RottenTomato critic ratings for CBMs do you think are way too low?

[The Joker]

Yes, you're right in that they did say that. Been 5 years since I saw the film last. My bad on forgetting that bit.

But they still DO in fact have the legal right to make good on that threat, if they ever chose to. That is one thing different than the alley scene, which was also just as much a bluff.

Having a legal right to do it doesn't mean they're going to do it. They knew they'd be sending a man to his death and their morality wouldn't allow for that. That's the point.

Dent's action may have a been a bluff in terms of murdering the guy, but the actions of kidnapping him, risking 549 criminal releases, prison time, and psychological terror of threatening a guy with a loaded gun is serious irrational, illegal behavior.

I'm using Burton as an example of a movie that doesn't play it straight. It's a live action cartoon with rules to match. Just for the sake of perspective so you know what I mean when I say movies like this and Heat are in fact playing it straight. I thought that was obvious.

But the Burton movies are not cartoons when it comes to character emotions. Batman is Batman because his parents were murdered in front of him and he was emotionally scarred by it. Penguin is a vengeful freak because he was rejected and abandoned by his parents as a baby etc.

They may have crazy plot lines of marching penguin armies and magical resurrections by cats, but they get the psychology of the characters down right.

In what sense? Legally? Sure, I'm with you on that. But if you're saying the former is in line with sanity while the latter is indicative of an instability that leads to insanity...well, I think that's too great a leap. Again, it's missing something very important. It's 1+1+1=4 again. Because against the book as he was in that scene, Dent was still 100% sane and in control in that scene. That's why he had the mental where with all to use his 2 headed coin the way he did.

I don't think you fully understand the term insanity. You don't have to be out of control to be insane. Some of the smartest and most calm and collected cinematic villains were insane.

But looking at Dent, he made a totally over the top reaction to a threat on his girlfriend's life. You are worried about her safety? Send her out of Gotham. You don't abduct some Joker thug in an ambulance, and risk everything, including your own freedom, for it.

Harvey was irrational. It was a crazy reaction.

Given how human psychology works that still doesn't add up. I can buy that he might go vigilante after what happened as an escalation for what happens to him. That's not a 180. That's just his own beliefs pushed to their extreme. But that's not just what he does. He does the 180. That takes something else like a psychological breakdown or insanity.

He doesn't do a 180. He goes and punishes the guilty. Or whom he considers the ones guilty for what happened to him and Rachel. The dirty Cops who delivered him to Joker's men, Maroni who's payroll they who "let Joker off the leash", and Gordon whom didn't lift a finger about the dirty Cops in his unit when Dent warned him about them.

That's vigilante behavior. Punishing the guilty.

The point is that if he has the mental acuity to recognize his own hand in her demise, why doesn't he realize that Gordon wasn't trying to do him wrong? He just failed is all. Oh yeah, he's crazy now and that covers a multitude of screenwriting sins.

If he recognizes his own part in it, and is willing to punish himself for it, then why would he let Gordon off the hook for ignoring his warnings? Gordon even acknowledge that was his fault in the hospital scene. "I know you tried to warn me. I'm sorry". They were hollow words to Dent. Sorry means nothing. Easy to say after the damage is done. Imagine how that would sound to a broken, grieving mind. Like the drunk driver who ran over your kid coming up to you and saying sorry. You'd tear his head off.

Because loads of people handle tragedy every day all over the world without going nuts. It takes something special to go nuts. Human sanity isn't as fragile as this film would have you believe. How many 9/11 survivors permanently went nuts? I doubt any of them did. And if they did it'd be likely they already had a condition that lent itself to that. Just like Dent should have had.

Kedrell, you seem like an intelligent person, so as an intelligent person you know loads of people lost their parents to crime and violent circumstances when they were kids. They didn't all become masked crime fighters because of it like half of the comic book world. On the other hand there are people who seeked out vigilante type justice because of it.

How many parents have had daughters who were raped? Or suffered child abuse? Have they all turned killer and killed the rapist? No. But some have. Here's a recent example: http://lightingtheirwayhome.wordpre...apist-killing-him-cca0073-updated-05-15-2013/

You're argument is flawed. You're like just because the majority don't go crazy means it takes something very special for it to happen. No it does not. People are different and deal with grief and stress differently.

There's teens who have committed suicide because they can't stand the peer pressure of passing their exams. But millions of students suffer that every day and they don't kill themselves over it.

I got what they were doing, I just think it's too great a leap in logic.

I don't see why. How man times have you heard people say "I'd love to do to that bastard exactly what he did to that poor woman when he killed her".

You want them to suffer the same way they made someone else suffer.

Maybe getting revenge vigilante style on those who actively had a hand in Rachel's death would make sense but the 180 he does by going after Gordon's family is indeed out of character with what came before in the film.

Why? As far as Dent was concerned he lost his family. The likes of Maroni and Wurtz had no family. Gordon was also the guy whom he worked with and was supposed to be able to trust. So he felt most betrayed by him.

The only just punishment was for him to feel the same loss he did.

Not really. Loads of people have said he has one of the worst motivations for being a villain of any bad guy in many years. It's probably the biggest complaint people have with that movie. I think Dent isn't far removed from that, yet for some reason he gets a pass.

It's probably because Dent's and Nero's circumstances were completely different. Spock wasn't in a situation to act, or ignored warnings from Nero.

Gordon already explained to Dent that if he took his advice he's be working alone and nothing would get done. I don't think Dent being mad at Gordon is wrong. I'm fine with that. But the level he takes it too could only happen in a movie like this where things that need to happen just do so. Dent is supposed to become Two-face and everybody knew that. And that is the main reason it happens in the movie. I'd have little to complain about with Dent if the movie wasn't taking itself so seriously and trying to convince me it was smart and made 100% sense.

What level? Revenge? It's as common as rain. TDK is a smart movie, and your level of hatred for it over that is frankly hilarious, but I digress. Your problem is that someone who was horribly mutilated, lost the woman he loved, and was betrayed by Cops he worked with would mentally snap and seek revenge is unbelievable.

There's people who have snapped for less than that.

Perhaps it's not the best comparison but my essential point is that in neither case are we shown "Whoa! This guy's on the edge! He's about to crack!" We're not even near there so it's a pretty huge leap when it does happen.

You were shown that he will go to illegal extremes with serious consequences over a mere threat. That's the point. It shows that if he takes such an extreme reaction to something like that, what would happen if something even worse happened to him.

No, clearly saving Rachel is to Dent more important than all that stuff you mentioned. And in that I think that's a very good and healthy/sane attitude of his.

Lol no it's not. How can you even think that? He's risking prison (where he'd be no use to protect her and probably end up dead), the release of 549 criminals just to try and squeeze info about Joker from some goon.

It was a crazy irrational reaction.

Depends entirely on his motivations for doing it. It was all altruistic because he cared for Rachel. Was it the best judgment in the world? No, but I don't see any cracks forming or his mask or sanity nearing slippage.

There's nothing insane about wanting to protect someone you love. There's also nothing insane about wanting revenge for someone you love. It's the lengths you go to do it. In both cases with Dent, his actions were crazy.

Again, I'm not talking about his poor judgment. That's a character flaw rather than a bit of mental instability. I think most people would go to further extremes in hopes of protecting a loved one.

It wasn't poor judgement, it was a crazy over the top response. That's your sign that he's got an irrational unstable mentality. It's not normal for someone to do what Dent did, especially someone in his position and with so much at stake.

But he didn't care. You keep saying most people would go to further extremes. You could easily say most people would kill the guy who raped their daughter, or abused their child etc given half a chance.

People can mentally snap and kill out of vengeance with proper motivation like that. Dent had that motivation in spades.

 

[kedrell]

The point is they should have peppered in more instability and left Two-Face for a sequel.

Thank you. I honestly don't have an opinion on the latter but I agree with the former.

 

[kedrell]

Having a legal right to do it doesn't mean they're going to do it. They knew they'd be sending a man to his death and their morality wouldn't allow for that. That's the point.

Dent's action may have a been a bluff in terms of murdering the guy, but the actions of kidnapping him, risking 549 criminal releases, prison time, and psychological terror of threatening a guy with a loaded gun is serious irrational, illegal behavior.

But the Burton movies are not cartoons when it comes to character emotions. Batman is Batman because his parents were murdered in front of him and he was emotionally scarred by it. Penguin is a vengeful freak because he was rejected and abandoned by his parents as a baby etc.

They may have crazy plot lines of marching penguin armies and magical resurrections by cats, but they get the psychology of the characters down right.

I don't think you fully understand the term insanity. You don't have to be out of control to be insane. Some of the smartest and most calm and collected cinematic villains were insane.

But looking at Dent, he made a totally over the top reaction to a threat on his girlfriend's life. You are worried about her safety? Send her out of Gotham. You don't abduct some Joker thug in an ambulance, and risk everything, including your own freedom, for it.

Harvey was irrational. It was a crazy reaction.

He doesn't do a 180. He goes and punishes the guilty. Or whom he considers the ones guilty for what happened to him and Rachel. The dirty Cops who delivered him to Joker's men, Maroni who's payroll they who "let Joker off the leash", and Gordon whom didn't lift a finger about the dirty Cops in his unit when Dent warned him about them.

That's vigilante behavior. Punishing the guilty.

If he recognizes his own part in it, and is willing to punish himself for it, then why would he let Gordon off the hook for ignoring his warnings? Gordon even acknowledge that was his fault in the hospital scene. "I know you tried to warn me. I'm sorry". They were hollow words to Dent. Sorry means nothing. Easy to say after the damage is done. Imagine how that would sound to a broken, grieving mind. Like the drunk driver who ran over your kid coming up to you and saying sorry. You'd tear his head off.

Kedrell, you seem like an intelligent person, so as an intelligent person you know loads of people lost their parents to crime and violent circumstances when they were kids. They didn't all become masked crime fighters because of it like half of the comic book world. On the other hand there are people who seeked out vigilante type justice because of it.

How many parents have had daughters who were raped? Or suffered child abuse? Have they all turned killer and killed the rapist? No. But some have. Here's a recent example: http://lightingtheirwayhome.wordpre...apist-killing-him-cca0073-updated-05-15-2013/

You're argument is flawed. You're like just because the majority don't go crazy means it takes something very special for it to happen. No it does not. People are different and deal with grief and stress differently.

There's teens who have committed suicide because they can't stand the peer pressure of passing their exams. But millions of students suffer that every day and they don't kill themselves over it.

I don't see why. How man times have you heard people say "I'd love to do to that bastard exactly what he did to that poor woman when he killed her".

You want them to suffer the same way they made someone else suffer.

Why? As far as Dent was concerned he lost his family. The likes of Maroni and Wurtz had no family. Gordon was also the guy whom he worked with and was supposed to be able to trust. So he felt most betrayed by him.

The only just punishment was for him to feel the same loss he did.

It's probably because Dent's and Nero's circumstances were completely different. Spock wasn't in a situation to act, or ignored warnings from Nero.

What level? Revenge? It's as common as rain. TDK is a smart movie, and your level of hatred for it over that is frankly hilarious, but I digress. Your problem is that someone who was horribly mutilated, lost the woman he loved, and was betrayed by Cops he worked with would mentally snap and seek revenge is unbelievable.

There's people who have snapped for less than that.

You were shown that he will go to illegal extremes with serious consequences over a mere threat. That's the point. It shows that if he takes such an extreme reaction to something like that, what would happen if something even worse happened to him.

Lol no it's not. How can you even think that? He's risking prison (where he'd be no use to protect her and probably end up dead), the release of 549 criminals just to try and squeeze info about Joker from some goon.

It was a crazy irrational reaction.

There's nothing insane about wanting to protect someone you love. There's also nothing insane about wanting revenge for someone you love. It's the lengths you go to do it. In both cases with Dent, his actions were crazy.

It wasn't poor judgement, it was a crazy over the top response. That's your sign that he's got an irrational unstable mentality. It's not normal for someone to do what Dent did, especially someone in his position and with so much at stake.

But he didn't care. You keep saying most people would go to further extremes. You could easily say most people would kill the guy who raped their daughter, or abused their child etc given half a chance.

People can mentally snap and kill out of vengeance with proper motivation like that. Dent had that motivation in spades.

I think at this point we should just agree to disagree. We're just spinning our wheels. It was enough for you. Fine and dandy. It was not enough for me. Considering the fact that this is actually one of my more minor criticisms of the film, there's not a lot of point in continuing the debate.

 

[Steamteck]

Man of steel, Thor, captain America, Incredible Hulk and Blade are way too low.

 

[Tequilla]

They are too high.

 

[Senator Pleasury]

They are too high.

t:

 

[Victarion]

Batman Returns is a solid urban fantasy film. I feel Spider-Man's rating is a bit too high. Ditto for The Avengers and Batman '89.

Kedrell, Dent was a loose cannon from the get-go. Look at how he dealt with the fall guy in court, his ideas about politics, and the way he dealt with Schiff. All well before Rachel's death.