Batman The Dark Knight Review Roundup
Sunday, July 20th, 2008
I got out of the Miami heat this Sunday afternoon to check out the the latest installment of the Batman franchise, The Dark Knight.
Despite movie tickets costing $10 bucks a pop, this flick is well worth your time. Christopher Nolan has outdone himself the second time around. Christian Bale returns as the capped crusader and the late Heath Ledger is the consummate nemeses, the Joker. Too bad Ledger is no longer with us as his performance is engrossing and reveals, once again, just how talented a performer he was. Snug hunk Aaron Eckhart is a great Harvey Dent.
Not sold on my endorsement? He’s a little roundup of the what others are saying.
My favorite, Roger Ebert.
“Because these actors and others are so powerful, and because the movie does not allow its spectacular special effects to upstage the humans, we’re surprised how deeply
the drama affects us. Eckhart does an especially good job as Harvey Dent, whose character is transformed by a horrible fate into a bitter monster. It is customary in a comic book movie to maintain a certain knowing distance from the action, to view everything through a sophisticated screen. “The Dark Knight” slips around those defenses and engages us.”
Claudia Puig of USA Today insists that:
“Accolades must also go to director and co-screenwriter Christopher Nolan. The Dark Knight is a more thrilling, intelligent, morally complex and masterfully crafted film than any summer blockbuster in recent years. It’s probably the best superhero movie to date. Despite its comic-book origins and fantasy setting, the story poses timely and compelling ethical dilemmas, demonstrating that popcorn thrillers need not be mindless nor disposable.”
E! Reviews’ Alex Markerson sums it up best:
“Between them, Batman and The Joker are doing battle for the soul of a city—and it’s never clear who’s going to be the winner. It’s a titanic battle between not just men but ideas, a grand thing indeed for a dynamite summer film about a masked vigilante, and so good, it’s a pity you’ll only be able to see it for the first time once.”
I see that my blogging colleague, Laura, doesn’t have a review up yet, but I know she will.
Local Miami movie times and locations after the jump.
his delivery was so full of frothing, barely articulate bile and rage that it could sometimes obscure the sharpness of his social and political observations. Black graduated from the Yale Drama School and worked for a government anti-poverty program under President Nixon before becoming the playwright in residence at the West Bank Café Downstairs Theatre Bar in Manhattan. Black authored over 40 plays that were produced there and at other theaters across the country (one, The Deal, was made into a movie). Seeking to move into comedy, Black made his motion-picture debut in Woody Allen’s Hannah and Her Sisters in 1986, and went on to land a series of guest-starring roles on TV shows like Law and Order, Murphy Brown, Mad About You, Homicide, and The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd (the last of which was recurring); he also appeared in several more films, including 1990’s Jacob’s Ladder. Black’s standup star began to rise with appearances on Late Show with David Letterman and Late Night with Conan O’Brien, and he landed a big break when he signed on as a regular contributor to The Daily Show. Since then, Black has continued to tour the country as a standup comedian, and in 2000 issued his first CD, The White Album (which naturally took its art design from the Beatles’ release). 
