![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
timepiececlockAs a little kid said while we were filing out:
"'That was the HD of HD."
My brain is ready to explode. I've never seen a full-length feature film in IMAX before, only the 45-minute nonfiction films like Hurricane on the Bayou . This was sensory overload. Two and a half hours of emotional insenity, visual stimuli, and loud sound effects has left me completely exhausted. I am drained. It was amazing.
Whether you like it overall or not, no one will walk out of The Dark Knight without having something to be impressed about. It might be the eye-popping stunts (THE TRUCK!) which kept coming and coming, it might be the intensity of the implied violence and human suffering, it might be the complicated and dizzying plot, it might be the powerhouse acting across the board. You might love all of those, or you might hate most of those things, and only like one aspect. But this movie is guaranteed to impress you. In some fashion, in at least one aspect either technical or artistic, you will be impressed.
Overall, I enjoyed it. It will be a while before I'm ready to watch it again, because it was so fierce and overwhelming, but I am glad I went to see it and I'm very glad I saw it in IMAX. It was an experience. It would have been just as emotionally intense in a smaller theater, but in the huge screen the sensory overload made the whole thing...more. And the shocking moments were all the more shocking with this kind of delivery.
It's a very dark film. It goes to much darker places than the first film does, and while it's almost completely bloodless, the true horror is in the blood you don't see. You hear it, you imagine it, and that's often far worse than seeing it. (If this movie doesn't win a shit-ton of technical awards for sound effects, stunts, and editing, then I will be shocked.) It was a better movie than Batman Begins because it was far more ambitious and more fully-realized than BB could have possibly been. We didn't waste time introducing ourselves to Batman or Gotham City, that was done last film, so this movie was able to dig deep and relish the bright shining misery of fear and the gloriously complex interactions of characters with competing philosophies. Personal philosophy is a huge element in the film, as is integrity, and the conflict that arises from this theme is what makes the Joker seem like the perfect antithesis for Batman. The Joker really, truly was scary. He was creepy as all get-out and I hope we go another 30 years before anyone even THINKS of trying to remake his character. Ledger buried himself so deep under makeup and mania that all I believed in as I watched was This guy is a nightmare.
I have to say, however, that I was a lot happier walking out of HELLBOY II: The Golden Army than I was walking out of The Dark Knight. One made me happy...the other made my brain melt and my heart stick in my chest.
"'That was the HD of HD."
My brain is ready to explode. I've never seen a full-length feature film in IMAX before, only the 45-minute nonfiction films like Hurricane on the Bayou . This was sensory overload. Two and a half hours of emotional insenity, visual stimuli, and loud sound effects has left me completely exhausted. I am drained. It was amazing.
Whether you like it overall or not, no one will walk out of The Dark Knight without having something to be impressed about. It might be the eye-popping stunts (THE TRUCK!) which kept coming and coming, it might be the intensity of the implied violence and human suffering, it might be the complicated and dizzying plot, it might be the powerhouse acting across the board. You might love all of those, or you might hate most of those things, and only like one aspect. But this movie is guaranteed to impress you. In some fashion, in at least one aspect either technical or artistic, you will be impressed.
Overall, I enjoyed it. It will be a while before I'm ready to watch it again, because it was so fierce and overwhelming, but I am glad I went to see it and I'm very glad I saw it in IMAX. It was an experience. It would have been just as emotionally intense in a smaller theater, but in the huge screen the sensory overload made the whole thing...more. And the shocking moments were all the more shocking with this kind of delivery.
It's a very dark film. It goes to much darker places than the first film does, and while it's almost completely bloodless, the true horror is in the blood you don't see. You hear it, you imagine it, and that's often far worse than seeing it. (If this movie doesn't win a shit-ton of technical awards for sound effects, stunts, and editing, then I will be shocked.) It was a better movie than Batman Begins because it was far more ambitious and more fully-realized than BB could have possibly been. We didn't waste time introducing ourselves to Batman or Gotham City, that was done last film, so this movie was able to dig deep and relish the bright shining misery of fear and the gloriously complex interactions of characters with competing philosophies. Personal philosophy is a huge element in the film, as is integrity, and the conflict that arises from this theme is what makes the Joker seem like the perfect antithesis for Batman. The Joker really, truly was scary. He was creepy as all get-out and I hope we go another 30 years before anyone even THINKS of trying to remake his character. Ledger buried himself so deep under makeup and mania that all I believed in as I watched was This guy is a nightmare.
I have to say, however, that I was a lot happier walking out of HELLBOY II: The Golden Army than I was walking out of The Dark Knight. One made me happy...the other made my brain melt and my heart stick in my chest.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-07-21 03:40 am (UTC)The key, to me, is twofold. First off, the movie has BALLS. It pulls none of its punches, destroys all the safeties that most films of its ilk rely on, and makes it crystal clear that not a single character you see on screen at ANY point is safe. AT ALL.
Second, though, it has brains. It asks honest questions about the nature of its characters, their world, and OUR world by extension, handling them with a grace and tact that is quite rare for a Big Blockbuster movie.
I was VERY impressed, because the film just blew my expectations out of the water completely. I was ready for something good, but I got something GREAT.
no subject
Date: 2008-07-22 05:05 am (UTC)also...
Date: 2008-07-22 05:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-22 05:11 am (UTC)Gordon, for example, is only a Lt., not a Commissioner. And Rachel is the character who was his childhood sweetheart and was part of the first film. I don't know much about Batman comics mythology so I don't know how close the movies are to traditional canon.
But if you know Bruce Wayne is a billionare playboy who is a secret nighttime vigilante... that should be enough.
And I LOVE THAT ICON