In the third weekend of this summer’s biggest blockbuster picture, The Dark Knight is continuing to set box office records every day. I finally got a chance to see it after missing out on it for the first two weekends. Fortunately, I got in on a Fandango / American Express promotion for free tickets, so I decided the time was right to see what all the hype is about. Apparently Reading Cinemas in Manville, NJ (about twice as far as my usual theatre) was the closest one that accepted Fandango tickets. Because of that, I arrived about 15 minutes late to the 2:00 PM show and missed out on all the previews and a few minutes of the film itself. I ended up sitting pretty close (about 8 rows from the front), but made sure to get a center seat for the best available view. As usual, I smuggled in a pack of Green Apple Mentos to keep me going throughout the film.
The first word that comes to mind after watching The Dark Knight is “long”. The second is “satisfying”. We’ve been becoming accustomed to being ripped off at the movies with dinky 90 minute films that are literally shorter than an episode of “So You Think You Can Dance“, so it’s a great thing when you can sit there for 2.5 to 3 hours engrossed in a film. The last really decent films that were that long were the exceptional Lord of the Rings films. Comparing The Dark Knight to those films, it’s still a step below them, but better than the Harry Potter films.
Since the movie has done nearly $400 million in business at the time of this review, I’d expect them to come back in a few years with a third “new Batman” film. My hope is that the Riddler is the next villian, mostly because he would fit in the current universe the best. There’s no way the Penguin or Mr. Freeze is going to get in there, especially with how bad they were in the old Batman movies (not Arnie’s fault, it was the script that his puns were so bad). A couple quick picks for the Riddler off the top of my head would be Kevin Spacey and Johnny Depp.
I find it funny that the new Bruce is as British as Alfred, but he hides the accent behind a Dr. House-like lisp. And I like Ray Romano as The Riddler. I think we all know The Riddler was nasally and Italian.
I still have to see this movie. I should consider the mentos strategy as well, or even bringing bags of candy in my pockets
Renegade wrote on August 5, 2008 at 8:27 pm:
Mints and gum are also good choices. The main thing to look for is long lasting flavor in as small a package as possible. A can of soda can be a good choice, but for long movies you don’t really want to have a bathroom break in the middle of the movie.