July 14, 2008, - 2:18 pm
Even in IMAX Theater, Dark Knight is Too Dark for Kids
By Debbie Schlussel
This is a big movie screening day, thus my absence from the site, but I’ll be posting stuff on and off for the rest of the day, with a lot of new stuff tonight and tomorrow, too (including new, VERY disturbing information about now-fired FOX News/NewsCorp Muslim anchor Fanchon Stinger–really disturbing stuff).
I just got back from a special screening, “The Dark Knight,” the second installment of the Christian Bale (as Batman) series on the comic book superhero. It was a great movie, and on top of that–the screening was held at an IMAX theater at one of my three favorite museums on the planet, “Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village,” which Detroiters know as the giant museum and grounds featuring homes and buildings from great historical American figures. If it’s old fashioned Americana, it’s at Henry Ford. It’s America’s greatest history museum, in my view–one of the good things the anti-Semitic Henry Ford left.
(My other fave museums are the International Spy Museum in Washington, DC, and the little-known but very important and interesting National Museum of American Jewish Military History–also in DC–which documents the service and sacrifice Jewish Americans proudly gave in every war, including the Revolutionary War.) If you are ever in the Detroit area, a visit to Henry Ford and Greenfield Village is a must.
I’ve never before seen a movie in an IMAX theater before, and it is “WOW!” Like they say, “Once you go IMAX, you never go BAX.” I know–not funny. Don Rickles, I’ll never be. But I try.
Anyway, while I really liked “The Dark Knight,” I was struck by the massive amount of violence and killing throughout the movie (committed by the bad guys), which I found disturbing for a movie that is being heavily marketed to kids in promotions and toys. And there are also the multiple graphic descriptions of facial disfigurement with a knife, as told by the Joker.
In that respect, it’s significantly different from “Batman Begins,” the first one with Christian Bale as the “Caped Crusader.” the movie is extremely violent and probably almost 100 people are stabbed or shot to death at close range during the movie. Yes, the message of good triumphing over evil is there, but there are so many scenes that really aren’t suitable to kids. I’m disappointed that so many parents will take their kids to this 2.5 hours of desensitization to violence.
Christian Bale is one of my favorite living actors, and he’s good as usual here, though he’s not onscreen a lot. The late Heath Ledger as the Joker is the real star of the movie and gets most of the screen time, as do other characters. Another drawback is the starring role of Maggie Gyllenhaal in the top female billing as Rachel Dawes, Bruce Wayne’s true love. As readers will recall, I lambasted the universally homely–both inside and out–Gyllenhaal, who said American deserved and is to blame for the 9/11 attacks. Her close relatives are well-known left-wing activists. I had to laugh when the Joker repeatedly tells Gyllenhaal how beautiful she is.
Clearly, the Joker needs to get his eyes checked.
Stay tuned for my complete review, coming very soon.
Maggie Gyllenhaal is the niece (on her mother’s side) of uber leftist (and probably proto Communist) Columbia University history professor Eric Foner so the apple did not fall far from the tree.
Ripper on July 14, 2008 at 2:36 pm