The Dark Knight

I am now officially an older moviegoer according to Monday’s USA Today. Dan Fellman of Warner Bros. says, "We're starting to get those older moviegoers who maybe see three or four movies a year. They never rush to see a movie, and now that they can get a seat, they are coming out."* Yep, that's me, though honestly if my charmer had not wanted to see The Dark Knight, I probably would have passed altogether, but we went and I came to a new revelation. But first, the movie. It was great, the best Batman ever and I've seen them all. The acting was outstanding, and though Heath Ledger gets a lot of attention, Aaron Eckhart as Two Face and Gary Oldman as Commisioner Gordon are equally on the mark. Supporting cast of Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman round out a who's who of top notch actors. A decided improvement over the cast of Batman and Robin of a decade ago. The movie was indeed dark maybe a little too much so for the 4 and 8 year-olds I saw in the audience, but for a Batman fan who likes his Caped Crusader a little more Frank Miller than Adam West, this was dark to a T. My only small gripes, the movie was 30 minutes too long and Christian Bale's Eastwood-esque gravelly voice as Batman was a little too distracting. These are minor complaints, because honestly, this was a well done film.

My revelation is I'm bored with the Batman rehashes. Each time they reboot these movies, we are introduced to the villains as though we've never met them. If the producers and directors think younger audiences need a back story to catch them up to speed, I disagree. Who hasn’t grown up watching or reading Batman in some form, for example, with Nicholson as the Joker and Tommy Lee Jones as Two-Face. These kids know the villains, we all do. Do us a favor and not waste time reintroducing the entire mythology every decade; let's just jump right into the action with some fresh material.

As I said, The Dark Knight is superb but maybe I need a new hero. And what good timing with The Watchmen coming out next year – something new at the flicks I haven't seen before. Of course, like an old fart, I'll check it out in its 4th or 5th week.

*This quote was taken from the printed copy of 'USA Today'. The online article had a slightly different quote