Messages

True, in a sense.  However, the Penguin was clearly working on the "1st born son" angle early on in the movie, however he suspended it when his attempts to take over as the mayor became so successful.  He was willing to put his aside his thirst for vengeance if the people of Gotham were willing to love him.  He only acted on his scheme after he'd been rejected by the people.

That says a lot about him.

When TDK first opened, I would've disagreed with you.  I would've said $450 mill is completely out of the question.  But it's closing in on $400 mill right now and it's only been out there for 17 days.  If it misses the $450 mark, it won't be by much.

I think you can do a lighter Batman film and probably make something good out of it... but (A) it's tough to do when most people want a darker film and (B) the Shlockmaker films are exactly how NOT to do it.

When I was a kid and the movie first came out, I remember being kind of ambivalent about the Penguin.  I didn't see the point behind changing him but, hey, it's a new Batman movie.  As I got older, I hated the changes.  They just pissed me off.

But a couple of years ago, I came back to BR (after a fairly heavy comics binge) and I realized there really was no way Burton could've adapted the character directly from the comics and had enough of a character to carry the threat for an entire movie.  The character he created was derived very heavily from the comics but with that extra oomph to make him a genuine threat while simultaneously making him a pitiable figure.  I mean, yeah, Cobblepot was one nasty SOB but you can't help feeling sorry for him in certain scenes.  You can also picture that whatever his problems might've been, things would've been a lot different if his parents had actually loved him.

Overall, my perception of him has changed a lot of the years.  Nowadays, he's easily one of the best parts of the whole movie for me.  I love the character and DeVito's portrayal of him.

It's good popcorn entertainment.  I really dug the whole scene with the mob leaders and the Joker in the kitchen (the vanishing pencil scene).  It's in my top five scenes from the whole movie.

I don't see any huge difference between what Freeman and Caine did in TDK vs. BB.  They were funny and entertaining in both, arguably better in TDK.   Freeman's scene with Reese where the latter tries to blackmail Bruce was also a hoot.

The fight scenes were better this time around, although I do wish Nolan would pull the camera back a little bit and get some wideshots in there so we can see just how good Batman really is.  But it's a minor quibble, I still liked it.

The "why so serious" speech with Michael Jai White.  Ledger is so good in that scene that you forget how bad White sucks, which is no small testimony to Heath's performance.  This too is in my top five.  Given how burnt out this catchphrase was before the movie even opened, that's high praise indeed.

Batman flying to Hong Kong and dragging Lau back to Gotham was awesome too.  I'm aware of the criticisms of this sequence but I don't care.  The idea of having the moxie to fly to another country and drag a foreign national back to the States is pure Batman.  Loved it.

I'm not as up on all this stuff as I probably should be but given the vintage of the Burton films, I wouldn't expect too much of an upgrade.  In fact, there's a sense in which they might look worse since HD exposes a level of clarity that would've been unheard of when Burton made those films... so matte paintings, models and other effects might come off looking a lot worse than they originally did.

^ The difference being that the Nolan criticisms are reactions to the film as well as the hype behind it while your Burton criticisms are pretty flimsy and come only as a response to people imparting criticisms about Nolan's films (not even him personally) in this pro-Burton forum.

I'm struggling to see your justification here.

I mean if this new series is supposed to be real-worldly, then why would Batman run around in a suit for over a year and not be able to move his head?

Precisely.  That's why I think of the Nolan franchise in general and TDK in particular to be "check your brain at the door" movies.

I thought Keaton was very intimidating as Batman. The only complaint was Keaton's height I suppose. Which is why they replaced him with Val Kilmer.

Keaton not wanting to associate himself with the trash that was BF might've had something to do with it too...

And me without a Blu-Ray player.  Or an HDTV.