Crazy as fuck, anarchic and reliably unreliable
When I was mentioning other Dark Knight reviews you might have read I was talking about something like this one. Hallalujah, if I could write as well as that I could have written this one myself.
There aren’t enough hours in the day to discuss The Dark Knight’s finer points. … The Dark Knight is filled with so many moments of sheer glee that one watch will not be enough to appreciate it. There are flaws, as there are in any film. … But these tiny blips shouldn’t register on your radar: if you’re unable to enjoy this film then sorry friend, God help you.
It’s not just the best Batman film ever. It’s not just the best ’superhero’ movie ever. It’s more than just a money-spinner, a franchise, a comic-book cash-in. The Dark Knight is a stunning piece of work that deserves every word of praise spoken about it – consummate filmmaking in every respect. It’s the best film of the year so far and the Batman film fans have been waiting their whole lives for. See it, love it, see it again. The excitement for part III begins here, but Holy Hell it’ll have to be good to top this.
Yep, that about covers it. And tellingly, my heroes over at Pajiba were of much the same opinion: 
As a director, Nolan takes the story seriously, and that makes all the
difference, transforming his films from good to great. They’re the best
superhero movies ever made because they embrace the character on a gut
level and not as some pop artifact. The Dark Knight is a
harrowing, frightening, uncompromising, flat-out great superhero movie,
wonderful in sad ways, hitting the perfect mix of characterization and
humor, bouncing between phenomenal action set pieces and the brutally
human moments that place the film in a recognizable world even as it
soars into comic book fantasy. Put simply, Nolan just gets it. He’s a
believer, and he’ll make one out of you, too.
If they praise a movie it has to be fucking spectacular. Also, they always find angles and meanings that completely escaped me on first viewing. This review is just one more reason to watch the movie again and watch out for all the little (and sometimes not so little) things that I missed out on the first time around.
Yeah, I know, as if I needed yet another reason beside my growing obsession…
One more quote from the above review:
The Dark Knight is all about what it means to fight a losing battle knowing the outcome in advance, and why. For Bruce Wayne and Christopher Nolan, the answer’s simple: Because you believe in it.
In this respect it resembles The Lord of the Rings in my eyes. And this is the best explanation for why people who don’t give either of those movies a chance, putting them down saying they are “just superhero/fantasy movies”, make me so angry. I pity and scorn you, because you have no idea what you’re missing out on.
Just kidding, I don’t pity you.
August 25th, 2008 at 5:40 pm
I do love it as I loved LOTR! Funny…last night LOTR: ROTK was on tv as was Harry Potter: Goblet of Fire on another channel. Guess which one I watched wholeheartedly? Gah…man, I miss LOTR!!!
Thanks for sharing these links, now I can read more about my obsession
August 25th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
Our shared obsession.
Although probably for slightly different reasons in each case.