THE DARK KNIGHT by jaiskizzy

"slaughter is the best medicine"

the gist: ever since batman began, gotham city's crime rate is on a dwindle with evildoers rainchecking their evildoings at the sight of the bat signal and mobsters holding their prayer meetings during the day. and with the people's paladin, harvey dent, on his side, future-commissioner gordon can't help but wear a happy smile under his 'stache. as the batman disposes of his posers (instead of posting bulletins on friendster), some nutjob who flunked cosmetic school and chose a career in carnage intrudes and offers his insights for a better gotham. for a guy named joker, he ain't funny at all.

i've always thought that tim burton's vision of batman was ok. eventhough it looked like batman might start singing and pirouetting any moment, the first two films were dark and gothic and i liked it. then came joel schumacher who gayified the franchise by adding colors like pink, corny oneliners and bat nipples (but not on batgirl). for that, he will never be forgiven. so, thank holy heavens for christopher nolan for putting the man back in batman and bringing him into the real world. great director. memento remains one of my favorite films ever. this dude is like a hollywood jesus who took the diseased caped crusader and cured him. batman begins was just a taste of what he could do with the material. with the origin story done with, he could take the bat wherever he wanted and he took the dark knight to masterpiece territory. his directorial decisions were perfect, turning the movie into more of a noir crime film than a flashy superhero movie, with great characters, pacing, action, tension, drama, dialogue, all in one two-hour short presentation. and there's no dragging, tearjerker funeral for the death of a major character. i like that. forget not, of course, his bro, jonathan, a huge part of the genius of nolan's movies for his amazing screenwriting powers. darn these nolans.

i'll strike the below-zero first because there's only one and it goes by the name of maggie gyllenhaal. she's a fine actress, yes, liked her in secretary, but she just failed to be rachel dawes, a character invented for the franchise to replace vicki vale. she just destroyed any possibility of ms. dawes being added into the batman comic canon. she's not ugly, but compared to mrs. cruise, she is. it's an olive oyl syndrome. watching her be torn between bruce wayne and harvey dent was like watching popeye and bluto fight over that ugly bitch. you just don't get why. maybe she gives good head? i dont know. but anyways...

christian bale is an amazing bruce wayne. he's a good batman, but i've always believed michael keaton played the dichotomy better. bale's lips looked weird when he spake as batman. dont know if it's supposed to be an effect of the voice enhancer but it seemed like had too much love for lip readers. the costume looks fine btw. finally solved that head-turning issue. anyways, who the heck is aaron eckhart? give this guy a medal. what a great harvey dent he was, especially when he became two-face. give another medal to the guy who made two-face's gross half like that. that shit is nasty. i had flashbacks of skinned goats hanging in the kitchen during fiesta in my grandparents' house. awesome. the perfect casting of gary oldman as jim gordon is proven even more in this sequel, as he isnt a minor character anymore. do you know the name of the fat dude in the other batman movies? no? me neither. anyways, there's this scene where batman, gordon and dent are forging an alliance on the bat signal rooftop which is lifted directly from the long halloween and that was just amazing.

now, the late heath ledger as joker... first, great that the joker doesnt have an origin. in the comics, the joker is so insane that he himself can't tell which past in his mind is real (he prefers multiple choice, the killing joke). that concept was realized nicely in the movie, with joker telling different stories on how he got his ichi-the-killer inspired scars. anyways, back to heath. just about every superlative and hyperbole has been used on his performance and it deserves every one of them. unlike batman who gets to be bruce wayne/christian bale, he was in joker makeup almost the whole time because he was not heath ledger anymore. he was just the joker. every flick of his tongue and roll of his eye, every fidget and every word he says, topnotch. i still hold firm that mark hamill did the definitive joker voice but heath ledger is joker in the flesh. that is one hard portrayal to match, let alone beat, if they ever decide to make a part three and bring the clown prince of crime back. if they do, i nominate either javier bardem or joseph gordon-levitt (just because he looks like heath). put harley quinn in and i'll buy a ticket right now.

no surprise that the dark knight is kicking ass outside of the movie world, breaking box office records like bones. the film is so great it has been lined up with the classics heat and the godfather 2. i couldn't agree more. the dark knight blew me away more than all of my exgfs did.


the good: the whole movie except...
the bad: maggie gyllenhaal.
the ugly: ditto.
the verdict: 10 disappearing pencils.


the dork knight.
(or the choker. this review is for my harley quinn.)

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THE DARK KNIGHT by jeeanfoxy

so what if it's another batman movie? its the best one yet!

things get more comic-y this time around, unlike in Batman Begins where the darkness and dragging storyline consumed me more than the good parts did. in the first one i kept thinking "o tapos? ano ngayon? so? ang tagal! flashback na naman? ano ba tlg?" ...and needless to say batman's props looked like crap. boo.

the dark knight presented a totally different perspective of what a batman movie should be. it was obviously done excellently from start to finish, and i bet even the split-second scenes took time to get right. the car chases were a bit dizzying but satisfying nonetheless. and here's a big plus: the hunky christian bale in his upgraded batman getup loaded with way cooler gadgets that will keep your head spinning all thoughout the movie.

and here go the minuses. (1) a very un-lengthy exposure of a villain (no, not the Joker). (2) maggie gyllenhaal's fugliness kept me distracted and detached from her Rachel Daws character. miscast. bigtime. and um... (3) batman isn't a hero? o.O

and now we come to Heath Andrew. Heath "Sayang ka bakit ka namatay" Andrew Ledger. his performace deserves an Oscar, no doubt about it. no one else could have played the role of The Joker better. heathie, may you rest in peace, drug-free.

the dark knight kept me at the edge of my seat. i'm the type of person who gets bored quite easily, but with TDK, i had my eyes glued to the screen from start to finish. the movie was quite long but it didn't fuckin matter...! the dark knight rules. boom. box office.

watch it, you low lives. here's my analogy: for the girls, it's better than chocolates and flowers on top of a box filled with havaianas. for the guys, it's better than your favorite porn.

xoxo
JeeanHatesMaggieGyllenhaal

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THE DARK KNIGHT by obi

Spoiler Alert! Spoiler Alert! Spoiler Alert!

The Spoiler:
Organized crime still plagues the city of Gotham. A triumvirate is formed between the police (Lt. Gordon), the law (District Attorney Dent), and Batman to spearhead the rounding up of criminal gangs in the city. Enter the psycho villain, Joker. While the streets of Gotham are being swept of malfeasance, the Joker consolidates his own mob and created havoc and confusion among the populace.

The trio deviced a plan and successfully captured the "clown" but a series of devious schemes turned the table against the good guys. Joker escapes and continues his terror. With several key persons dead along his wake, one of the most critical loss is Rachel Dawes, Harvey Dent's girl. This, and Harvey's nasty facial injury, culminates his jump to the dark side as the coin-flipping villain, Two Face.

Two Face hunts the then promoted Commissioner Gordon for revenge while the Joker rigged another terror plot. Batman, with the help of a new technology patterned after a concept by Wayne Enterprise's CEO, captures the Joker in record time and thwarts Dent's reprisal.

In the end, we will see scenes of the city's "liberation" from its dependence to Batman. But c'mon, we all know that the Bat will be back for God-knows how many more sequels. I look forward to that.

The Opinion:
I was in awe since the start of the film and not just because I look up to Batman. Bias aside, the movie is a masterpiece worthy of being elevated to timelessness.

...on the casts,
Christian Bale further seeps into the role of the Bat, hands down. As much as I would want to cling to the illusion that Michael Keaton has the best Batman portrayal, rectitude tells that it has to be Christian Bale now. Aaron Eckhart (Harvey Dent) did very well and convincing both as a good guy and a bad guy. It reminds me of the lead roles in "Face Off". Gary Oldman is just right as a younger Commissioner Gordon who is still in his prime as a hands-on crime fighter (most would remember him as the aged "office cop" from the comics). Morgan Freeman (CEO Lucius Fox) has short appearances in the film but I dig the coldness he exhibited. It's just fit for the role's stature. Michael Caine (Alfred the Butler) is an auto-include. The Alfred Pennyworth role just screams his name and I can't imagine any other candidates in his place that will give justice to it.

I have some reservations for Maggie Gyllenhaal (Rachel Dawes), though. The chemistry between her and Harvey Dent no matter how their scenes are expertly developed in terms of the script and exposure is just mediocre. I might attribute this to the brilliance of the rest of the casts who performed above expectation. Leaving the best for last, I'd want to outright stand and applause after the screening for the late Heath Ledger for a very very terrific performance (magmumuka nga lang akong tanga). Damn, that's a very radical portrayal of the Joker but it's one that I'd put my money on! One can really feel the psychosis albeit twisted genius behind the clown because of Ledger's acting. I say, it was a great redemption from the Brokeback image and a dramatic conclusion to his career. Salute!

...on the story,
Phasing is good. It's chock-full of action cuts and what's best is that they were able to fuse this with a not-so-plain storyline. I was anticipating that the plot would be just the basic "good versus evil" formula but there were twists in the film that proved me wrong. One thing to take note is the exposure laid for the Joker character. It was developed brilliantly through out the story and with help from Ledger's exceptional performance, I can go as far as saying this should be a "Joker" movie and not a Batman one... or perhaps a "Batman AND Joker" film, at the most.

I've always been a fan of the more comic-ish Batman flicks (Tim Burton's "Batman" films) since it stick with the dark Gothic theme of the cape crusader but "Dark Knight" makes me a believer of the realism version. This one is dark enough while proving that it can still be close to reality. Of course, there are obvious exaggerations of factual circumstances but nothing that din't help to make a terrific progress on the storyline.

The "Dark Knight" Batman is very human in terms of real-life predicaments and concerns. He was not portrayed as the typical carefree "I-kill-you-all" hero. I just hate it though when he do his Inday Garutay baritone to cover up his real voice. I would want to laugh my arse off in this scene where he was arguing with Commissioner Gordon. He could barely raise his voice as much as the scene requires it since he has to maintain the Inday Garutay tone. Bwehehe!

...on the Bat-gears,
I like the mobility that the new batsuit gives the wearer. By looking at how the fight scenes are done, you'll have an idea that the costume does not impede the actor to do realistic combat. One thing I'm a bit off is the mask itself. There were angles that it's just too chubby on the jaws that he looks more like an owl sans the pointy ears than a bat. It's not sleek enough but maybe it's just me.

As always, the Hummer-like batmobile is cool but the comic dude in me will not pick it over the classic long jet-black Corvette-like batmobile. There's also the batpod (bike). Great design, I say. Riders will love it and its uber-huge wheels. I want one.

...on everything else,
Visuals are good. Some CG work, great. I like this part when they blew a hospital down. It seems unnecessary but the overall impact of a huge building blowing into pieces amidst a fear-stricken population adds up to the dramatic effect.

The film is long at 2 hours and a half but it din't bore me and in fact everything seems to have just gone briefly. It'll make you wanting for more. I've been reading reviews on the web (finally, I have the luxury to do it since I've already watched the film... I was aching to read around since yesterday!) and it was the same sentiment all over. We shout part 3!!!

I can't think of capping my review by talking about Batman alone. "The Dark Knight" put Joker in a whole new iconic status of his own. You'd watch this not only for the cape crusader but the brilliance behind the clown's portrayal.

10 out of 10!

PS: Pay extra attention when Joker says he'll gonna make the pencil disappear! Hahaha! Why so serious?!

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WANTED by jaiskizzy

the gist: office pawn wesley is fed up with his life in a cubicle. he takes anti-anxiety pills to calm himself down from smashing the pc monitor into a co-worker's face. turns out that his high anxiety means something: his father who left him when he was a week old is actually one of the best assassins in town. a group of assassins called the fraternity, complete with hazing initiation, wants him to be part of their payroll. they send angelina jolie to "recruit" him, which is a great decision since it's pretty hard to say no to her. cue the bon jovi song and let the bullets fly!

i had a very similar movie plot years ago which is now worthless because it's gonna look like i ripped off wanted. boo-hoo. the moment i saw the bullets hitting each other in the trailer, i was like, there goes one of my script ideas blown to smithereens. anyways, when i heard that the director of wanted was the russian guy who directed the russian film nightwatch, i knew there was something spectacular to look forward to this movie. nightwatch and its sequel daywatch were absurd but visually cool films and the director has brought his unique style to hollywood. wanted will make you question physics while wearing a tent in your pants. and i aint even talking about angelina jolie yet. without giving anything away, you have never seen wanted's action scenes in any other action movie.

moving on to mrs. pitt. i would watch any movie with angeline jolie shooting a gun. that woman is badass. she doesnt hold a gun like a girl. i won't be surprised if she's an actual hitwoman in real life. if i were to be killed by an assassin, i would wish it was her, naked, and biting her lower lip when she pulls the trigger. james mcavoy was kind of a hit-and-miss (damned puns). him as wesley the wuss didnt work for me and felt like he was channeling shia labeouf a bit. he was good as the badass bulleteer though.

cant say the same thing about morgan freeman. he's a great actor but he just didnt belong in this movie. i think they were supposed to get samuel l. jackson but he was too busy doing motherfucker speeches in colleges so they opted for morgan instead who acted like he was still the president of the united states of america in deep impact. and since we're on the gripe train already... there were way too many slow-mos that this movie would have probably been half an hour shorter if those scenes had run at normal speed. i mean, okay, we got it the first time, to make the bullet curve, you have to shoot the gun with an arm sweep. it doesnt have to be slow-moed every single time someone does it.

i have several reasons to hate this movie (some aren't even about the movie) but overall i enjoyed the shootout show. word's out that the studios want a sequel but i cant imagine one without angelina. maybe she has a twin sister?

the good: the story, the direction and the hot chick with great lips.
the bad: james mcavoy in the first quarter, slow-mo overkill, and the predictable ending.
the ugly: morgan freeman after he says "oh, fuck."
the verdict: 7 letter-u-substitute teeth.


unwanted.

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WRISTCUTTERS: A LOVE STORY by jaiskizzy

the gist: some guy named zia decides to clean his room up and then slash his wrists with a razor. apparently, when you "off" yourself (commit suicide, yo), you end up in an afterlife world much like ours except it is so dull and everything's been slightly desaturated in photoshop. there he meets eugene who helps him search for his girlfriend, who supposedly killed herself too, and they both bump into a chick who wants to find the people in charge of that world. what a weird and cute lil movie.

i almost offed myself during my angsty years but i couldnt pull the trigger then so there's no way i can confirm if such a dimension exists for suicidals. the emo people surely would love that though. this movie however aint got no shade of emo on it at all. so, dont go owning the movie just because of the title, you sidecombed freaks. anyways, wristcutters is pretty much a journey movie where a guy and his friend hits the road on a quest of some sort and stumbles upon various stuff and people along the way. zia and the moustached dude have great non-chemistry and it's fun to watch them be friends but not really. add in the odd chick who likes to mess up with signs and you've got a trio of misfits who are and arent better off together at the same time. am i making any sense?

the dude who played zia looked familiar, i couldnt quite remember where i've seen him and am too lazy to check imdb. but he's okay, the role didnt call for anything special really. he got to kiss leslie bibb though, so he's pretty lucky. the dude who played the moustached dude though was great. i actually thought he was eugene hutz (the musician that the character was based on). the odd chick was so-so, she's not really on my list of favorite actresses and i would have liked someone beautifuler but she did fine. and then there was...will arnett?!

i'll "cut" this review short and simply say that it's a good film to watch to pass time, not when you want something to pump up your pulse rate or if you have a sibling who believes my chemical romance's music is music.

the good: the premise.
the bad: unconvincing clumsiness.
the ugly: used-condom beach.
the verdict: 6 floorboard blackholes.


templeshooter.

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