Inception

[Professor S]

Originally Posted by Teuthida

Not a huge fan of standard action movies unless there's something really unique about them or they make you think. And I hold Batman to a higher standard. Wish there was some actual detecting going on instead of Bond-like gadgets and lots of explosions. And Bale's Batman was just sooo bad. And not bad like powerglove bad either.

In my mind The Dark Knight wasn't really about Batman, but instead it was study on the natures of "good" and "evil", which is really what all comic books boil down to. Instead of putting the study into a light-hearted pseudo-reality/fantasy environment... he put it in Chicago and used modern themes (like the threat of terrorism) to tell the story, and then examined how far would we have to go to stop it, perhaps making the argument that you couldn't stop it because the tool Batman used to win is probably the only truly unbelievable part of the movie.

This is what made the movie arresting for me. The illustrated, in very stark terms, that if someone truly wanted to create chaos with no real motivation other than to see what happens, there would be almost no way to stop them. That we literally all live at the mercy, reason, and kindness of those around us.

But I will agree, if you went into that movie looking for a character driven story, you would be sorely disappointed. IMO Nolan used the character development from the first film as a vehicle to allow himself to spend time n the plot and message of the second. Also, not unlike Kubrick, I think Nolan tends to treat his characters as means to an end (vessels to whom you insert yourself), and that end is the story/message. Scorsese has been movie in this direction lately, too (ever since Kubrick's death, I think) And like Kubrick, I think Nolan will remain a divisive director for the entirety of his career.