I can't wait to see this though. I ordered my IMAX tickets 3 weeks ago. And I bypassed Manhattan. Because I know NYC is going to be crazy. I'm checking it in Westchester County.

1. Gotham City. In Batman Begins it was very bland and boring - clearly a real, modern city, rather than the macabre, open air lunatic asylum of the Batman mythology. Nolan' Gotham could just as well have been the setting for a Jason Bourne movie, or a Mission Impossible movie, or a Muppets in Manhattan movie. Has Nolan solved this problem?

2. Car chases. These have been incredibly tedious in every movie since The French Connection cornered that particular cliché. The car chase in Batman Begins was boring in the extreme and I switched off for it. Please tell me there are no car chases in The Dark Knight.

3. Batman's costume. It's stupid. All that armour plating? How can he possibly move? He looks like a robot - worse than the nipple costume in Batman And Robin. This isn't a question - I see from the poster they haven't solved this one.

4. Action scenes. Are there any this time round? There were none in Batman Begins. Oh yes, there were a few blurry, shakey bits with choppy editing, but I switched off for those, as I'm sure most people did. Are there any proper action scenes this time?

The characters: In Batman Begins, they were extremely tedious. Has Nolan managed to inject any personality into the characters this time around?

The plot: Batman Begins had a rambling, boring plot with no sense of tension or high stakes. I found myself switching off for the dull exposition. Is the plot better this time around? If so, how?

I have heard from my Long Island buds that Cradle of Aviation was a nice place (outside of IMAX). I got to check it one day.

Now I want to see it even more than before... never thought it would be possible.

Well, the whole idea of a caped superhero is so outlandish in the first place, that trying to stick him in a real modern city, with glass skyscrapers etc, just doesn't work at all. And it doesn't matter that they try to make his costume 'realistic' by adding all these modern materials to it - all they're doing is drawing attention to the problem. No, the best way is to make the city itself a surreal backdrop - as it is in the comic books - and then these costumed characters fit right in. I like the look of the costume (and lighting) in that fan film 'Dead End'. The film itself is utter garbage - but the look of the costume is the best I've seen on film.

I also find the vehicle that Batman uses in Batman Begins to be completely ridiculous. I find it looks a lot sillier than the Batmobile in the sixties' TV series.

Indy 4 was good (but not great). I don't know if this one (The Dark Knight) can live up to my expectations! My expectations are pretty high right now!

Yawn. Go ahead, who cares.

You know who else threatens to take over/ kill/ enslave / poison a whole population?

Dr Evil. And Dr No. And Lex Luthor. And General Zod. And Goldfinger. And Syndrome. And EVERY single supervillain, superterrorist and superalien from the dawn of time. Which is why it's now used as a JOKE in spoof movies, like Austin Powers, Superhero Movie, Hot Shots part Deux, Naked Gun etc etc etc etc. Because:

Rule number 1 of serious action movies: NEVER try to make the audience feel empathy for some fictional anonymous population. Because we the audience won't give a shit. We don't know them. They're not real anyway. So go ahead and blow them away.

But get us to empathise with one or two INTERESTING, well-written, well-acted characters who face challenging personal dilemmas. THEN we'll care. THEN we'll understand the stakes.

Which is why movies like Aliens and Mission Impossible 3 work so well: I don't like Tom Cruise at all - but the stakes he's facing will potentially fuck him up personally. As for Sigourney Weaver, she's not saving the earth, she's saving a single little girl - and we see every goddamn emotion on her face as she plucks up the balls to face the monsters. Now THAT'S an action movie. So you can keep your 'Oh no! A bunch of bored extras are going to pretend to die!' plot, thank you very much. Put it in the same place as cars smashing into each other and flying through the air. Yawn

Wanna hear something fucked up? Last night I had awful fucking nightmares, and yes, I blame THE DARK KNIGHT. Amazing film. Truly amazing.

There have been far too many "good" reviews in the last two years that made me feel violated when I watched the film for myself.

And the scene where De Niro and Pacino - those two acting greats - finally get to meet has all the drama of a homemade cake contest. Utterly disappointing. The two great actors sit there grunting at each other in embarrassment. And why? Because there was NO SCRIPT for that scene. They had to make up their lines -and unfortunately NEITHER OF THEM ARE WRITERS. So all they could do was grunt and shrug their shoulders. It was terrible to watch. If the director had been serious he would have said, "Okay guys, we're going to stop and hire some writers to write dialogue for this scene." Completely unprofessional. That movie still gives me nightmares when I think of it. It's like an A-B-C of how NOT to do a crime drama.

The more I hear about The Dark Knight, the worse it sounds. I mean, comparing it to HEAT????? God, please no!

Come on guys! Doesn't ANYONE have ANYTHING positive to say about The Dark Knight?

One of the greatest things to be said about the film is that, like the Joker, the movie is unpredictable. Even though you know where Harvey ends up, you never really know where the movie is going. (Like, after the big Joker confrontation in the streets of Gotham...where the movie slowly heats up until in one of the most amazing scenes.)

What also makes this work is the pacing. This is Nolan's first truly linear film, but he takes his seamless editing style into a few tense sequences that cross-cuts between a few different groups effortlessly.

I don't get all the haters who come to this site because of their love of movies, and then when they finally get one that is legendary they have to troll. "Why mention Empire?" "Don't overhype." Etc. Maybe you've been burned by good reviews before. Not here, not now. Instead, just embrace the fact that you going to very soon see and be a part of a landmark in cinema. Yes, it is that good.

I think Nolan was INSPIRED by Heat to make his own sprawling story of criminals and heroes in Gotham...and the result is not a ripoff or even a QT "homage" (except maybe the first scene), but a wholly original creation that is an unresounding success.

And like I said, it has a lot of things tonally that reminded me of the good Michael Mann, specially that "quietness" in the middle of chaos... How suddenly Nolan stops and lets you take a breath with a beautiful shot and a quiet almost imperceptible piece of score.

I loved this movie, I think it is a truly remarkable movie, so rich and dark it gave me nightmares. And to me it's very valid to bring up HEAT. So there.

Terminator: I've got some pretty concrete reasons as to why HEAT sucked:

Huge amount of screen time given to minor, uninteresting, badly-written characters.

De Niro and Pacino on autopilot. De Niro's mind apparently on something else the whole time; Pacino resorting to SHOUTING every third WORD so the BLAND script would SOUND slightly more INTERESTING.

The godawful scene where De Niro and Pacino show up without a script and try (badly) to improvise (see post above).

The incredibly tedious shoot-out that seems to go on for an hour (the shoot-out: another movie cliché that ran out of steam many years ago).

The three hour running time for a movie that had about one hour's worth of material. Yes: three hours!

So, Terminator, why do YOU think it's a good movie. Please be specific.

At any rate, I'm looking forward to this flick, even if I don't particularly agree with Nolan's take on the character. Hopefully it lives up to the hype.

From this point on, I'm only talking to people that think HEAT is a solid crime flick. You know, the sane people.

Anyway, just wanted to say TDK made me think of good old Mann, and gave my reasons why.

$200M opening weekend gross? Beating Titanic's all-time gross? $163M opening weekend gross? What the hell in Gotham's cesspool are you substance-abusers smoking? Coz, I seriously need to get me some. For the record the top 3 or 4 movies (the Spiderman and POTC, movies and sequels, Star Wars prequelss) with the highest opening weekend grosses pretty much all opened on Holiday weekends at the beginning of Summer or on the 4th of July holiday weekend. There's a very good reason why Studios position movies this way, furthermore, all of the aforementioned movies we're directly geared marketed and rated for that key demographic of Box Office minting audience - kids which as we all know = repeat viewings and parental accompaniment. So naturally, it goes without saying, that it's obviously the height of delusion and general insanity to imagine that a movie that's not going to enjoy the above mentioned advantages, is going to gross anywhere near $200M this weekend; or any other weekend for that matter. Hell, they'll be lucky to get anywhere near the $80 million that Iron Man did. But that's okay, because I'm likely talking to the same crowd that probably imagined that Serenity was the next Titanic and that Superman Returns would do "Spidey-like" numbers at the Box Office (Massawyrm's actual words, I believe; we all know how that one worked out - there's still trying to track down Bryan Singer's career.) So this post is probably an exercise in wasted logic anyway. TDK is probably going to be a good movie and likely an upgrade over the first (which, really isn't saying much, considering the ludicrosity of Batman Begins) and will likewise do decent numbers at the B.O. this weekend; I think they'll be lucky (and happy as a Studio - this is DC property after all) to make anything in the immediate neighbourhood of $60-70 Million. But barely. Outside of geekdom and your average Batman (batshit insane?) fan, no one really gives a crap about this movie. On the flip side, we'll gladly welcome you guys back to the world of the sane and the rational on Monday morning when you thud right back down to earth. But hey, it will do well on DVD sales, right? Right.

That's one of rare films that gets all things right, writing, acting, cinematography, production design etc. Also, whoever calls the shootout in Heat boring is only seeking out for attention and is provoking for a response from the rabid fanboyoz. That damn shootout defined how realistic gunfights should be handled on film, its pure adrenaline.

See you Monday you illiterate shitbox!

Oh, and Star magazine - that's the finger that's truly on the pulse of what's good in cinema. I mean, did you see how they nailed everyone's love of ABBA in their review of Mamma Mia?

As for the other dissenting reviews on RT ... wait ... who the fuck were they again?

Everyone wants to be the one who calls it different. Joke 'em if they can't take a fuck.

Good gun battles? Can't think of any. Maybe the bit in The Matrix where they break Lurence Fishbourne out of the skyscraper; the way Tom Cruise handles his gun in Collateral with frightening efficiency, but that isn't a gun battle. (I don't care for Tom Cruise btw!). Guns are a bit of a cop-out actually. I think it's better when they're used in some unusual or unexpected way - like in Saving Private Ryan where Tom Sizemore tries to shoot a German in the thick of battle but his gun doesn't work, so he throws it at the guy instead - or in the same film where they knock down a wall and find themselves in a sudden stand-off with some German troops and get saved by another group of soldiers we didn't even know were there. These are just examples off the top of my head - but they're way better than a bunch of guys just going BAM! BAM! at each other like we used to do as kids playing cowboys and indians.

As I've pointed out before, there are many specific and demonstrable reasons why HEAT fails as a movie. Those talkbackers who seem to see it as the second coming are so far unable to explain what's so good about it.

The screen time given to minor but totally interesting, well-written characters adds to the overall epic quality and helps in understanding the world in which the characters inhabit and the people they effect. PWNED.

De Niro and Pacino on PWNINGpilot. De Niro's mind is apparently razor focused; Pacino resorts to shouting because his character was written as a stressed out coke head. That was part of Pacino's preparation for the character and you would know this if you took the time to listen to any of the DVD extras. PWNED.

The famous table scene was not wholly improvised as you can clearly see script pages in any number of set photos. Not to mention the fact that Pacino references "eight-ball hemorages" (a detail written and used in several other Mann films) or that the completed scene was pieced together by numerous takes of the same dialog but was mostly comprised of one particular take. If you think they made up that entire scene only when the cameras were running, you may be more of an idiot than you appear. PWNED.

One of the most memorable shoot-outs in the history of cinema. If you find shoot-outs tiresome, then you must not like action or see a lot of movies. You sound like a really boring person. PWNED.

A three hour running time is about perfect for a modern epic crime drama. PWNED.

There seemed to be some typos in your post, so I fixed 'em for you. No thanks necessary.

As I've pointed out before, there are many specific and demonstrable reasons why Heat PWNS as a movie. Those talkbackers who seem to see it as bland and lifeless are, so far, unable to explain what's so bad about it.

NEW AND IMPROVED!

PWNED!!

"But Jerry & I are going to get a babysitter this friday and go see Mamma Mia - Star magazine said it was joyous. I miss ABBA!"

Why hasn't AICN said anything about the Watchmen Trailer attached to the Dark Knight? The entire time I was thinking we'd get a 30 second teaser type thing. Nopes, not according to Chud. Get ready for 2 full minutes of actual footage. Get ready to see Dr. Manhattan!

http://tinyurl.com/54pes6

Okay, you're going to laugh, but I would pay good money to find out what 'PWND!' actually means. I've seen it used a lot but I'm stumped. Here are my guesses:

1. It actually means 'OWNED' as in 'I own our ass' but for some reason people have started using a P instead of the O.

2. It is actually short for 'Pawned' which I suppose means 'I just brought your ass into a pawn shop and exchanged it for cash.' Close? I'm dying to know.

In any case no-one has been able to defend HEAT at all , though I bow to Zoefan who made an honest stab at it. Come on guys! Give me SOMETHING! How to you explain away:

Pacino and De Niro's phoned-in performances. I mean, its DE NIRO and PACINO!!! Two of the finest American screen actors of all time! But both of them were clearly into their post-retirement, take-the-paycheck-and-run periods. This explains de Niro's sleepwaking through the movie. And by the way, Pacino did not evolve his patented SHOUT-every-third-WORD-of-my-P ERFORMANCE-over-the-PHONE acting method for 'Heat' alone - he's been using it in EVERY movie since Scent Of a Woman, with no exceptions. Don't make me laugh with some cock-a-mamie story about him preparing for this particular role. Which leads me nicely onto....

The notorious cafe scene. Ah yes, the moment when the two legendary giants of cinema finally share a scene. Will sparks fly? Will it be a masterclass in suble acting? Will it be a tense and riveting battle of wits?

No, they'll grunt and shrug and try to make up some lines and then give up.

DO NOT try to tell me there was a script for this. There's just no way. Far more likely is that De Niro and Pacino are so arrogant that they insisted they could improvise on the spot - and Michael Mann was too afraid to say no. THAT'S why this scene is so abysmal. Don't tell me there was a script: that's insulting to all involved.

Please explain why the following is good:

Good guys: BAM! BAM!

Bad guys: BAM! BAM! BAM!

Good guys: BAM! BAM! BAM! YOU'RE DEAD!

Bad guys: NO WE'RE NOT! YOU'RE DEAD! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!

If some one can explain why this isn't something we can all quite easily do at home, I'd be grateful.