Batman Forever!

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Yeah but I did make some very true point in the paragraph above. Your just being immature not even saying i made some good points.

Tell me then how some of hte points i raised above were unfounded and untrue?

"The Godfather 2 meets Silence of the Lambs meets a snuff film." That's one point raised that verges on the totally stupid. The former and latter are classic movies, in what way does TDK have elements of two said movies and a snuff film?

Not all Batman movies have to feature gumdrop meadows, happy thoughts, song and dance routines and ridiculously happy endings. If you read any of the graphic novels like Long Halloween, Killing Joke and Arkham Asylum, you'd understand why Batman has a bleak side to him.

And if the violence turns you off, why don't you watch Teletubbies on repeat?

IT’S A f*****g MOVIE ABOUT A BILLIONAIRE WHO TRAVELS THE WORLD IN ORDER TO BECOME THE WORLD’S SMARTEST MOST HIGH-TECH CRIMEFIGHTING NINJA, THEN RETURNS TO HIS HOMETOWN TO DRESS AS A GIANT BAT, DRIVE A WEAPONS-LOADED TUMBLER TANK LOADED, AND CLEAN UP ALL THE CRIME IN THE CITY BY ESSENTIALLY SINGLEHANDEDLY PUNCHING IT IN THE FACE EVERY NIGHT. AND NOW HE’S GOING TO FIGHT AN EVIL CLOWN. So please tell me…who the hell who go into a movie with a premise so inherently ridiculous and then DEMAND REALISM? Whenever I bring up how dark, dreary and joylessly boring this movie is, people say “it’s supposed to be realistic.”

I already know what the #1 defense from fanboys regarding this movie is going to be, “Oh My God, it’s a comic book, get over it, it’s not supposed to be realistic, get a life!” And you know what, I agree, it shouldn’t be realistic. The problem is, I’m not the one that set this standard of realism, it’s the creators of the movie and the fans of this movie that did that. I judge a movie according to the standards it sets for itself, and the creators of this movie wanted to present an adult, high Art with a capital A, pretentious movie that we should take as seriously as any other arthouse or intellectually sophisticated adult movie out there. This so-called gravitas and unflinching “realism” is exactly what this movie’s fans tell us is so great about it. In fact, when you complain about anything in this movie, the first thing that fans tell you is that it’s okay because the movie is supposed to be realistic. Why is the fighting so bland? “It’s supposed to be realistic.” Why does Gotham City looks so bland? “It’s supposed to be realistic, duh?” Why is it so relentlessly sadistic, mirthless and morally grey? “It’s supposed to be realistic, real life is not so black and white.” Why can’t the Joker actually have permanently white skin like he traditionally does rather than just be a guy with “war paint?” “Because this is a psychologically intense realistic tour-de-force along the lines of the Godfather 2 or Silence of the Lambs, it’s grounded in reality!”

I thought forever was okay. It's a little too campy for me at points. It's not that I find the newer ones more realistic or anything but I think the batman character and the villains fit best when they're cast into a much more dark interpretation of the universe. Not necessarily Frank Miller "I'm the goddamned Batman" but more like Grant Morrison's recent Batman RIP series. Batman the detective facing criminal psychopaths. Forever had a little detective work because it's hard not to with the Riddler but was more about the visuals.

Edit:

But then again, Grant Morrison is also willing to be flamboyant about appearances like with Pink Flamingo...but the characters themselves are still dark.

Well put it this yet once you accept the premise of the filmmakers and the fans that this is meant to be a realistic, adult, intellectual and high Art movie and start judging it by those standards, that means you have to start taking it to task for the limitless ways it fails in plot mechanics, characterization, motivations and logic under those higher standards. Yet what happens once you start pointing out the myriad of ridiculous plot holes in this movie, ridiculous coincidences and things that just make no sense, like the utter stupidity of the cops at every turn (for example locking the Joker up without ever bothering to remove his makeup and send a picture of his unmade-up face to every federal and local law enforcement bureau in an effort to uncover his identity, then leaving him unprotected and not handcuffed in the interrogation room guarded by a single cop, even though he’s proven to be badass enough to fight the Batman and wreak total mayhem across the city?) These exact same people start saying “What do you want, it’s a comic book movie! It’s about a guy that dresses up as a bat! Weren’t you ever a kid? What do you expect, Shakespeare?! It’s not supposed to be realistic!” You can’t have it both ways.

Lexington I’ve followed the raves online just to try to figure out exactly what it is I missed that made this movie supposedly so great. Instead my only conclusion is that there are just a lot of rabid fanboys and intense Heath Ledger fans combining to form a massive wave of delusion. This movie is nowhere near the masterpiece its supporters claim it is. Not only is it not great, it’s not even good or even competent on most levels.

So the next criticism becomes, if what you say is true and the main cultish fervor over this film comes from adult comic fans who need this overserious superhero movie for some type of personal validation, why did it make such crazy box office numbers. Obviously it’s huge among noncomic fans too. Well this can actually be explained easily: it?s a perfect storm of several mass hysterias at once. First there’s the comic fanboy hysteria that feels the more serious the source material is taken, the better the movie automatically is because it helps them achieve personal validation for the fact that they are reading it well into their 20s and 30s. That alone would make big box office, but you’re right that alone wouldn?t raise it to these ridiculous box office numbers. But then we get the “early death of a young genius” syndrome, similar to what happened to Tupac, Biggie, Bruce Lee, James Dean, Brandon Lee, Selena and most recently Kurt Cobain, where a genius that dies young is elevated to mythic proportions, and all their works, and ESPECIALLY what they were working on after they died, gets huge business. Ledger died and became our latest “Kurt Cobain.” Next comes the Brokeback Mountain crowd, those people that will automatically flock to a movie and rave about it if enough reputable critics drone on and on about how oscarworthy it is. These three groups combined to make the Dark Knight the most overrated movie of all time.