MOVIES THREAD

If you're going to judge the movies by the acting performances, how does TDK not come out on top with Ledger?

 

Ledger was amazing and TDK was a very, very good film. But I liked Iron Man better. Maggie Gyllenhall took TDK down a notch, she was bad.

 

I liked Iron Man, but had a lot of problems with. First off, there wasn't enough of Iron man. Since it's an origin story - and, seriously, not every superhero franchise needs to start with the origin story - I understand why, but I wanted to see more of him.

Secondly, it did the same stupid shit that Spider Man did, which was to have Iron Man unmasked in the climactic scene because we need to see the star's face so he can "emote." Bullshit. I wanted to see Iron Man fight the villain (War Machine, was that his name?), not see Robert Downey fight Jeff Bridges.

Third, Iron Man didn't win the battle, Pepper Potts did. That was just annoying to have Stark's assistant deal the final blow, not Iron Man. Also, why did the explosion fry Obadiah, but not Iron Man? That made no sense.

As I said, I liked Iron Man. I think the second one will blow it out of the water (in much the way Spider Man 2, X-Men 2 and TDK all blew away their predecessors since they weren't bogged down in origin). But TDK was a much better film, I thought. While, yes, Maggie was bad (thank god we're done with the Rachel Dawes character altogether), she wasn't nearly a big enough part of it to take away from everything the film did well.

 

Downey as Stark was better than Bale as Wayne simply because the character was newer and fresh and funny. Wayne was forced to be a brooding, depressed individual for most of TDK and it really took away from the overall enjoyability of the character.

As far as Ledger, though, there's no contest. What Heath did with the role of the Joker has never been seen in this type of flick and for that reason alone TDK blows Iron Man out of the water. The two flicks aren't even close.

 

I loved Ledger, to see him go from a role like he had in Brokeback, where he barely spoke, to The Joker was amazing.

I have yet to see Downey in any film where he was not very good.

 

Did you see Charlie Bartlett? Downey was as good as he's ever been as the principal. I would've done one small thing different in terms of dialogue, but nevertheless, he, and the movie, were good.

 

Haven't seen that one. I might have to check it out. I was watching Zodiac the other day and he was good in that, but Mark Ruffalo made that film.

 

Very underrated film, and very, very underrated newspaper film.

 

I watched The Dark Knight last night for the first time and Zodiac is twice the film as DK.

The Dark Knight was OK, but shit, Iron Man was better.

The DK had tons on hles in its premise, plus, it just dragged for stretches.

 

Zodiac was better than TDK? Are you OK? Have you been hitting the Iron City way too hard today?

 

I think TDK was more of a visual masterpiece. Course, I saw it in the theater and Zodiac on a 27-inch TV.

But in terms of character development, and actual storyline? I liked Zodiac better. I don't really dig on superhero movies much.

 

Agreed, I think Zodiac deserved better reviews than it got. I'm sort of with IJAG here, if only because I find it hard to compare a superhero movie (a type I'm usually lukewarm to) to a drama such as Zodiac.

Both Downey and Gyllenhall were terrific.