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This is the double-disc offering, which includes the digital copy. I have like 5 DVD’s with the digital copy and really haven’t used any of them yet.
The Main Characters
--Bruce Wayne/Batman (Christian Bale) is the caped crusader, Gotham’s protector. His parents were murdered in front of him in cold blood and this changed him forever, drawing him to a life of fighting crime in the darkness.
--The Joker (Heath Ledger) is a different kind of criminal. He’s not interested in any personal gain, just mass chaos. It’s a foe Batman has never faced before.
--Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) is the District Attorney of Gotham and he wants to make a change for the better. In a town run by the mob, that isn’t always a good thing for him and his health.
The Setting
Gotham City, of course.
The Film (2:32:05)
Batman has been dealing with the criminals of Gotham’s underbelly when a new threat makes an appearance, the Joker. The Joker is just an anarchist. He isn’t in it for the money, the fame or the power like other criminals. He just loves chaos. Batman does have a few allies this time, including police agent Dick Gordon, as well as the new DA Harvey Dent. Of course, Joker just brings death and destruction wherever he goes, and Batman isn’t the only one affected by the long arm of the Joker.
Movie Review
My thoughts of this are the same as when I saw it back when it first opened, so I am just gonna copy and paste this. Ok, so I finally got a chance to see The Dark Knight this afternoon and, although I won't say it was the best superhero movie I have ever seen, or even seen this year, it does deserve all the hype it gets. I didn't enjoy it as much as Iron Man, as Iron Man was a more enjoyable movie to just sit and be entertained by. Batman was different, however. It was a movie, with an actual plot, character development and some great acting. It was a little long (the whole Hong Kong incident was a little too forced in, in my opinion, the faux Batman’s at the top of the film, the Wayne employee who looks a little too hard into Bruce’s accounts) at points and it made it drag, especially in the opening act. While I’m nitpicking, the voice of Batman got annoying really quickly. By the time we got to the second act, though, you had one kick-ass movie. I will say this, the reason to see this movie is Heath Ledger. He is an actor that just nailed the Joker. He got that Joker isn't motivated by money or anything material but got a high from pure, absolute, chaos. To see Heath become this cold-hearted villain was just amazing. When I heard Travers of Rolling Stone talk about Oscar buzz I thought he was just saying that to honor Heath's legacy, but he wasn't. This was one of the most scarily accurate roles I have ever seen portrayed, and he is the Joker, he becomes the sadistic madman. Heath's performance was nothing short of amazing, definitely the best acting I've ever seen in a comic book movie, and one of the best ever. The other cast members served their role, but this will be remembered (and rightly so), as Heath's movie. ***1/2
DVD Features
A) Extras
All the extras are on Disc Two.
1) Gotham Uncovered: Creation of a Scene
---A) The Sound of Anarchy (6:25)
This is a little feature on the sound of Batman. It was a little different than ones I have seen. They didn’t actually have sit down interviews with people, but their voices playing over still photographs being shown. Interesting segment, though.
---B) The Evolution of the Knight (17:35)
This is the closest we’ll get to a making of on this disc. We talk about the new bat-suit, the bat-pod (the motorcycle), filming the movie for IMAX, and more of the photo slideshows. No notable cast showed up on this featurette.
2) The Dark Knight IMAX Sequences
This is interesting. It has scenes as seen in the IMAX theatre. I have to be honest, I didn’t watch these too closely and couldn’t spot any sort of differences.
---A) The Prologue (6:23)
---B) Hong Kong (3:51)
---C) The Armored Car Chase (8:28)
---D) The Lamborghini Crash (7:56)
---E) The Prewitt Building (7:22)
---F) The Dark Knight (2:42)
3) Gotham Tonight (46:34)
This is almost an hour of faux-Gotham news, going from the debates on Harvey Dent and the Batman to an ET like look at Bruce Wayne. They actually have clips of Christian Bale and Aaron Eckhart doing their characters, and it was a nice lead-in to the Dark Knight. Was this released online or something to hype the movie?
---A) Episode 1: Election Night (7:58)
---B) Episode 2: Billionaire Without A Cause (9:41)
---C) Episode 3: Escalation (7:52)
---D) Episode 4: Top Cop (6:14)
---E) Episode 5: Cops and Mobsters (7:06)
---F) Episode 6: White Knight (7:40)
This was the best one of the lot, as its an interview with Harvey Dent, played by Aaron Eckhart. The interview was interrupted by breaking news, that the bank was robbed, which is where the film starts.
4) The Galleries
This is the average galleries portion of the collection. The Posters were cool, the production photos were okay. You can scroll through these yourself but it auto-scrolls for you.
---A) Poster Art
---B) Production Stills
5) Trailers (5:34)
These are the three trailers used to promote the film. They were all pretty good trailers.
---A) Trailer 1 (0:56)
---B) Trailer 2 (2:07)
---C) Trailer 3 (2:30)
B) Audio/Video
The video is presented in widescreen, looks like 2.35:1 and the audio is presented in Dolby Surround 5.1 I watch these on headphones on my computer and it does sound great, especially during the action scenes, but the video seemed pretty soft. I’ve seen this on Blu-Ray and it looked amazing. This looked just dull in places, especially in darker scenes and I think the transfer could’ve been a whole lot better. It really looks like a VHS tape recorded off the TV. It’s disappointing to see a film this great getting a transfer this soft.
C) Packaging / Liner Notes
This has a nice slipcase that houses the DVD. There are no liner notes to speak of, save the instruction on how to use the digital copy.
D) Easter Eggs
None
Overall Review
Disc One starts with a short anti-piracy ad (1:01), then we hit the other commercials. We got Warner Home Video on Blu-Ray (1:09), Batman Begins (1:14), a cool looking Batman game called Arkham Asylum, Watchmen (AWESOME!), and an anti-smoking ad (3:45). I was really pumped to get this DVD, since the movie was nothing short of amazing, but the one word that springs to mind about this DVD was disappointing. For the first disc, you get what is basically a bad transfer of a great film. There’s not even a commentary on there. The extras on Disc Two were things that were decent, but nowhere near where it could’ve been. This will be remembered as Heath Ledgers movie, but do we get any sort of tribute to Heath? Or even a mention of the great actor? Nope, nothing. Instead we have 46 minutes of faux Gotham news. To sum it up, the movie is absolutely great, as I wrote above, but this DVD could’ve been so much more. To me, it seems this was a rush job to get this DVD out by Christmas at the sake of any sort of interesting extras and at the sake of its visual quality. This could’ve been so much more and I can’t in good conscience recommend this disc. I’d definitely wait for the sure to be released real special edition DVD with the extras it deserves.
Overall Rating
4.5
10.0 Perfect
9.0-9.5 Near Perfect, Highly Recommended
8.0-8.5 Really good disc, Recommended
7.0-7.5 Good DVD, Mildly recommended
6.0-6.5 Above Average DVD. Mildest of mild recommendations
5.0-5.5 Decent all around disc, but catch it on TV
4.0-4.5 Great Movie but horrible DVD
3.0-3.5 Horrible movie but great DVD
2.0-2.5 There’s at least some merit to this DVD, but not much.
1.0-1.5 Horrible DVD, don’t even bother
0.0-0.5 Worst DVD ever
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