The Dark Knight (2008)
Our Rating:

Date Friday, September 5th, 2008 at 7:10 pm

The Dark Knight is a 2008 American superhero film co-written and directed by Christopher Nolan. Based on the DC Comics character Batman, the film is a sequel to Batman Begins.

The Dark Knight finds the titular superhero coming face to face with his greatest nemesis — the dreaded Joker. Christian Bale returns to the role of Batman, Maggie Gyllenhaal takes over the role of Rachel Dawes (played by Katie Holmes in Batman Begins), and Brokeback Mountain star Heath Ledger dons the ghoulishly gleeful Joker makeup previously worn by Jack Nicholson and Cesar Romero.

Just as it begins to appear as if Batman, Lt. James Gordon (Gary Oldman), and District Attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) are making headway in their tireless battle against the criminal element, a maniacal, wisecracking fiend plunges the streets of Gotham City into complete chaos.

My boss forcefully gave me the day off today to save some money for the company. Thankfully, I won’t be working for her much longer, so I don’t have to worry about any more of these days off. I dreaded having a whole day off, making no money and just sitting around the house. A friend of mine also had the day off so we both decided to do something with it and go see The Dark Knight.

I saw Batman Begins when I was still living in New Orleans before the hurricane. I thought it was a good effort but not a great film. The Dark Knight takes things up a notch, much like Spider Man 2 did with its franchise. The first Spider Man film was just okay but the second one was great. Better special effects, better writing, better acting (even though I hate Kirsten Dunst), and better action scenes. The Dark Knight does all those same things.

I don’t think The Dark Knight is as great as Spider Man 2 was but it does have moments of greatness. The action scenes are great, with most of them having no loud background music which makes them kind of stand out more. The film’s dark tone throughout the movie is great, it’s probably the most serious and terrifying comic book movie ever. The acting is great, with the whole cast doing an awesome job, thank god Katie Holmes left.

Heath Ledger probably plays the best villain I have ever seen as the Joker. A lot of people are saying that Ledger gives an Oscar worthy performance and he does. The whole film does really. I have no doubt that he will be nominated for best supporting actor and the film too for best picture. Eckhart is also really good, especially when he becomes hard to look at as Two Face. Oldman gets more screen time then he had in Batman Begins and uses every second of it to be awesome. I kind of forgot that Bale was in the movie since we see so little of him and more of all the other characters. Even though he also plays Batman it was a surprise every time I saw him on screen without the costume. Although no one stands out or gets left behind, all the performances are equally great.

After Spider Man 2, the third one in the series was a complete mess. Everything that was great about the second one seemed to disappear. I hope that doesn’t happen to Batman and it continues with Nolan behind the wheel.

What did you think?
Rating: 4.0/5 (2 votes cast)

Flawless (2007)
Our Rating:

Date Sunday, June 15th, 2008 at 8:28 pm

Flawless is a crime film directed by Michael Radford, written by Edward Anderson, and starring Michael Caine and Demi Moore.

Flawless is a clever diamond-heist thriller set in swinging 1960s London. Demi Moore plays Laura Quinn, a bright, driven, and beautiful executive at the London Diamond Corporation who finds herself frustrated by a glass ceiling after years of faithful employment, as man after man is promoted ahead of her despite her greater experience. Michael Caine is Hobbs, the nighttime janitor at London Diamond who is virtually invisible to the executives who work there, but over the years has amassed a startling amount of knowledge about how the company runs. Hobbs has his own bone to pick with London Diamond and, observing Laura’s frustration, convinces her to help him execute an ingenious plan to steal a hefty sum in diamonds. But unbeknownst to Laura, Hobbs plans go even further than he’s let on, and together they set in motion a thrilling heist of dizzying proportions, the likes of which London has never seen.

Flawless is one of those movies that starts off running, only to slow down and fall towards the finish line. It has a great cast with Moore and Caine. The sets and cinematography are nice to look at and the story starts off interestingly well. But for some reason after the main plot point in the movie happens, the movie starts to fall apart. Just when everything was going so well!

There is a twist that happens and I didn’t like it. It makes the movie go into another direction and its not a fun one. It’s kind of boring and slopped together. Then all is revealed in the end and it’s just dumb and silly. It’s as if everyone started to make the movie, things are going great and all of sudden everyone gets amnesia. As if they forgot what they were doing and so they let mental patients write the rest of the movie. Not the fun mental patient kind either. I love me a good caper, especially one that stars Michael Caine, but this one misses the mark.

The one DVD feature that comes with this bad boy is a trailer.

What did you think?