Sagittarius
The new Batman film, “The Dark Knight,” is not like previous films in the series. It has all the elements to make it seem so at first; it is loud and action-packed and quite frankly fast, so much so that my eyes found it hard to focus on the screen at times.
Underneath all of that was something far more sinister which left me feeling cold. The performance given by the late Heath Ledger was exceptional, but by all accounts disturbing and frightening, even more so with his death during the making of this movie. Although the circumstances around his death are uncertain, it is not out of the realms of possibility for me to speculate that his immersion into the character could have had such an impact on him that in some way resulted in his death.
As his last performance he will no doubt be remembered and I would not be at all surprised if he receives posthumous recognition with an Oscar. Ledger was for me, however, a little too convincing.
The rating for this movie is the real issue for me. In the US the movie was rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and some menace (which there were many times over). In Canada where I saw the movie, it was given a 14A. I am not opposed to a little violence if it’s befitting to the storyline but the level in this film, for this rating is alarming.
Scenes with Ledger smashing a head into a pencil and holding a knife to the throats of at least three of the characters were more than I could stomach.
COMMENTS (2)
RATE THIS STORY
Nude photos of the MTV reality star surfaced on the...
Hollywood's 1952 film The Gift of the Magi retells O'Henry's 1906 story of love and...
Comments
Re: The Dark Knight: Too Dark For PG-13
By sparklyscotty, July 26, 2008 at 00:27Well done for putting across your argument and concerns so well in this essay. You're not the first to be concerned about Hollywood's ratings games, it's well known that the studios push for ratings that will let the highest number of potential viewers in. Sex and the City was always going to get hoards of twenty and thirty something women through the doors, while Batman may be more popular with teenagers. Unfortunately, it all comes down to cash.
I had a similar experience when I went to see The Rock with Nicholas Cage and Sean Connery. The opening scenes of a bio weapon killing people seemed like a crushing condemnation of our 'civilization' and I sat and sobbed silently through the rest of the movie. Yes, it's fiction. No, nobody actually died. But these types of scenes are most scary because they show the very real potential of the human species to inflict pain and suffering in the name of greed and power.
Surely 14 is too young an age to make a child learn that lesson. I think the ratings commission needs to look more honestly at what we want our children to see, and not what we can get away with showing the highest number of viewers.
Re: The Dark Knight: Too Dark For PG-13
By Heather Wallace, July 24, 2008 at 10:55Maybe Christian Bale watched too much of his own movie and that's why he went postal on his mother and sister...