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September
29, 2008 Christian Bale (Batman / Bruce Wayne) – bats in his belfry and a chip on his shoulder. Heath Ledger (The Joker) – more batty than Batman. Maggie Gyllenhaal (Rachel) – the official wannabe bat-boink. Aaron Eckhart (Harvey Dent) – the very definition of bi-polar. Michael Caine (Alfred) – isn’t this guy in every Morgan Freeman movie? Morgan Freeman (Lucius) – isn’t this guy in every Michael Caine movie? What’s with all the pouty, angry, billionaires these days? Ted Kennedy, John Edwards, Martha Stewart … Bruce Wayne. You’d think with all that dough, they’d find something to be happy about (well, okay; scotch seems to make Ted temporarily happy and Edwards likes chasing skanky women). Heck, I’m happy when I get grilled grouper for lunch at the Crab Shack or a salad at Parson Jack’s. So far Hollyweird has made eight Batman flicks, and The Dark Knight is the moodiest and broodiest of them all. You’d think a bachelor would be happy with expensive toys, babes in abundance and all the friends money can buy; but no – this is the new millennium Batman, where one must find one’s self before one opens up one’s can of whoop-ass; and where the Batmobile is now a BSUV (Bat-Suburban-Utility-Vehicle). This begs the question: When did Batman become an angry soccer mom? Bat-Fact: Batman made his comic book debut in 1939, a combination of The Shadow, Dick Tracy, Sherlock Holmes and Zorro. Here’s the plot of The Dark Knight, hereafter referred to as TDK, in a little guano pile: testy billionaire thrashes it out with a cuckoo clock terrorist. Smashing, crashing and demented giggling commence. The PC flutters out of TDK like a colony of cheiroptera (look it up, publik skoolers) from the very beginning with Gotham City itself. This place looks like a depression era New York City. This Doom and gloom is the liberal’s view of the future – at least until the loony left gets someone in the Oval Office they agree with. The future is bleak. American capitalism (Hollyweird excepted) has ruined any hope of Utopia. One World Guv’mint needs to step in and guide the hoi polloi to a better life. I know this, because Hollyweird tells me so. Bruce baby; you’re a zillionaire. You don’t have to put on a Kevlar suit and crash your fancy SUV into buildings. Lindsey Lohan did that already and look what a mess she is. You rich white folks are so silly. Go fishing in Costa Rica or something. Chill out, man. Bat-Fact: Batman once had a Bat-Hound named “Ace.” Mo’ betta PC flutters out like cheiroptera -wings (did you look it up yet, publik skoolers?) when we meet The Joker, played by Heath Ledger. This guy is truly out of the padded-room-palace. He’s nuttier than a weeping Obama supporter. However, The Joker has no political agenda – he likes killing people and blowing things up for the sheer pleasure of it. To make matters worse, Heath Ledger killed himself (some claim suicide) in real life about the time the film was released. Believe it or not – and I don’t know what this says about us as a society – Ledger’s death made this film even more popular. TDK is still selling out theatres and it’s over a month old. Even so, Ledger’s Joker makes this flick worth seeing twice. With a voice like Richard Dreyfuss and a face like a Dawn Of The Dead ghoul, this is not Cesar Romero’s Joker. This is more like Clive Barker’s Joker. So what is it that made The Joker a certified violent nutbar? It was his Father, so he says. Yes, the male role model Hollyweird so detests (remember, Guv’mint should be your Daddy). Bad male role models! Bad bad bad! Imagine the howling from the left if The Joker was black, Hispanic or Middle Eastern. That would not do. To see Middle Easterners, blacks or any non-whiteys wreaking havoc you have to check the evening news. Is Dan Blather still around? What’s the frequency Kenneth …? Bat-Fact: When asked in 1986 whether to let “Robin” live or die, comic book readers voted thumbs down for Robin. So now Bat-Bruce needs some high-tech armor and gizmo’s so he can flit about town whacking bad whiteys. Enter Morgan Freeman (the only ahk-tor besides George Burns to play God convincingly). Freeman has access to all kinds of cool bat-toys for vengeful bat-boys. It would be really something to see Morgan Freeman play an insidious baddie some day, because he has that ever-frosty cool demeanor. But not in TDK; because alas, he cannot. You see, Freeman is the only black person in the film. Therefore he is covered by the Sacred Minority Rule, whereby if you are the only minority in a Hollyweird film, you will be endowed with altruism and angelic powers. You will be the good guy and you will save the day. All-American so-called self-proclaimed “minorities” are inviolate and immune to criticism. Only whitey’s can truly be evil at heart. Especially if those whiteys are Southern and Christian. I know this, because Hollyweird tells me so. Bat-Fact: the first Batman comic, Detective Comics #27, is valued at $350,000. One thing that does not work in TDK is the Harvey Dent character. He gets half his puss burned off and refuses treatment. Then we’re supposed to believe him emooo-ting into a bad guy. This is the start of the legendary Two-Face, played much more adeptly by Tommy Lee Jones in Batman Forever (1995). Then again, Jones didn’t need much make-up for the part. Bat-Fact: The first Batman movie was made in 1943, starring Lewis Wilson. You know; that Lewis Wilson. Wilson left acting and went to work for General Foods, because he needed to support his family. He died in 2000. The ‘43 Batman serial was filled with anti-Japanese stuff, as Pearl Harbor was still fresh in people’s minds. TDK is a fun flick to watch, even though it takes itself way too seriously and the action scenes are often so jumbled and shaky you cannot tell what is happening. See references to the Patriot Act, global warming and Guv’mint eavesdropping. See the cool new wall-crawling Bat-Harley. See cool contraptions and bat-thingamabobs. See Batman pout; pout Batman pout. TDK has 4 of the 5 Bachelor B’s: Blood (but not much), Beasts (Dent turns into one, but you knew that would happen), Bashes (Bat-Dude likes to break stuff) and Bombs (Joker-Bubba likes to blow up stuff real good!). No Breasts, which begs the question: Just why is Maggie Gyllenhaal in this flick anyway? So if you want to see a rich white guy go head-to-head against a grinning goof hell-bent on destroying the USA, go see The Dark Knight. Or just watch the McCain/Obama campaigns. I give TDK four Capitalist Dollar Signs (out of 5). $$$$
[Editor's note: Next week Rocky will give his review of Tropic Thunder.] Hear
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