The first page deals with four thugs in masks - clown masks, no less - preparing to break into a bank. Only two speak, and they're named Grumpy and Chuckles. I'm thinking that, under his mask, Chuckles is The Joker - even though he discusses The Joker in the third person, as though he isn't him. The scene is all dialogue, no action, but ends with a promise of blammo. Here's the bottom half of the page:
CHUCKLES
Don't forget the guy who planned the job.
GRUMPY
Yeah? he thinks he can sit it out and still take a slice - he's out of his mind.
CHUCKLES
You gonna tell him that?
Grumpy flashes a gun.
GRUMPY
Right after I put two in his heart.
CHUCKLES
If you can find his heart. Some say he ain't even human.
GRUMPY
You mean the chicken shits who believe in ghost. That you?
CHUCKLES
Hey, guys harder than the both of us are afraid of him...
GRUMPY
Look, you wanna hang back and tell scary stories, be my guess. Just means a larger share for me.
CHUCKLES
You know what? You're onto something.
GRUMPY
What?
Chuckles aims his weapon at Grumpy.
CHUCKLES
Less guys. Larger shares.
And that's how that particular excerpt ends. Some pages later, however, these sides do return to the bank. This contains some serious spoiler material - indeed, a character gets offed.
One of these mask wearing goons is stuffing cash into a bag. He's interrupted by the manager, who seems to think he can intimidate the 'masked thug'. He obviously realises from the masks that these guys are in the employ of The Joker. What he doesn't realise soon becomes crystal clear:
BANK MANAGER (CONT'D)
You idiot. What makes you think the guy who hired you isn't going to kill you, too?
The Thug STOPS. Crouches over him. In the distance: SIRENS.
GENTLE VOICE
Call it a hunch.
The man PULLS off his MASK. The Bank Manager GASPS, horrified at the face staring back at him.
GENTLE VOICE (CONT'D)
It's rude to stare.
The bank manager doesn't last much longer... but he does get a little bit of speachifying in first:
BANK MANAGER
What are you? You freak. Criminals in this town used to believe in things. Honor. Respect. What do you believe in, huh? What do you bel-
Hmmm. Really not impressed with that line of dialogue myself... hard to see how it fits... but okay, I'll give the Nolans the benefit of the doubt for now. We'll later see how a bank manager ended up with this point of view, maybe.
So, how about that schoolbus we've seen inside the bank. It suggested to me that there was a hostage situation afoot. Was I correct? Another page seems to suggest I was.
The bus is surrounded by a Swat Team. The Joker appears to have collected all of his hostages in a large building with lots of glass windows - is this the bank? Very probably.
SWAT LEADER
We have clear shots on five subjects. Snipers take them out, smash the windows - a team rappels in, a team moves in by the stairwells. 2 or 3 casualties, max.
THE CHIEF
I think you're underestimating the situation, Sergeant.
SWAT LEADER
Maybe. But we either take'em now, or they dig in and things get complicated.
THE CHIEF
Complicated?
SWAT LEADER
Deadly, sir. Very.
The Chief nods.
THE CHIEF
Tell your men good luck.
SWAT LEADER
Red team, you're up. We're going in is sixty seconds.
So, a Swat team are heading into a booby trapped situation, I'm assuming. And it will take the batty chap to fish them out.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again - the idea of a kind of 'Bat Day Afternoon' is a good one. Like Super Max taking the format of Alcatraz or, I suppose, Prison Break and retrofitting it with comic book logic, characters and events, doing the same with a hostage or heist movie has a lot of potential.
Imagine Reservoir Dogs kicking off in Gotham City - things would have turned out very differently. And Batman does work well in that kind of context. It will be to the credit of the Nolans and Mr. Goyer if this is indeed the approach they've formulated.
The very next excerpt seems to suggest that parallels are being drawn between The Joker's reign of terror and America's fear of, well, real life terrorists. A move that reminds me of some ideas in Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, really.
The Mayor is taking calls on a radio show. We've heard this kind of thing too many times in the last few years:
CALLER (O.S.)
... hell, you got half the army on the streets - I wanna know when you're gonna catch the sonofa-
ENGEL
Okay. The guy's got a point - what can you say to people about their safety when this maniac's running around free?
MAYOR
The national Guard is here to reassure everyone that law and order is not under threat in this city. the Chief has assured me that -
You get the idea.
So what else goes down? Where else do we go? We go into a tense hostage situation (another one or an extension of the same one...? Hard to tell, but I'd guess it's a different set up entirely) onboard two ferries, one carrying prisoners, another civillians; we get to meet a wannabe Batman, dressing up in his own makeshift Bat costume and landing in a whole heap of trouble; and we meet Harvey Dent and his wife. There's more, too, some of it quite unexpected. But that's the end of this installment. You can subscribe by e-mail (don't forget to verify your subscription with the first e-mail; be aware it may end up in your junk) or by RSS or simply bookmark the film ick front page to ensure you don't miss a thing.
---------------------------
Remember the scene towards the top of Tim Burton's Batman, in which the criminals discuss their fear of The Bat? There's something similar here - downplaying the supernatural element discussed in Burton's film, therefore toning down any idea that superstition plays a part in fear, but not removing it completely:
A DEALER and a BUYER are in the middle of a transaction.
DEALER
I want eighty for the bag.
BUYER
Eighty? It was sixty last week.
DEALER
Inflation. Ain't it a bitch.
The Buyer digs in his pocket. The Signal appears in the air. The Dealer spots it and steps back.
DEALER (CONT'D)
No, man. I don't like it tonight.
BUYER
What're you, superstitious? You got more chance of winning the powerball than running into him...
Inflation? Come on. Couldn't this simply pass without the padding? Or couldn't they at least have something less predictable and insipid to say. Clearly not an important scene, but as clearly not an interesting one either. We'll see when the movie hits if either the buyer or the dealer do run into Batman, but if they don't... well... I'm at a loss as to what other point this may have. Maybe Batman is about to intervene here and then spots the signal? Who knows.
Batman does turn up in another scene. A 'babbling junkie', complete with the stereotyped' "bugs crawling all over me" hallucination, is being violently interrogated by a mobster's bodyguard:
BODYGUARD
Who sold you the stash?
JUNKIE
They're going to eat my insides! PLEASE!
The Bodyguard whips out a gun.
BODYGUARD
Come closer. I'm gonna unscrew your brain.
DOGS START BARKING. The Bodyguard looks around, scared.
BODYGUARD (CONT'D)
(nervous)
He's here.
This being a Batman film, we also take a trip to Arkham Assylum. Cheer now. There we meet a prisoner that, I believe, is The Joker:
THE PRISONER sits, smiling, content. Stephens guards the door.
THE PRISONER
I want my phone call.
STEPHENS
That's nice.
The Prisoner looks at his hands, which have been cuffed again.
THE PRISONER
How many of your friends have I killed?
STEPHENS
I'm a twenty year man. I can tell the difference between punks who need a little lesson in manners... (crack his knuckles) And the freaks like you who would just enjoy it.
Stephens folds his arms. Turns away.
STEPHENS (CONT'D)
(quiet)
And you killed six of my friends.
...if that prisoner isn't The Joker, I'll be very surprised. The Joker is definitely the subject of a conversation between Commissioner Gordon and a 'terrorized cop'. In that scene, some cops have been stripped and bound, and The Joker and his crew made off with their uniforms and guns. Does this tie into the bank siege? Does The Joker pull a switch, putting the hostages into the clown masks with him and his cohorts disguising themselves as cops? Possibly. Pure speculation.
Part of The Joker's plan does seem to involve drugging folk. Witness the fate of a Thug in a holding cell:
One of the men, walks over, clutching at his belly.
FAT THUG
I don't feel good.
DETECTIVE
You're a cop killer. You're lucky to be feeling anything below the neck.
FAT THUG
(agony)
Please. My insides hurt.
DETECTIVE
Step away from the bars.
FAT THUG
The boss said he would make the voices go away. he said he would go inside and replace them with bright lights. Like Christmas.
DETECTIVE
That's great. Please step-
The Fat Thug COLLAPSES. The Detective grabs his radio.
DETECTIVE (CONT'D)
I need a medic in holding.
Bright lights? Like Christmas? Either a) this Thug is a weird simpleton; b) his dialogue is drug induced; or c) there's some dodgy writing afoot. A little bit of a) and b), perhaps?
This film is quite the cop film, in many ways. Prisoners, cells, uniforms abound. Compare this to Batman Returns, say, in which the police play no real part. The more I read, the more The Dark Knight is coming across like a redo of 70s police/detective dramas, this time with a great hulking, rubber suited lunatic at the heart of it. And a man with green hair.
Not a bad approach at all, and a clear continuation of Batman Begins which was, truth be told, rooted both in Burton's first Batman and a whole heap of comics.
So, is The Dark Knight going to compare favourably to The Taking of Pelham 123, Night Moves, Dog Day Afternoon, Klute, Assault on Precinct 13 or Dirty Harry?
Not the best of them, I'm sure.
More later. Watch this space. And check out the first installment in the meantime, if you haven't already done so.
14.12.2007 | 20:14 hs.
Re: Secuela de Batman Begins: The Dark Knight - Pt 5 
, a pesar de que se veia para el orto esta buenisimo, nadie engancho uno en buena calidad todavia????
Modo lineal
Este tema está relacionado con otros ya publicados en el sitio. Podés visitarlos ahora! 
