Saturday, July 19, 2008

jokers wild

I'm going to see The Dark Knight tonight. When I originally heard about the movie I questioned the purpose of it. Batman already faced off against the Joker in 1989. Did it need to be rehashed? I always intended to watch it, and I know I will enjoy it, but I still have my questions about its purpose.

Now that Heath Ledger passed away, and after a pretty strong marketing blitz, it sounds like theaters have been and will be packed. I don't know how much of this is due to people wanting to watch the movie and how much is due to the morbid thrill of watching someone who just died in his final role.

The marketing for the movie does seem to be trying to capitalize on Ledger. The commercials and trailers I have seen can be summarized as follows.
Heath Ledger is the Joker!
Heath Ledger as the Joker is a devious criminal mind who takes control of all criminal activity in Gotham City!
Heath Ledger looks kind of ghoulish in this movie!

Oh yeah, Christian Bale is Batman and there are a few no name actors in there as well (Aaron Eckhart, Michael Caine, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Gary Oldman, and Morgan Freeman). Forget about them, though, because this movie stars...
Heath Ledger!
You would think that trailers for a movie called The Dark Knight would actually focus on the title character.

6 comments:

shakedust said...

The Dark Knight was very good. It's the best movie I have seen in a theater all summer.

After seeing the movie I know why this movie got the go ahead. This is a much different movie than first for batman movies were. In this movie the Joker and Two-Face feel a lot more like real people than they did in previous movies.

I have a feeling that the Christian Bale Batman movies are meant to be an atonement for all of the previous Batman movies. It will take a few more of these to address the mockery of a movie that Batman and Robin was, though.

GoldenSunrise said...

I will admit that I do want to see Batman because of Heath Ledger. I guess I will be renting it when it comes out on DVD.

Dash said...

Dark Knight was very cool! It was interesting though that even though they knew Ledger was dead when they went into final production, the chose to ....

..... Spoiler Alert .........

Let the Joker live (setting up a comeback that must now be played by someone else) ... while killing off Two-Face 15 minutes after he really get's going.

oh well.

shakedust said...

Dash, I was thinking the exact same thing.

Achtung BB said...

Still haven't seen it, but I heard a discussion on it on NPR. They said that Ledger was a different kind of Joker-- more satistic than before. Sounds like they will have a tough time trying to replace him.

Portland wawa said...

do you mean sadistic honey?

I heard about the horrible torture scenes this movie has and I am not sure I would want to see it. I won't allow BB to take Woogy either.