Movie night with the Dark Knight

We Saw it: The Dark Knight
Tonight we decided “to hell with waiting on Blu-Ray!” And we caved and went to go and see “The Dark Knight” in the theatres.

If you’re a male and under the age of 40, you’re probably aware of this movie. It’s been building hype since at least last Summer. And even more so, if you’re in the target demographic, you’ve probably by now read all the early reviews on the damn thing. So? Is the Hype deserved?

I’d say that for the most part, yeah, it’s deserved, but maybe not all of it. I had read a lot about it being compared to “The Godfather” or “The Departed,” it’s that good apparently. But I do disagree with that. Look, it’s a good movie, and I’m going to add it to my collection, but let’s be serious: It’s a caped-crusader movie still. It’s a superhero flick. And while it is indeed more heady and contains a number of moral quandaries, it’s not quite without its faults. Which, I will share with you in a vague, don’t-give-up-the-movie sort of way. I hope.

For one, they don’t spend much time on the characters. Mainly because there’s a lot of them. Of course there’s Batman, and then The Joker, but what about… Two-Face? Yep, he’s there too. Commissioner Gordon? There. Mayor? The New DA? All there. All have parts that need time, and quite frankly, even at over 2½ hours long, there’s not enough time for all of them. So it all sort of gets compressed a little.

Hey, we all know who these peeps are, so I can forgive them that a little. I mean, it is a sequel, right? So it’s not like this is the first time we’ve met the characters. BUT, there’s another issue that I had more beef with: The intricate plans that The Joker makes is too perfect to have actually been.

What I mean is, when they made the movie, it’s like they started backwards, having an idea for what the last scene was, worked backwards from there. The problem was, that means that the course of events that leads up to that scene have to be a certain way. And I know what you’re thinking, “duh that’s how all movies are, it has to be that way to have that scene” and you’re right, but here’s the thing: The Joker has this master plan that once you step back from the movie, it took up nearly ⅔ of the entire film. And it’s like a 26-part plan, OK?

So what I’m saying is, Scene Z is not possible unless Scene Y happened exactly according to plan. And Scene Y wasn’t possible unless, Scene X happened exactly according to plan. And that in itself is all fine and good, but the problem is, too much foreknowledge is required to actually have made this plan a reality; there were too many variables that couldn’t be known to have masterminded this plan in the first place.

When you aren’t in control of every aspect leading up to a certain thing, it’s kind of hard to say that this is how it’s going to be. I’ll give up one scene from the movie to give you an example of what I mean --

At one point, the Joker & gang are trying to route a convoy. They set up a diversion to take them off-course. Fine and dandy, except that all the booby traps are along a particular direction, which is only 1 of 5 choices the convoy could have made to go. Which means that there was only a 20% chance that they’d have gone that direction. And then, all sh!t breaks loose, and things happen that are beyond The Joker’s control, but still, when they make a random turn here, it so happens that he’s got guys at that very exit that happen to shoot cables across buildings to take down a Helicopter that he knew would be there waiting, at the exact altitude that it happened to come by at.

And believe me, it gets worse than that. Those cobbled-together scenes I just described for you are scenes L-N of this 26-Scene master plan. And once you step out of the movie and really think about everything that had to happen in order to make this scene or that possible, you start to realize that it’s just not really feasible that any of it happened or could have even been remotely planned out;

The short way to word this complaint is to say that everything that happens is just too convenient.

It’s still a likable movie though, and like I said, I plan to add it to my library. I feel, however, that the 1st one is the better of the two. It has more emotion, and the way the scenes play out in the 1st have a more gritty, realistic feel to them; you feel like it’s not at all convenient for anyone, they’re all doing the best that they can do under the circumstances. There is a plan, but there’s deviations from it due to things that happen, and that’s what the movie’s about. But TDK, it’s not like that: Everything that happened was part of the plan. And that plan required more knowledge than God could have had. Which is why I have to take it down a notch. Say, B-? I feel that’s fair, because honestly as good as the first one was, I wanted more Batman Ass-Kicking Action so I would have graded it a B+.



Annoyed on the Way in, too
So we get there about 15 minutes early for the 5:00pm showing. There’s a little bit of a line, which we kind of didn’t expect for a 5pm showing, but hey, we left early just in case. Well the line gets substantially longer because of some dumb old hag a few people in front of us.

Oh wait! Before I go there, I have to get this off my chest: If I worked the front counter at a movie theatre and people gave the movie name wrong, I wouldn’t just assume what movie they wanted tickets too and ring it right up. Nope, I’d politely tell them we don’t have “Batman” playing at this theatre. Yeah that’s right, people came up saying “two tickets to Batman please,” which is all fine & dandy except that there’s NO MOVIE CALLED “BATMAN” THAT’S PLAYING IN THEATRES AT THE MOMENT. Period. You can try and defend them and say well Batman’s in the movie, but hey, when I went to see Superman, I didn’t ask for Tickets to “Lex Luthor” or “Louis Lane” please. No, I referred to the movie by it’s title dammit. F*ck’s sake people, it’s “The Dark Knight,” and I would think that if you’re coming to view it on opening night you probably know enough about it to know that. Sh!t.

Anyway, the longness of the line. So there’s this old hag a few people up that is trying to buy gift tickets or something for someone. They have packages, and they start explaining them to her, but she doesn’t get it. They tell her about one that’s $30 that’s two tickets, two drinks, two popcorns, two candies, etc etc. Well that’s too much for her! So she just wants the basic one, which is $20. But that’s still too much for her to give! So she asks if they have any gift certs for just the matinee prices. Oh my god. Seriously, b!tch. Just give your nephew the $12 and get the F*CK out of the line, dammit.

But it gets worse. Yep it does, because the people in line behind me actually got in ahead of us. Here’s how.

They open up another lane (finally, like 5 minutes later thanks to Ms. “Oops I crapped my Pants”), and we end up in this line. We pay, and wouldn’t you know it, their ticket machine jammed. Well she tells us to hold on and goes out of the box, leaving us to wait at the front for her to do something. Leaving us. Out front. Instead of, say, letting us into the Theatres? Yeah.

So this goes on for a few minutes, and of course I’m starting to get livid, until finally she gets wise and just comes around and walks us through. Finally. Duh.

Look, there’s the right way this could have gone down, and then there’s the way it went down. Firstly, take the old b!tch off to the side and explain the gift certs to her. Don’t hold up everyone else that’s there to watch an event that starts by the clock because some old hag is too cheap to just buy the damn thing or too dumb to understand what the value of money is. This isn’t our problem, don’t make us suffer. Take her to the side or around to talk to a manager, that’s what we’re for dammit.

Second, as soon as my ticket machine jammed, I’d have helped the people out at that point. I wouldn’t have made us sit and suffer a time penalty because my machine is busted. Period. Go around and take us to the movie, and then get tech to fix the damn thing. Go to a different counter after the fact. Don’t penalize us for your mechanical malfunction, huh?

I seriously have half a mind to call & complain about the service. Half a mind!

The other half, though, is on my money, and my money’s on that same half of my mind.

Peace.