The Pop Critics gang reviews The Dark Knight
On Tuesday we posted about a Pop Critics outing in Phoenix to see The Dark Knight. Well, that took place earlier this morning at 3:15 AM. Joining me were Richard Porter, Cap’n Schwartz and The Trousered Ape. If you spend any time reading the comments on our articles here, you know these guys’ names.
And Richard does a ton of writing for us in the forms of recaps for Charlie Jade, The Middleman, Burn Notice, plus other awesome stories.
So we all decided to meet out there around 2 AM. Little did I know, after 40 miles of driving, I forgot my friggin’ wallet that had my credit card inside that purchased the advanced tickets.
Moron!
Luckily my enV phone from Verizon is very cool about connecting to Gmail, and I was able to pull up my ticket reservation and prove that I purchased them.
Genius!
Needless to say, we had an awesome time. We got good seats, the Watchmen preview was awesome and of course The Dark Knight left us all practically speechless.
Of course, the speechlessness ends now, as all three of those guys wrote up their thoughts on the movie per my request and I have them for you below.
Enjoy three of our favorite readers/writers and what they thought of The Dark Knight.
The Trousered Ape:
I remember as a kid, that extraordinary feeling I would leave the theater with thinking that I could actually do the things that the hero was capable. That somehow, during those two hours in the dark, becoming immersed in a story of make-believe, that I believed I could fly (Superman), knew karate (The Karate Kid), or if I just rode my bike hard and fast enough, that I could actually fly (E.T.). Batman: The Dark Knight was a bit like that for me – it made me think that I could take on the scum of Gotham City and actually have a shot of winning. I suppose the best way for me to go about describing it is to do some word association.
Christopher Nolan (director) – perfect vision, great artistry, captivating story
Christian Bale (Bruce Wayne, Batman) – Kaboom!, Pow!, Punch!
Heath Ledger (The Joker) – brilliant (and not in some posthumous type of way either), crazy, mesmerizing
CG – seamless, not intrusive
Overall movie – better than Ironman, lives up to the hype and then some.
Don’t believe me? Well then, I guess you’ll have to take yourself down to the local theater and watch it yourself.
Richard Porter:
First off, I didn’t think they could pull off introducing Robin without jumping the shark, but Christopher Nolan proved me wrong again. And I don’t know if she did her own stunts or not, but it really looked like Dakota Fanning was wearing the green domino and hopping around in those fight scenes. Personally, I would have gone with Carrie, especially as this movie is called The Dark Knight, but it didn’t work too bad that she was Debbie Grayson instead. I can’t wait to see what crazy adventures Bruce and his ward get into in the next movie!
All kidding aside, this was one of the most perfect popcorn movies of all time. Empire Strikes Back or Star Wars good. See it again and again good. Scream from the rooftops and drag all your friends and family members good. Get your ass up at 1:30 in the morning good.
I was the straggler to the theater this morning. Up at 1:30 and out of the house at five till, I hit the lobby around 2:15: an hour before showtime. We took our seats, continued chatting about the same pop culture and entertainment business chatter that always occupies us, and watched the theater fill up. And full it was. It didn’t take long before the ads for TNT shows ended and the first teaser came up - Harry Potter. Never have I heard so much applause for a line of narration over a title graphic before. I mean, there was nothing else. One line, one title card. Then came two minutes that did not get the same applause, but maybe that’s because everyone else had the same chills I did. Watchmen looks awe-mazing. The guys posted the trailer yesterday, and you should check it out, but seeing it on the IMAX screen was something special.
Lights down and feature time!
And it was a treat. I’m not going to spoil anything (other than the stuff about Robin because that’s just too awesome to keep secret,) but I will say that Nolan’s crafted a masterpiece. In 150 minutes, he accomplished what George Lucas tried to do over six or seven ponderous hours in the three prequels: turn the hero’s journey on its head. And he did it without once breaking out of the set piece/story/set piece model that all comic book and action movies rely on. What he did do was manage to make the set pieces *relevant* to his story, and his story matter.
Performances were spectacular, and right now I’d have to agree that Heath Ledger deserves a nomination. He did what Jack Nicholson failed to do: scare me. The Joker isn’t a joke. The Joker is a force of nature. Heath Ledger was that force of nature.
Go see this movie!!!!!
And last, but not least, THE CAP’N…who gives us a sweet timeline of his Dark Knight experience!
3:15?!?!?! A.m??!? Like.. in the morning 3:15?!?! This movie better be good. But Mike advises me I have no excuse to decline to go on his invite, since today is the Capn’s birthday and I have off from work, there is no reason for me not to go…. yeah but 3:15?!? a.m?!?! Ok, put me down, I’m in….
So I ask, “Who’s all in?” The Internet King proceeds to tell me Ape, and R.A Porter are down for going….. ok cool…. we all decide to arrive at somewhat different times but Mike and I agree to be there a bit after 1 in case there is a line. So if we have to be there at 1:00 a.m. that means what go to bed around 6:00 p.m. or 7:00 p.m. and get up about 12:30 for me….
So its Thursday at 5:30 p.m. and have no issues in trying to go to bed as I didn’t sleep well the night before at all. I get to sleep at about 6:00 and after what seems a lifetime my neighbors dog decides to stretch his vocal cords … FOR A FRIGGEN HOUR. I decide to roll over and look at the clock to see how much time ahs passed, its a mighty 7:15 p.m. Gosh did I sleep at all?!? No matter, as the pressure to actually try to get some sleep accompanied by my neighbors dog trying out for the part of Spiderman the musical isn’t going to allow me to sleep anyways. Fine I’ll get up…
Watch a little last comic standing (Iliza is cute btw), and then I have some time to squeeze in a few episodes of catch up on Lost (yes Jina, I’m 4 episodes into season 2 already), ok, its 10:30 pm. I’ll try for another 2 hours of sleep…. 12:30 a.m., wow. Well that didn’t work. Sleep is overrated anyways…. so , grab the keys, and my wallet (ya know W A L L E T Mike?), and off I go. Man its early. Great, my tire pressure light is telling me a tire is low. Man this better be a good movie. Ape better be as cool as he types, and I wonder if Richard talks in as much detail as he types out. I wonder if they think I talk with misspellings, and what exactly would misspellings sound like?!?
I arrive upon the scene about 1:15 a.m., and boy is it a SCENE! Its like a Sunday at the mall, and everyone and their mother came. There was nowhere to park, cars upon cars and both ends of a massive complex, its very wierd to see that so early in the morning. Ah here’s a spot. I’m the first on scene with Mike close behind me. He shows up in a bit of a panic, ya know W A L L E T Mike, and we wait for the others to arrive. So we have a bit of a wait for the show to start, we ask where the line has started for the 3:15 show and we are directed to go around the corner. Wow, he wasn’t kidding. Are we in the same county still?! Finally Ape and Porter show, the time in line goes fast with talk of non other, movies and TV, and the blog site. The others (eh, a Lost reference) in line are your typical people without a job line, and the guys standing behind us have a favorite word that starts with the letter F they like to say every two words or so. But no matter, I focus on the wrong things, I’m old, I’m tired and the line is finally moving!! In we go! The trailers start and we see an AWESOME starting clip for Harry Potter and the Blood Prince, the crowd ERUPTS in applause and howling… but that ends quickly because all we saw was about 4 pico-seconds and simply the words Harry Potter and the something Blood Prince, the howling turned to laughter once everyone realized there was no preview. We saw a Watchmen trailer, very cool looking, and gosh I cant even recall if we saw another, they were short, but that’s ok they had to make way for The Dark Knight which started….
Wow…. Holy….
That about sums up the movie. Everything you’ve heard, seen , read, smelled about this is probably an understatement. Seriously, call in sick today and go get in line, I know I’m on my way to go see it again, but this time I wont have as cool of company as RA, Ape and Mike…
Thanks guys for going with me and making it a blast. Was awesome to meet Richard in person, and hang out with my good buddies Shawn and Marshall.
We’ll try to do it again real soon.
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