything he does is a bit random and “woo, insane”, but really anyone can see he’s about the most organised one out of the lot. i’m surprised the good guys didn’t realise this (or at least, didn’t seem to) considering every single thing they planned would then immediately be unraveled in meticulous fashion.

“I know he says the word “anarchy,” but does the Joker actually say the word “chaos?” Alan Moore points out in V for Vendetta that anarchy and chaos are not interchangeable terms.”

he tells harvey he’s an “agent of chaos” in the hospital from what i remember.

@FunkyGreenJerusalem

The Prestige “suffered in the writing department “? I couldn’t disagree more. Actually, in my (not so) humble opinion it’s Nolan’s (and Bale’s) best movie.

Joe Rice’s main point seems to be that The Dark Knight is having its cinematic cake and eating it, being both a realistic crime drama and a check-your-brain-on-the-way-in-blockbuster. With that in mind, I’m surprised that no one has mentioned the character of Reese. Does anyone believe that a major television network would put him on live television, without first asking him who the Batman is, and asking to see some evidence. And even if they hadn’t demanded some evidence, surely a quick background check would have revealed that he was a highly placed executive at Wayne Industries. You wouldn’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to join the dots.

The Dark Knight was a long film and it would have been better if they had cut this unnecessary sub-plot out.

Overall, I loved the film and am greatly heartened that such a plot heavy script can get so many bums on seats. There is hope for Hollywood afterall.

Nah, The Prestige was a pretty terrible script. It sacrificed almost all the characterization from Priest’s original novel in favor of a twist ending that’s really far less interesting than exploring the differences in Borden and Angier’s perceptions of events would have been, and on top of that, it devoted way too much time to the leaden romantic subplots created for the movie. Admittedly, that second one wouldn’t have been as much of a problem if Johansson hadn’t been so miscast in the part.

Joe - Great review. I have to say that I just about completely agree with everything you’ve said here.

I agree with the review, except I think it was a terrible movie.

Oh well, I’ll go see the third one if Catwoman is in it.

The prestige has one of those horrendous over sights, a key feature that kills the film for me, Like the squiddies in the matrix not having infrared vision. WTF!? In the prestige it was the fact that …

***SPOILER***

They had created a cloning machine! And no one in the film, NO ONE, seemed to think that there was anything special about this! I know its meant to point out how obbsessed the characters were with their art, but there is a limit

***SPOILER END***

“Like the squiddies in the matrix not having infrared vision.”

I promise not to send us hurtling off-topic, but I’m curious and can’t remember - what would the significance of them having that have been?

“Does anyone believe that a major television network would put him on live television, without first asking him who the Batman is, and asking to see some evidence.”

Considering how lax cable news networks seem to be in terms of checking the credentials of experts I’d say thats one of the less impossible things in the film.

Anyone else remember Sidney Mellon?

It seems every time I read one of Mr. Rice’s reviews, I’m instantly transported back to reading those columns in Amazing Heroes.

@Dave, The Prestige is based on a novel? I wasn’t aware of that, thus I can’t say how it compares to the original. Still, as a stand-alone work, it’s pretty much great.

And yet (almost) ironically, Watchmen doesn’t look like it’s taking itself seriously enough.

I’d argue the opposite, it looks like it’s taking it just as seriously as the source material was. It’s the fans that I think over the past two decades started taking Watchmen TOO seriously. I have faith in what I’ve seen so far of the movie.

My wife, a former ballerina, pointed out one of the major flaws in the movie that I haven’t seen being discussed: the ballet troupe is much too top heavy to actually dance ballet. Increasing bustlines have been the sad end of many promising ballerinas.

“the ballet troupe is much too top heavy to actually dance ballet. Increasing bustlines have been the sad end of many promising ballerinas.”

Alfred the Butler was head to say something about “more failed Ballerinas please!” as he continued to rub lotion onto their backs on a beach somewhere.

Bruce Wayne is still missing a butler, and we urge the ballerinas to return him safely to his owner. Reward offered.

Finally some people who didn’t think this was the greatest movie ever. The review was DEAD ON and perfectly explained the problems I had with it. One thing i would add. The two sides of Bruce Wayne was not shown enough and makes a nice thematic similarity with Harvey Dent.

The only things lost in the adaptation of the Prestige to film are things that could only be done in prose.
As a big fan of the book (I read it back when it first came out, being fond of the “real” Christoper Priest’s work), I consider it one of the more successful adaptations to film that I have seen.
The change to the twist ending it seemed to me was just a perfectly reasonable way of maintaining surprise in a situation where the “spoiler” was basically readily available to anyone who could be bothered well before the release of the film, though I’ll admit that the surprise aspect was unnecessarily overhyped.
The only thing I really missed, the present day scenes, would have been a big problem, both in time and coherence to do in film without a clunky device like narration, so I find the change more than forgivable.
If you’re going to have irreconcilable problems with the changes made in adapting to the Prestige, then you might as well just jump on the “no adaptations from one medium to another, ever” bandwagon.

Also, though this is not an adaptation issue (as it’s directly from the book), some guy above gave as his unforgivable sticking point:

“They had created a cloning machine! And no one in the film, NO ONE, seemed to think that there was anything special about this! I know its meant to point out how obbsessed (sic) the characters were with their art, but there is a limit”

Well no. Part of the point is that there really _isn’t_ a limit.

I think Funky’s dead-on right. The main problem is when anyone tries to think of The Dark Knight as “cinema”. It will only disappoint you.

There will never be a Batman movie which is great cinema. The subject matter and that goal are mutually exclusive. You’re not supposed to analyze it beyond the moment of viewing. It’s like trying to figure out why sex feels good. That’s called “killing the mood”.

Don’t kill the mood. Just lean back and let Batman make you feel good.

Hey, I don’t know if there’s a new writer on this blog- but after a few sentences of the cursing and capital letters, I skipped the whole article. I was looking for a review. This site used to give respectable reviews.

There is a writer credit right below the title, Daly.

Oh there it is.

My problem is that the film version of The Prestige basically turns Borden into an completely unsympathetic character almost immediately when he’s responsible for the death of Angier’s wife. Accidentally causing the miscarriage of Angier’s child was one of the most clever ideas in the book, because throughout the entire story, Borden had no idea what he did to make Angier hate him so much. By contrast, in the movie Borden is aware of exactly what he did from the beginning, and he comes off as an utter sociopath the entire time as a result. Therefore, the third act where our sympathies are presumably supposed to switch from Angier to Borden rang completely false and never succeeded because the twist ending really only made Borden seem even more despicable despite the fact that Angier is pretty blatantly played as the “villain” by that point. By the time the twist came, I didn’t even care because all the characters had become completely unlikeable and largely two-dimensional.

I actually only read the book after seeing the movie, which is partially why I’m even more disappointed with the end product in reflection. But even before reading, I thought The Prestige was by far Nolan’s weakest film.

The Prestige “suffered in the writing department “? I couldn’t disagree more. Actually, in my (not so) humble opinion it’s Nolan’s (and Bale’s) best movie.

Feel free to disagree, but it did.
None of the characters had a personality - even before becoming obsessed with revenge all we got was Jackman ‘loves his wife’ and Bale ‘wants to be best’ (still more character and motivation than Caine or Johansenn are given).
The film spends at least half an hour totally stalled in the second half, where nothing really happens except what we’ve already seen (one does new trick, other studies it, and then bests it),
not to mention the stupidity of Jackman never bothering to translate the end of the diary before setting off on his journey,
and then we get one of the sutpidest endings I’ve ever seen, where there is a clone machine that was invented by Tesla.

That’s less a twist, and more of a ‘we tricked you into thinking it was set in the real world but it wasn’t’.
Even Phillip K Dick had more respect for the rules of a story universe than that.

Yeah, but, I still thought the movie was awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111

The device comes directly from the book. Are we talking in absolute story terms (in case which your criticism should be with their choice of source material rather than the idea, which the filmmakers didn’t come up with) or in terms of adaptation (which is largely what I’ve been talking about; I enjoyed the book, thought the movie adapted it as well as could be expected of a visual medium, and had been inured to the idea of the Tesla cloning machine for some years already).

Also:
“Feel free to disagree, but it did.”
That’s kind of arrogant, isn’t it?

Never heard of the book, and it’s irrelevant to the film.

That’s kind of arrogant, isn’t it?

Objectively it’s not a well written film.
The characters aren’t really characters, just plot points, it has an ending that breaks the rules of the universe it had set up, and the framing device of flashbacks within flashbacks actually hinders rather than helps the story.
Throw in a few massive plot holes, and there you go.

Objectively it’s not a well written film.

I haven’t even seen that film, so I have no stake in this game. But, wow, that’s a hilarious statement. “Objectively” - do you even know what that word means? What are the objective standards that can be applied to judging a screenplay?

Because, I pretty much guarantee that, whatever you claim they are, there will be well-written screenplays that violate them.

Art is not science, no matter how badly some people want it to be.

Daly, sorry about the cuss words. I live in Brooklyn and kind of have a hard time not cussing. Don’t judge this wonderfully-named blog on my account.

Because, I pretty much guarantee that, whatever you claim they are, there will be well-written screenplays that violate them.

I think I mentioned where the short comings in the script of the prestige are already.

Why can’t Batman be “cinema”? Why isn’t it cinema? All film - all art - basically springs forth from the same well. Some are just marketed better or has more cash concerns than others.

FunkyGreenJerusalem -

Well, if you’d read my post you would see that I’m objecting to your use of the word “objectively”, not to your criticisms of a film I haven’t seen.

But, maybe you mean that those criticisms are part of your “objective” standards for screenwriting. Let’s take a look!

None of the characters had a personality - even before becoming obsessed with revenge all we got was Jackman ‘loves his wife’ and Bale ‘wants to be best’ (still more character and motivation than Caine or Johansenn are given).

Well, that seems pretty subjective to me.

And for that matter, there are movies that I consider well-written that have rather personality-less characters - 2001: A Space Odyssey comes to mind. Love it, but not because of the characters (HAL is great, but really doesn’t have much of a personality, to be honest). AFI rates this as the 15th greatest movie of the last 100 years, so I’m in good company in liking it, too.

The film spends at least half an hour totally stalled in the second half, where nothing really happens except what we’ve already seen (one does new trick, other studies it, and then bests it), not to mention the stupidity of Jackman never bothering to translate the end of the diary before setting off on his journey, and then we get one of the sutpidest endings I’ve ever seen, where there is a clone machine that was invented by Tesla.

Yep, those are so subjective that it’s hard to do anything with it.

So, do you have “objective” standards that can be applied to a screenplay? Because I think my point still stands.

From the post where I mentioned ‘objectively’:

The characters aren’t really characters, just plot points, it has an ending that breaks the rules of the universe it had set up, and the framing device of flashbacks within flashbacks actually hinders rather than helps the story.
Throw in a few massive plot holes, and there you go.

“Objectively it’s not a well written film.”

Bullshit.

Gotta say, I’m with Joe. There was a good film here, unfortunately, it’s interrupted every ten minutes by some character giving a five minute speech on the theme and why this isn’t just a superhero movie, it’s a superhero movie with a message ™.
It’s a movie that feels compelled every few minutes to justify its existence, as though its ashamed of itself. And, let’s be honest, it is. It’s a superhero movie that wishes it was a complex character study making some sort of ineffable statement on the nature of human experience.

Unfortunately, it does this by rabbiting on with a series of pompous self-important speeches about heroism and responsibility and the nature of humanity and need and blah blah blah.

Seriously, it’s like sitting down to a fine meal and having the chef interrupt you every few minutes to tell you about how wonderful the food is.

I KNOW IT’S WONDERFUL, I’M FUCKING EATING IT!
STOP TALKING TO ME AND LET ME ENJOY IT!!!

I was expecting trash as far as the Joker and Two-Face were concerned. But they actually were really really good. Joker was still funny despite his dumb looking scarface(His serious angry voice was laughable LOOK AT ME!!) and Dent’s character was just awesome. Bale as Bruce Wayne remains awesome.

Everything else is pretty much crap though. Every piss-poor action sequence is edited and filmed in ways to make them barely intelligible and if that was not enough, Nolan feels this obscene need to cut away from the action to some crap extra who spouts a one-liner and each time I wonder “Why.”

For example, the major car chase. They cut from the action no less then 17 times, 11 of which were to the mysteriously silent driver who absolutely wasn’t anyone important(yeah right). It was just terrible. Joker shoots the van “I’ll take more then that!” Joker pulls out an RPG “Is that a bazooka?!” Jokers shoots the bazooka “OH SHI—!!!”. Explosions everywhere “This isn’t good” MORE EXPLOSIONS “THIS IS REALLY NOT GOOD!” What gives? How is that “masterful” or “brilliant” anything. Even during the sequence were Bats chasing after a falling character, we must cut away to an extra sitting in his cab drinking coffee, then back to the action for a second before we cut back to the extra seeing people fall from the sky and being shocked.

Also, no one in this movie knows when to shut up. From the very start, when the banker is lying on the ground with a shotgun wound in his gut. He manages to sum up the state of affairs in Gotham today, how things were in the past, and gives us “keen” insight into the Joker(WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE IN?!) in case the face paint and ruthless killing wasn’t enough.

“Every piss-poor action sequence is edited and filmed in ways to make them barely intelligible”

That’s not unique to this film, the previous five films have negliable action sequences too. I blame the bat-suit, it is pretty clear that the actor inside can’t move, so more often than not the action sequence has Batman pushing buttons while remaining safely seated in his Batmobile.

Batman has a half decent punch-up with Ras Al Ghul at the end of Begins, and a kinky wrestle with Catwoman in Returns, but other than that nothing very memorable. Certainly it seems pallid stuff when you put it along side the Bourne films or Casino Royale.

I say for the next film they should bring back the tights, the satin cape and some Adam West styled fisticuffs.

Don’t kill the mood. Just lean back and let Batman make you feel good.

That’s great advice….for Christopher Nolan. Really wished he followed it.

This is a movie that, a few years from now, people are going to wonder what the fuss was about.

“There are points of this film where the dialog makes me want to pee in my eyeballs.”

Lines like this make me remember why I love your work so damn much, Rice. Well, that and reading this in spite of my very strident attempts to not be spoiled on anything in the movie, since I am the last man on earth who has not seen it.

“The characters aren’t really characters, just plot points, it has an ending that breaks the rules of the universe it had set up, and the framing device of flashbacks within flashbacks actually hinders rather than helps the story.
Throw in a few massive plot holes, and there you go.”

Those are all subjective criteria, even if I agreed that they all applied. Depends on what the film is trying to accomplish.

Bullshit.

Thanks for weighing in…

Those are all subjective criteria, even if I agreed that they all applied. Depends on what the film is trying to accomplish.

Not really, a script with those problems is not a good script.

It’s just flat out not.

“Not really, a script with those problems is not a good script.

It’s just flat out not.”

Prove it.

Prove that a script with characters who are just plot points, with a twist that breaks the rules of the universe it set up and a framing device that hinders rather than helps and has massive holes is not a good script?

I think it proves itself.

Actually, never mind: you can’t.

Actually, never mind: you can’t.

Well it depends, are you asking me to prove how The Prestige suffers from these, or are you asking me to prove why these elements guarantee a bad script?

Sorry, missed the hop…

Look, Funky, it doesn’t matter if you think it proves itself. So what? You want me to think you know what you’re talking about, you have to prove that it proves itself.

Except, seriously: you can’t, because it doesn’t. It already hasn’t!

Missed it again!

I was responding to this: “…a script with those problems is not a good script. It’s just flat out not.”

“Flat out not.” Strong words. Find one counterexample and the point is blown, I suppose?

But a script is not a movie. Not a finished comic book either. So what makes a good script? Are you really going to tell me that’s not the teeniest bit subjective?

Five comments from now we’ll be shouting. You can’t do it. It’s impossible. It’s been tried.

Find a good counter example and I’m willing to hear it.

But a script is not a movie.

Never said it was.

I think The Prestige is alright as a film, it’s well directed, the acting’s good for the most part, and it has some momentum to the story (it’s a bit uneven, but several times it gets a good momentum going).

That said, I think it’s a terrible script with some major flaws that stopped the rest of the film from being great.

If you read back, I brought up The Prestige to show that I don’t think the Nolan brothers write good scripts.

“Find a good counter example and I’m willing to hear it.” No. My point is that if a single counterexample could be found, it would prove your contention wrong. QED. But you could always reject the counterexample’s validity on the grounds that it doesn’t fit your definition of “good”. Then we’d start arguing about whether or not that value is subjective. It’s turtles all the way down, I’m afraid.

Particularly given: my point about a script not being a movie is that if there’s ever been a good movie made from a bad script, then you wouldn’t be able to point to any way the script was executed as proof that it was good to start with. Turtles again: just what does make a script — just a script! — “good”?

Let’s just not get into the whole thing.

Of course this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t think the Nolan brothers write shitty scripts. It doesn’t even mean they don’t write shitty scripts! It just means there’s no formula like “if a script has features X, Y, and Z, it is never any good.”

Sorry, I may have come off a bit dickish here, but it’s that “flat out” business. It just pushes my buttons.

No. My point is that if a single counterexample could be found, it would prove your contention wrong. QED. But you could always reject the counterexample’s validity on the grounds that it doesn’t fit your definition of “good”.

Not really, but if you brought up something like El Topo, I’d point out that it’s not a good script, it’s a good film.
And I’d be right, but I’d get accused of trying to worm my way out of it.

Sorry, I may have come off a bit dickish here, but it’s that “flat out” business. It just pushes my buttons.

I stand by it.

I know you all want to scream that you can’t have an objective set of criteria for bad script - but look at the problems I laid down as equating a bad script.
One of those is enough to kill most scripts, but all of them?
It’s a bad script.

“And I’d be right, but I’d get accused of trying to worm my way out of it.”

Right or not, you’d still have to prove it, for it to be proven. You couldn’t just say it, even if I agreed with you, and call that proof.

“I know you all want to scream that you can’t have an objective set of criteria for bad script - but look at the problems I laid down as equating a bad script.”

Again, thanks but no thanks. Why don’t you prove to me that they do equate to that, and then we’ll talk.

“I stand by it.”

Maybe so; but the question is, will it stand by you.

“It’s a bad script.”

So what if it is? That’s not what we disagree about.

joker has half of arkham’s crazies working for him, he set shit up in advance, oil in ferries was someone in gc transport who owes him, or a loony killed a night watchman.

joker went through a half-evacuated hospital planting c4 or something.

batman is boring, coz - well.. he is boring. hes a constipated gargoyle.

and the sound is called a doink doink, not donk donk.

janitors have access to stuff like a judges personal area, easy enough to find a brush.

the guy who runs into the office of comish leob is really sus.. he might be working for maroni, and joker “bought” him.

argument points refuted!
[makes whoosh sound as he runs off with hand in the air]

So basically, less than five percent of all the movies ever made have “good scripts” in terms of at least one of the criteria in the list being argued over?

[…] at best on that front. It helps that this is a stand alone story and not a tie in to that movie everyone has seen but me, actually, because they don’t have to adhere to the movie’s schedule […]

@ Joe

It’s not a terrible film. Like I said, the performances are almost all, at the very least, very good. But the screen-writing on this thing was just rife with bad choices.

All you did in the post was nitpick the “bad” things. If that’s the only means you have to pointing out why a good film is bad, then that’s not a very convincing argument.

Omg, the mayor wore too much eyeliner = bad film. Nope, sorry.

Yeah