Quick Thoughts on The Dark Knight

I liked it. Didn't dare love it.

A lot of the reviews treat The Dark Knight as though it has newly bestowed narrative richness on the Batman franchise. While this is true as far as the films go, I doubt these people have been seriously reading Batman in comic book form at all. Some may cite the '80s work of Frank Miller, but to be honest, Batman has been a nuanced and complex character from creators Kane and Finger on. In my opinion, TDK barely reaches this plateau, and doesn't climb any further. It doesn't really have anything to say about the character that the comics haven't numerous times.

For that matter, I'm pretty sure that a lot of the kudos are due to The Dark Knight's attempts to shoehorn superheroes into a realistic world. This is kind of cool, but completely unnecessary. I hope we never see a 'realistic' Superman, and we certainly don't require one to produce a great Superman comic or movie.

I guess the main problem here might have to do with the specialization of critics in a multimedia world--the focus is necessary for critics to succeed, but it means they can only adequately judge movies in light of other movies.