Kevin's Watch

Nolan's Batman films are a perfect example of style over substance. Entire websites exist that chronicle the myriad of issues, plot holes, and general foolishness contained within those movies.

I enjoyed the first and last of them, but don't feel they carry much analytic weight (though there are hints in the third film, with the allusions to the French Revolution for instance). So talk of the Batman movies collectively is wasted breath IMO. Let us speak of The Dark Knight or speak of nothing. And when we speak of The Dark Knight, let us speak of an epic meditation of freedom and chaos, security and tyranny, tenacity and madness, justice and vengeance. That the movie has been variously interpreted as an indictment or as a justification of the War on Terror and the national security state, suggests that Nolan got something like the big philosophical picture on screen in symbolic form.

If you have specific critiques of TDK I'd be interested in discussing them.

You mean the second film? The one in which Batman jumps out a window to save his girlfriend while there are terrorists in his apartment with his party guests? The silliness of the ferry scene? The nonsense of the ending?

Yeah, I get the WoT connections, but the film itself (like most of Nolan's films) doesn't stand up to either repeat viewings or even a conversation about it's continuity. And the third film was just stupid and awful.

You know what, after thinking about it for a couple of days, that's fine. I've said a great deal on this subject already and if anyone is interested in reading it it isn't hard to find.

Doc Hexnihilo wrote:You know what, after thinking about it for a couple of days, that's fine. I've said a great deal on this subject already and if anyone is interested in reading it it isn't hard to find.

This is the synopsis I usually get In Real Life when I talk about how bad the Nolan Batman films are. If you enjoyed them, I'm happy for you. To me, they're a beautiful mess.

Well, we all have to make choices about how to spend our time. I've tilted at windmills a couple of times already on this subject, and my views are there to be read should anyone be interested. In fact I doubt I could improve upon the way I put things before, which I believe was quite forceful. So I'll demur rather than rehashing it or quoting myself or linking my own posts.

No worries, it's just a movie.