The Dark Knight Hype

Ok. If your taste in movies is at all similar to mine, you loved Batman Begins. It was a near-perfect story about the birth of a hero. It treated the subject matter intelligently, creating a psychologically complex Bruce Wayne and a believable vigilante crimefighter. You didn't have to be a comic-reader or a geek to enjoy it, because it was about a real man with real problems.

Inevitably, there's a lot of hype about the sequel, The Dark Knight, which is the first superhero movie not to include the hero's name in its title. Director Christopher Nolan is back after taking a hiatus from Gotham with last year's The Prestige (which incidentally starred both Batman and Alfred...and Wolverine), and there's no reason not to be extremely excited. Is there?

The Good

The Viral Marketing Campaign
There have been a ton of websites released by Warner Bro's that appear to be part of the Batman Begins universe. Some are "run" by the Joker himself, like whysoserious.com, while others are "real-world" sites for the Gotham Times, the Gotham Police, and the Gotham National Bank (for another great viral campaign, see J. J. Abrams' Cloverfield).

No More Katie Holmes
If there was one bad thing about Batman Begins, it was the presence of Katie Holmes. When you hear that name, or see her face, what do you think of? Whiny teenage conflicts on Dawson's Creek? Tom Cruise and the completely laughable notion of Scientology? She just stuck out like a sore thumb. Luckily, Maggie Gyllenhaal has stepped in to take her place as Gotham's Assistant D.A. I loved her in Donnie Darko, Mona Lisa Smile, and Stranger Than Fiction.

The Music
My two favorite film composers, James Newton Howard and Hans Zimmer, collaborated on Batman Begins and came up with one of my favorite scores of all time. And they're both working on the music for The Dark Knight. You might know Howard as the composer of all of M. Night Shyamalan's films, as well as Peter Jackson's King Kong. Zimmer is the genius who brought you The Lion King, Gladiator, and Pirates of the Caribbean, to name a few.

The Bad

The New Batsuit
Pictured above. It's too complicated for me. I loved the suit in Begins, because it was so dark and feral. This one's too high-tech in my opinion, and loses the fear factor of the first one. It also makes Batman look a lot thinner.

The Batpod
I also loved the Batmobile in Begins, but it looks like this gaudy monstrosity will be replacing it. It's cool-looking, sure, but it doesn't quite fit to me.

The Unknown

Heath Ledger as the Joker
I have no reason to doubt him, and the press pictures look great, but I've never seen him play a character like the Joker, and I have no idea what direction he and Chris Nolan are taking the part. Could be great, could be not-so-great.

Aaron Eckhart as Two-Face
Don't get me wrong, I love Eckhart. He was great in Thank You For Smoking, The Missing, and Erin Brokovich (let's just pretend The Core never happened). But like the Joker, we just don't know how he and Nolan have decided to approach the character (Tommy Lee Jones is an amazing actor, but his Two-Face was terrible).

The best way to find out if The Dark Knight will live up to the hype? Go see I Am Legend this Friday, which looks good anyway, and which has a TDK teaser trailer attached to it.

What I'm listening to on Pandora: Ooh Wee by Mark Ronson