1. The movie length was just about right

The Dark Knight felt too long and drawn out, despite only a 12 minute difference in time length (Batman Begins was 140 minutes and The Dark Knight was 152 minutes). The story was more complex with the Dark Knight and Christopher Nolan felt he had to give us more to satiate what we got with Batman Begins.

2. There was a lot more classic lines and comical relief moments

The Dark Knight had an emotionally darker Batman, but to some degree, it became too serious. Christian Bale (as Batman/Bruce Wayne) had a lot more comical relief moments and classical lines in Batman Begins than in The Dark Knight where most of the time he always seemed to be pissed.

Who can forget some of these lines from Batman Begins?

[after taking a ride in The Tumbler]
Lucius Fox: So, what do you think?
Bruce Wayne: Does it come in black?

Bruce Wayne: [about the prototype Batsuit] Tear resistant?
Lucius Fox: This sucker will stop a knife.
Bruce Wayne: Bulletproof?
Lucius Fox: Anything but a straight shot.
Bruce Wayne: Why didn’t they put it into production?
Lucius Fox: Bean counters didn’t think a soldier’s life was worth 300 grand. So what’s your interest in it, Mr. Wayne?
Bruce Wayne: I wanna borrow it. For, uh, spelunking.
Lucius Fox: Spelunking?
Bruce Wayne: Yeah, you know, cave diving.
Lucius Fox: You expecting to run into much gunfire in these caves?

Lucius Fox: Well, what is it today? More spelunking?
Bruce Wayne: No. Today it’s BASE-jumping.
Lucius Fox: BASE-jumping. That like parachuting?

[concerning the memory cloth]
Bruce Wayne: Too expensive for the Army?
Lucius Fox: I don’t think they tried to market it to the billionaire, spelunking, BASE-jumping crowd.

Quotes courtesy of The Internet Movie Database. Although I will note that one of my most favorite parts of The Dark Knight is when the Joker shows the mob bosses his “disappearing” pencil trick. That part was wicked.

3. Batman Got Beat By The Joker

The star of the movie is usually the main character, the protagonist, in this case, Batman. We generally don’t go see a movie to enjoy the supporting actor or actress. That’s not to say that the supporting actor or actress shouldn’t put up an excellent performance, but the lead actor or actress should perform as good or better. In Batman Begins, it was clear that Christian Bale was the star. In The Dark Knight, Heath Ledger stole the show with his excellent performance as the Joker.

Image courtesy of Rotheblog.com.

4. Two-Face Looks Too Fake

With Batman Begins, Scarecrow and Ra’s al Ghul play convincing villains that I can exist. At least the Joker is believable, but I think a better job could have been done on Two-Face’s “look”. I doubt a person could survive for very long with half their face completely exposed, especially an eyeball with no eyelids. How does the eye stay moist and proect against foreign objects like dust? Can you imagine how much difficult it would be to sleep with one eye open all the time?

5. Initial Shock Value

Batman Begins was a complete reboot of the Batman series. No one quite knew the details of what Christian Nolan and David S. Goyer would imagine in the new story except that Batman would be darker. Once people saw the new Batman, that was it, this was the new Batman. Unfortunately like a majority of sequels, the bar is set much higher for The Dark Knight and while it was definitely good, it wasn’t better than Batman Begins.

Heath Ledger as the Joker. Image from http://popculturewilleatitself.com.

The first time I heard of Heath Ledger was in the Mel Gibson movie: The Patriot playing Benjamin Martin’s (Mel Gibson) son, Gabriel Martin. The second time I heard of Heath Ledger was when he played the lead William Thatcher in A Knight’s Tale. Ledger was good, but I was never too into his style. I never saw Brokeback Mountain, so I can’t say how good his performance was, but according to reports, it was the movie that made critics take him seriously.

So when I heard he had been cast as the new Joker, I didn’t know how good of a casting choice that was. But apparently a lot of people started talking. Sample videos online looked very, very promising and definitely changed my mind. When the first peek picture of the new Joker was released, I knew they made the perfect choice for the Joker.

Then we saw The Dark Knight. All the reports of an Oscar worthy performance was definitely not over-exaggerated. When you watch him, you truly believe that if a Joker really existed, this would be the very incarnation of your nightmare. Ledger was definitely the stand out star in The Dark Knight, overshadowing both Christian Bale (Bruce Wayne/Batman) and Aaron Eckhart (Harvey “Two Face” Dent). It is a shame that Ledger won’t be back for the next Batman movie; but he gave the performance of his life.

I definitely enjoyed Jack Nicholson as the Joker in Batman, but I find Ledger’s Joker very refreshing. Eckhart’s performance as Two Face was also true to the character, much better than Tommy Lee Jones’ Two Face.

I thoroughly enjoyed The Dark Knight. DC Comics has definitely been upping the ante since the highly successful release of Batman Begins and Superman Returns. My biggest gripe is that the movie was perhaps a bit too long, maybe 45 minutes too long. Andrea felt the same, the movie was too long. I definitely understand that The Dark Knight has many elements that needed to be thoroughly developed to fully experience the richness of the Batman franchise, but some parts could have been shortened. I don’t want to give any examples as to not spoil the movie.

One of the most enjoyable parts was watching Batman be the true Batman, the flawed hero whose moral and ethical compass changes to suit the needs unlike the infallible Superman. Go watch The Dark Knight. It’s definitely worth it.

Andrea and I finally got a chance to see Iron Man on Saturday and long story short: it is Marvel’s best movie so far. Fantastic choice casting Robert Downey Jr. as the lead, Anthony “Tony” Stark aka Iron Man. Downey Jr. fits the part of Tony Stark perfectly. Tony has problems with alcohol, so did Downey Jr. Tony is arrogant, Downey Jr. plays that part perfectly. I was a bit surprised that Terrence Howard was casted as James Rhodes. I had always imagined Michael Jai White would have been the perfect actor to portray Rhodes, but after seeing Terrence, I think he did a good job. Gwenyth Paltrow did a great job as Virginia “Pepper” Potts. The chemistry between Downey Jr. and Paltrow was just about perfect: the frustration of wanting to be together, but can’t because of the impact on the friendship. Jeff Bridges’ as second-in-command of Stark Industries, Obadiah Stane was excellent. It was odd to see Jeff Bridges bald and with a Fidel Castro beard.

The Iron Man armor is awesome. The CG of how the armor is put on, functions, and works is just wickedly out of this world! The commercials on TV and trailer do not do it justice. The CG is so real, you can almost believe the possibility of an Iron Man armor.

Another thing I love about the movie is that it is violent without being gratuitously violent. I mean unlike all the other Marvel movies so far, this one, the lead character is a weapons designer and manufacturer. He is, for all intents and purposes, a Lord of War. But the violence portrayed is enough for any die hard action aficionado. This allows the movie to keep it’s PG-13 rating and apply to familes of almost all ages.

For the most part, Marvel has kept the Iron Man story line true to the comic storyline; which is great for long time Iron Man fans. I definitely can’t wait for the sequel. If you have already seen the movie, you can checkout this Wikipedia SPOILER [WARNING: SPOILER!!!!] link as a good refresher.

First image of Tony Stark in Iron Man armor is courtesy StarPulse.com. Second image of Tony Stark making modifications to his Mark III armor is courtesy of TheMovieBlog.com. Last picture of Iron Man in flight courtesy of GiantMag.com.