Well I think his point is this. If it had more embraced the fun of its origins it would have been better. Given how deathly seriously the movie takes itself though it hardly can escape on the fun defense. I like the Burton Batman's better precisely for that reason.

Bad

My point exactly. I think dreamcoil's image is a bit unadjusted to my criticism, because the fact is that the movie wasn't as fun as it could have been precisely because of the cringe-worthy effect it had on me due to the overall serious tone.

Looking back on my reply, I was indeed a bit extremist on my "serious tone never works in comic book adaptations" commentary. It can work, I admit it, but it didn't in The Dark Knight, and, if there's a characteristic which makes me dislike a comic book movie, it's the "taking itself too seriously", which I consider a major turn-off. When silliness demands to be taken seriously, it only becomes sillier.

Sometimes, embracing the fun and the playfulness of the comic book atmosphere results in a much more enjoyable and fun movie than turning it into something darker and more serious. It can work, but only if the cartoony aspect of the original themes doesn't stand out, so that the serious tone doesn't contrast with the cartoon-like characters and story. Which is what happened, to a certain extent, with The Dark Knight.

I enjoyed the movie, and appreciated its qualities, but I simply didn't think of it as being that much fun because of the approach it had. Heath Ledger's performance was, by far, the most entertaining aspect of the film.

To be perfectly honest, I actually enjoyed Iron Man more than The Dark Knight.

Nolan can't write dialogue worth shit, but I still loved that movie.

After several reviewings of it I can safely say that Burton's Batman is better. Fuck this fanbase of comic book wankjob losers who took a good movie and ruined it for a lot of people by trying to pass it off as the greatest work of art of the 21st century, just because it's a competently made "realistic" comic book movie. Look I could afford to expand my horizons, we all can. But for the love of god, try watching a few fucking movies that aren't Hollywood blockbusters, I'm just saying.

"Serious" doesn't always mean better. Burton's Batman has it's flaws (rubber bat nipples) but at least Burton fucking KNEW that he wasn't working with a brilliant script or anything, he focused on the things that mattered, the aesthetic, the atmosphere, the pacing and most importantly establishing the characters without the need of excessive exposition dialogue because Nolan couldn't do such a thing if his life depended on it. Burton made a film that captured the comic book feel it was going for and had absolutely no pretense of being anything other than a comic book movie.

That's why I still prefer stuff like the Burton Batmans, Donner Supermans and Raimi Spider-Mans to the Nolan Batmans and whatever the fuck Zach Snyder does.

And while I won't go so far as to call The Dark Knight completely shallow, it is at it's core a movie about a man who dresses up as a bat and saves the city from a killer clown. There's nothing wrong with that. It's an extremely well made blockbuster movie. Is it one of the best movies of it's genre? Absolutely.

Nolan is a supremely talented director and he's never made a bad movie, but with that being said all of his movies share the same major flaw which is their own pretentiousness, the "oh we're so smart that we're gonna explain all our brilliant plot points and character motivations in excruciating detail so our stupid audience can understand it" dialogue. Since that's very similar to how comic books are, it's no surprise that comic book fans think it's THE MOST GENIUS DIALOGUE EVAR!!!

But at least with comic books (or anime series) there is so much continuity to keep up with that the exposition heavy dialogue is actually necessary, not to mention the difficulty of establishing a character's emotions without the expressive range of live actors, in a cinematic context that shit is just condescending and actually distracts from the performances.

I agree with most of this. Good point on Nolan and his tendency towards dumbed down expository dialog.

Edit:

I'll also add that I think Michael Keaton gives by far the best performance as Bruce Wayne (particularly in the original Batman).

agreed on Nolan's poor dialogue.

The Dark Knight was amazing and the best superhero movie ever and I refuse to read any arguments contrary to this. I've literally met 0 people who disliked the Dark Knight except on the internet. You guys are cowards. Come out to your friends and family.

Hey man Itlan you wanna hang out sometime catch a movie or something...?

I've already told all of my friends and family. Half of my family didn't like it either.

Absolutely. Let's watch that Dark Knight flick. I heard faggots don't like it, so we should LOVE it.

....

I was fulfilling Itlan's request.