1,001 Knights (Well, 1,001 Plot Points, at Any Rate)
I saw The Dark Knight last weekend at a drive-in movie theater, on a double bill with Journey to the Center of the Earth. On the one hand, it was a good bargain (two first-run movies for the price of one!), and the second movie served as a "detox" to the Brendan-Fraserless first movie. On the other hand, there was no way the 90-minute fluff could possibly compare to the 2.5-hour mental beating that The Dark Knight gleefully served.
I won't talk too much about The Dark Knight. I like it . . . a lot. I think you should see it, unless you don't like dark movies, in which case you may want to avoid this one. However, I will talk about one element that isn't a spoiler, but touches on the movie long enough for me to declare my popcorn a business expense. (Of course, I'm totally kidding . . . it was a drive-in; we snuck in our own popcorn.) Namely, that there's a lot that's happening in The Dark Knight. In its last hour, I counted enough plot threads and story arcs flying around to fill a two-hour movie all by themselves. But the film never felt cluttered, and I was still able to follow everything despite the clipped (but not choppy) pace. I appreciated the fact that the movie makers assumed we, the popcorn-sneaking audience, would be able to keep up with a complex, fast-paced plot.
That's something that I've known for years, with my various gaming groups: folks who are invested in a story or fictional universe can keep track . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.
Article publication date: July 25, 2008
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