'flapgreen said:
Saw it last night, great flick. I still like Dark Knight, but this was right up there.
Weird but I think I'm the only person on Earth who didn't care for Dark Knight.
I usually despise comic book films but the Dark Knight was exceptional. The proper way to tell a story is to create interesting characters and torture them for 300 pages. Make obstacles worthy of your heroes' quest. Make the heroes suffer terrible losses to reveal their inner character. Maybe they rise, maybe they fall, but it tells you something deep about who they are.The Dark Knight succeeds in doing this. The Joker is an obstacle worthy of Batman's quest. He achieves real goals. He takes chunks out of Batman's life. He kills Rachel Dawes, and the pinnacle of the film is when the Joker turns Harvey Dent from a shining knight into a villain. That is devastating to Batman on a number of levels. It sets Gotham back so much. It means he cannot put the mask and cape away because he is still the bulwark. It ruins everything Batman has worked for. How does he react? He makes even more sacrifices by ruining his reputation and pretending to become a murderous villain to protect Dent's image. And there's no guarantee even that will work. That's great writing. Through terrible ordeals, they reveal the inner character of Bruce Wayne. It makes you feel you know who Bruce Wayne is.The Avengers doesn't work at all on this level. Loki is presented as a bumbling idiot who accomplishes nothing. He "turns" a couple people with his magic wand but its only temporary. That's chicken #### writing. The heroes suffer no permanent losses beyond that agent who really isn't built up to mean much imo. The Avengers is a throwaway film compared to Dark Knight. Its appeal is in being like a pro wrestling PPV. People want to see the Hulk fight Thor, Iron Man fight the Hulk, Iron Man fight Thor, Thor fight Captain America, etc. That's all the film is. The obstacles are not worthy of the heroes' quest. The heroes are not tortured in this film. Its a sporting event disguised as a film. I don't feel I know the superheroes in the Avengers like I do Batman after the Dark Knight. I don't know how these superheroes would react to devastating losses piled on their lives from this film.