TDK: a second attempt

Yes I’m a glutton for punishment (hurt me, baby!). But that’s not the entirety of the explanation. Firstly, someone got it for me for X-mas, and lo-and-behold, it was Blu-Ray & not DVD. Secondly, it still manages well above a 90% rating on the tomatometer. And Thirdly? Well, I am a glutton for punishment (hurt me, baby!).

Upon a second viewing, I can safely say that I really don’t like The Dark Knight all that much. It’s got these gaping plot holes that just scream out at you if you’re paying attention. Sure there’s action, sure there’s like 3 seconds of suspense somewhere, if you look hard enough. Sure, there’s a butt-ugly girl being paraded around like she’s hot stuff when she’s not. Sure, there’s lots of things in the movie that are singularly good. My problem is, together, they just don’t work. I don’t buy Maggie as a classy lawyer about as much as I didn’t buy Katie Holmes as one, either. I could “write” about all the things that I dislike about the flick, but it seems this will come out shorter if I list them, bullet-point style:

• How is it that a LARGE BUS pulls out of the side of a building on a main thoroughfare into a line of other busses, and no one blinks an eye, and say, maybe, calls the cops to report this strange bus that’s clearly not part of this field trip? That just pulled out of the face of a large bank? Maybe?

• Why does Batman suddenly need a new suit? His old one was bad-ass. The new one looks like GI Joe having a midlife crisis.

• Batman hires a big, slow, junk plane to haul him from a rooftop in Hong Kong. Apparently, there’s no air force or anything that can catch this lumbering, crotchety old plane? Really?

• When Batman jumps out of the building to save Rachel and they fall & land on the top of a cab, there’s the small issue of the fact that The Joker is still up on the top floor, with all his henchmen – with GUNS – in the middle of the party. And they’re still looking for Harvey Dent, who’s passed out somewhere up there. How do we rectify this situation? Why, we cut to a scene during the next day!

• What?!?!! I’m sorry, I don’t care how big Batman’s cock is, there’s no way that he or anyone else can take sonar samples of a bullet hole and reconstruct a freakin’ fingerprint. He’s rich & smart, he’s not Merlin the Magnificent.

• OK so we’re caravanning to take Mr. Dent to the County prison. There’s a large truck on fire blocking their planned route. The first one to notice this is the driver of the front vehicle. Not, perhaps, the f*cking helicopter that’s patrolling the route from the sky.

• Then, they divert to the lower, underground version of the road, where there awaits an already-up-to-speed garbage truck that pummels a handful of cars. Followed by a Big Rig that is also perfectly up to speed, that T-bones a car and then continues to accelerate as only a small sports car could.

• Batman then proceeds to show up and time everything just right, to the point of being able to jet his car into the path of a shoulder-fired missile that saves Mr. Dent’s life.

• After all this, what’s left of the caravan detours up to some random road to get assistance from above. It just so happens that this is the road that The Joker predicted, and has people on the roofs of the buildings to fire cables to destroy said air support (helicopter). Meaning, he had already planned for all of his plan’s failures, and even more, WHEN his plan would fail and they’d take a detour.

• The Joker lets us in on the fact that he had the car that took away Dent from the scene of the street fight & also his girlfriend, being driven by his men, who took them to undisclosed locations full of explosives. They’re on opposite ends of the city, so Batman can only save one, because…. ? Apparently, cops are not on patrol around town and cannot be counted on to show up to an address and save a person.

• Now this is the major one here. This is the one that makes me want to reach for the remote & just turn it off. See, eventually The Joker is in prison, along with a fat guy that has a phone & bomb sewn into him. He blows up the building by calling this phone, thus showing us that he in fact had the last 5 bullet points incorporated into his plan in the first place. Riiiiiiiight………

• How the hell did The Joker know that there’d be a boat with conmen going across the river at the same exact time as a boat full of innocent civilians? Riiiiight………

• How the hell did The Joker get explosives into both of the ferries, in the engine rooms, and no one noticed??!!? Riiiiight………

So, yeah. It’s got some decent parts, but the whole is lacking, and mostly it boils down to the fact that the story isn’t strong enough – too many holes – and simply, the other ancillary stuff just can’t cover it up.

I know I am not alone, but I just can’t figure out why it’s so damn popular.