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how dare the reviews or newsnight say the things they are saying? Suggesting that if you take Heath Ledger out of The Dark Knight you are left with a rather ordinary film. A) Saying that is the same as saying "if you take the darkness out of the dark knight its actually quite a happy film." Heath Ledger is a part of The Dark Knight so instead of focusing on what it would be like without the man, why not focus on what it is, you aren't payed to reviewed the imaginary. And secondly, I must disagree, The Dark Knight was not an ordinary movie, with or without Ledger's legendary performance, somebody would have had to fill those shoes with the same lines, meaning that The Dark Knight would be just as much of an inspirational film that dives into the depths of the desperation of mankind today and the lengths that people would go to. The complexity brought into each character is one that can not be rivaled by any other recent movie.

Was anyone else astounded at how many very significant plot points, from late in the film to boot, the review of Dark Knight revealed?

Fortunately, I'd seen the film yesterday night, and it's possible that someone who hasn't seen the film wouldn't have noticed, so I won't say what they were, but I found this very surprising, without even the slightest warning!

This review of 'The Dark Knight' revealed the usual British media snobbery towards science fiction and fantasy films. The film would be good whether Heath Ledger was in or not, he only made it better. On a more geekish note, Batman is not a Superhero- he has no super powers. Batman is a mere mortal just like the rest of us which makes his character all the more important.

My only comment is the horror of Kirsty's outfit. She is a lovely woman (I'm a 30 year old lady myself) but this was a car crash or colour and shape which made the average nanna on the high street look like Sophia Loren in the 60's.

³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ ignore people complaining about the "short skirts" and liberate Kirsty!

I hope you get Rachel Campbell-Johnson to help review Tracy Emin next week .............

And that the props department have an axe.

ps How dare Paul Morley suggest even en passant that 'West Side Story' and 'Top
Cat' are tame clichés!!!!! That will really
upset Alex Salmond - who used to have
'Top Cat' cartoons on his RBS office wall
in the 1980s to promote slick banking!!!

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

some viewers used to dream about 'Sophia Loren in the 1960's' .......

Their review of The Dark Knight is one of the worst film reviews I've ever witnessed.

First Paul Morley tries to say it's a post 9/11 allegory, "with Batman as George Bush and Harvey Dent as Barak Obama," which is about the stupidest thing I've ever heard a critic say. Then he says "without Heath Ledger, it's a very ordinary film." What film isn't lessened by the removal of its main antagonist? Everything he says undermines and underestimates what the film is all about.

John Carey casually gives away a major plot-point with the two boats in the harbour. Kirsty was right in that talking about the set-up wasn't giving anything away, but to then go into detail of how the scene ends removes the intensity that Nolan so skillfully creates.

Natalie Haynes was probably the most sensible in the review, though she did make the mistake of saying The Joker was inspired by Alan Moore's The Killing Joke. A lot of people thought that six months ago, but both Nolan and Ledger said the idea of The Joker as a psychopath actually goes all the way back to the 70's comics.

Though I agree Ledger's Joker was the highlight of the film, what really makes it shine is the intelligent writing, no-holds-barred plot and character development, fantastic action set-pieces and top level performances from the entire cast. Leave it to critics to completely miss the point.

Spoiler alert if you haven`t seen TDK yet.
I see The Dark Knight as probably the most intelligent movie response to 9/11 yet. The bombs on two boats scenario is based on `the prisoners` dilemma` derived from game theory. The idea being that two players in a game can choose between two moves; either `cooperate` or `defect`. The idea is that each player gains when both cooperate, but if only one of them cooperates, the other one, who defects, will gain more - but they can`t confer. Joker (essentially a nihilistic terrorist) wants to demonstrate that ultimately everyone (Batman included) can be as murderous and ruthless as he is. The passengers could attempt to save their own lives by destroying the other boat, providing they act first. Joker expects one boat to do so. But there is also a moral dimension, by destroying a boat the survivors will also become mass murderers and both boats choose not to become so.
It`s telling this particular scenario was chosen for the film. On 9/11, if those in one tower could have saved themselves by choosing to destroy the other tower would they have done so? (But then becoming terrorists themselves.) Nolan is saying that no they wouldn`t have; they`d decide to take their own chances and someone else would have to take the moral responsibility as to whether they lived or died. The boat passengers` decision (or inability when it comes to it) not to blow up the other is a demonstration of basic humanity that is the real defeat of Joker and what he stands for. There`s a lot of blog debate as to whether TDK is a right or left wing film. It`s neither, it`s asking the audience to debate difficult moral choices.
Batman has a moral code (though he comes close to breaking it), he operates outside the law but wants to hand over to a sufficiently strong civil law enforcement system; he`s a throwback to a frontier sheriff such as Wyatt Earp, and how America would like to see itself. Harvey Dent suffers greatly in the film and arrives at a mental state that believes everything is arbitrary, that there is no justice or fairness or difference between good or bad, in the world; everything is morally equivalent. Two Face crucially abandons being led by moral choices, letting the coin flip do the work. He`s thrown into a nihilistic moral wasteland between Joker and Batman. This is a comparison with Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib whilst America clings to the belief that the US is the world`s White Knight, preferring the legend of Harvey Dent rather than the reality of what he became. Batman too realises that people should aspire to and hope for a higher morality, hence his final act to protect the myth. (The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is referenced in TDK.) Another key plot point is about the use of surveillance technology (ends and means), immensely topical given the Patriot Act and UK`s anti terror laws.

TDK is`s a very dense, complex film that is all about the difficulties of making absolute moral choices in a chaotic world. In the most shocking plot point in the film Batman has to choose chose between heart and head which of two characters to save, but Joker has stacked the deck against him; the message is there are no easy choices, often they have unexpected outcomes. Schools could do worse than debate TDK in class.

i have to agree with the comment about the plot points revealed. i had also seen this fantastic film before watching the review. this is rare for me and i often watch review before seeing a film, if i had done so in this case it would have ruined many of the key edge of the seat moments in the film. Shame on you newsnight review.

Tell Paul Morley that 'Top Cat Volume 2' is just out in DVD! Scrap next week's Tracey
Emin item and concentrate on REAL trash!

I think Heath Ledger did a stunning preformance in The Dark Night I dont think anyone could of done a better job i think that it would of been boring without him in the film I think he was a bigger part than Batmen himself it was a brillient preformance

R.I.P Heath xx

Comment #6 was apparently removed as the comment included (about Tracy Emin)
which was from the regular 'Newsnight'
panellist Rachel Campbell-Johnson was
in Italian. Apparently this is against site
rules. Mea culpa? Or is Latin vetoed too?

Writing in 'The Times' Rachel apparently
summed up Emin's show curated at The
Royal Academy by saying that she is "like a naughty little girl who pulls up her skirt to the public to prove that she is wearing no knickers".

What I want to know, however, is why the ground floor of Scotland's Gallery of Modern Art will be given over to her retrospective from the beginning of August till November when she has no particular connection with my country and her art seems pretty crap?

This is not a nationalist position - pace Richard Demarco - who himself implied
that much of her stuff is weak by trying
to tell readers of The Sunday Times in Scotland that her drawings are stronger
and show signs of good draughtmanship.

For once I have to disagree with Demarco - whose own show at the Dean Gallery has been digitised for posterity by University of Dundee but will sadly have closed by the time Newsnight Review gets to Edinburgh.

There is apparently another show on in the same gallery as Tracey Emin featuring links between the Impressionists and Scotland; but it is still pretty irritating that children under 16 are being excluded from major
galleries because of sensational parental advisory notices from 'naughty little girls'.

This is bad for art - and bad for Scotland.

There is also a deal of hypocrisy at work here too when curators simultaneously
argue that Emin's 'the only way to get
people into galleries who would not
normally go there!' This is patronising.

You do not encourage people into art galleries by putting up notices to keep
out teenagers. You just attract Press.

The poster advertising the Emin show is also derivative of a poster of a tennis
player? I secretly hope Athena sues !!

Edinburgh is not easily shocked though
so hopefully the reaction will be to walk
past such cheap and boring attempts to be sensationalist. But sad that opportunities are lost because of too much "Brit-art".

There is also a bit more explaining for
the Trustees of the National Galleries:
why Tracey Emin but no Jack Vettriano
aka 'The People's Painter' who they've
banned - despite his huge popularity?



Why too was it left to a private gallery to organise the Earl Haig retrospective this
year outwith the Festival period?



Why no John McNairn retrospective yet - or a major Caroline McNairn show at our own Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art? Or William Gear - the COBRA Group member from Fife?

Come on Kirsty - do something ..............

And why is Newsnight Review going to a metropolis like Edinburgh in search of the
weekly fix of Britart when the real cutting edge stuff is in Dundee? Remember that
place where your technical link failed last
Friday after a Glasgow East earthquake?!

You've missed 'Ellipsis' which was in Dundee in June - having transferred from Sweden:



but there are prints of the markings left by cars going over speed-bumps on at DCA:



and no doubt even more exciting things to come! Kill Your Timid Notion, Newsnight,
and jump on a plane to repair your link!

There are four flights a day to JF'Cowp'
(Dundee's Riverside Airport is built on
a rubbish dump that escaped from Ms
Tracey Emin!) and it is only 75 minutes
from London City Airport to Dundee. A
new service links us with Birmingham
and Belfast as Scotland is taking off!