First I would like to say that The Dark Knight was a phenomenal movie. Everything that has been said about the film and the performances are absolutely true. While the feelings are still fresh, I'm of the thought that this might surpass Unbreakable as my favorite comic book film of all time. Maybe. This screed isn't against the film.
The last week was an exercise in futility as I tried to experience this film in the Imax theater here in town. I decided last night to see it in a regular theater after 4 attempts for the Imax viewing were foiled by computer glitches, theater worker error, craigs list, and thousands of mainstream fans who came to gawk at the final acting performance of a B level actor. I would like everyone to understand that while The Dark Knight is a great movie and Heath Ledgers performance as The Joker is legendary, this movie would not open this big without his death. Period. End of Story. Would anyone be talking about Oscar nominations for him if he was alive? It's Batman for heavens sake. It's not Star Wars. This movie grossed more in it's first weekend than Batman Begins did in it's entire run.
The opening this movie received does not equal its standing in the fan boy universe, at least not mine. I was blocked from seeing this movie by thousands of people who truly don't give a crap about these types of movies generally. They only show up for events.
I'm upset because Fanboys are the ones that keep these movies going. Without Fanboys constantly debating and demanding better The Dark Knight would look like this:
The reason the quality of genre movies has increased is because we finally have FanBoys in the directors seat. It's a great time to be a movie fan, except when "The Movie of the Year" comes out, then you get pushed to the side by husbands and wives who saw the last Batman for the first time on TNT last night so they can get, you know, caught up on the story and stuff.
Where were these idiots last week at Hellboy2? Why didn't they support The Chronicles of Riddick so I can see the rest of the story? Heck, where were they for Batman Begins? How many of them saw the Watchmen trailer and didn't think twice about it? Pretty much all of them because they don't care that it was Batman and the Joker, they only care that they don't want to get left out of the water cooler talk. The fact that no one was in the regular screening of the movie only drives this point home. I can imagine this conversation happening in cubicle across the nation this week:
Poser 1: Did you see The Batman this weekend?
Poser 2: Yeah it was totally rad! The Brokeback dude was stupendous as the Joker.
Poser 1: Well I saw it at the Imax, the way that movies are meant to be seen.
Poser 2: Bitchin!
I think I should write my congressman and demand a law that says that if you didn't pay to see 3 sci-fi and/or superhero movies in the last 6 months you can't go opening weekend. I mean Congress isn't doing anything else of value at the moment.
To sum it up:
The Dark Knight-Awesome
Heath Ledger as the Joker-Awesome
The Jokers disappearing pencil trick-Triple Awesome
Batmans's sore throat-Not so good
The 700 Yuppie couples that banished me to the regular theatre-You suck goat testicles!
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