I’m a lazy, procrastinating guy — working full-time has only excerbated that fact. So you’ll have to excuse me for taking so long to get around to my viewing of The Dark Knight in IMAX three nights ago. I know you were waiting to see the movie until you read my thoughts. You weren’t one of the 25 million people to see it this weekend. Definitely not.

But I’m not going to review the movie in-depth at all. You’ve either seen the movie, or heard about it from all your friends. What would be the point of another person saying how unbelievably awesome Heath Ledger was? Although, I would like to say that IMAX was just a bit too much. Maybe it was our seats, maybe it was the specific theater — I just know it was a somewhat painful experience. One that I waited in line for over an hour for. I probably deserved it, since I’m apparently an uncaring asshole, but that doesn’t make it suck any less. By the end of the movie, I was totally exhausted, sweating, and had a backache. I was seeing a movie, not banging a girl up against a wall.

The night basically went downhill after my friends and I witnessed a total bitch refusing to give up her seat right in front of us. A seat which her and her boyfriend had all but stolen from some teenage girls. The most pathetic part of the story is that the boyfriend picked up the girls’ sweaters and moved them off the seats, but when legions of IMAX employees came to argue, it was only the girlfriend that spoke up and took down nemesis after nemesis. As my friend Chris said, if real-life were an RPG, she would’ve been a level 30 by the end of the debacle — which is probably why the Arrow Security dudes wanted no piece of her. They walked in one entrance, talked for a second to some IMAX people, looked up and realized she was an unstoppable foe, and then walked right out again. And then the defeated IMAX legion announced the movie would start, 10 minutes after schedule showtime. Not only had she delayed the start of the movie — leading to two trailers getting skipped — but she won.

At least we got to make fun of her the entire time, with her no doubt hearing us laughing and joking. Much of the theater at one point was cheering to “kick her out.” Unfortunately, her “dad is a cop.” What a fucking bitch. Even Batman would’ve had no shot. Her dad would’ve been the guy to arrest him today, after he beat up his mom and sister. (He really didn’t though, Christian Bale > all)

Getting back to the actual movie, when that first frame of the movie projected on the dome, the theater shit its collective pants. I know I wasn’t ready for it to take up MORE THAN my entire field of view, stretching to almost directly above me. It was insane, and I had to slouch in my seat as a result. By the end of the bank heist scene, I knew it was way too much. The tipping point was when my brain couldn’t even process the Joker’s face as an actual human face because it was so goddamn huge.

Let me just sum up the movie and my IMAX experience in a few examples of good, bad, and ugly.

Good: The city shots looking absolutely INCREDIBLE in IMAX.
Bad: Almost every action scene being indecipherable.
Ugly: The 35 mm parts of the film compared to the scenes shot in IMAX.

Good: The lines for Joker and Harvey Dent.
Bad: Alfred’s jokes
Ugly: Anything that comes out of one of the generic cops’ mouths.

Good: Heath Ledger’s Joker performance
Bad: Christian Bale’s Batman voice
Ugly: Maggie Gyllenhaal’s face

Good: The massive chase scene.
Bad: The sort-of-nightvision scene giving me seizures.
Ugly: I’ve got nothing else to put here.

So yeah, I’m out of bad things to say. I could get more specific, but I think that would be more suitable to a spoiler-laden review/discussion. I had an extra example to put in there, but since one of the my friends didn’t realize a certain plot point until it actually happened, I’d feel bad alluding to it here. I mean, if those are the only big complaints I can come up with — half of them having to do with IMAX — I obviously think it’s a great movie.

GO SEE THE DARK KNIGHT

You should probably reload the page to see that from the very beginning. It’s long. Very long. And very awesome.

Probably better than the trailer for The Dark Knight. Despite what the reactions of internet fanboys might have been, it wasn’t anything amazing. Heath Ledger seems to have pulled off the Joker well, but there’s nothing in it that made me giddy. Explosions, the Joker looking/acting/sounding insane, and Bruce Wayne asking, “What would you have me do?” again. Some people complain about how Nicholson as the Joker overshadowed Batman in the 1989 film, and it appears that the same thing is happening again. (But it’s probably just trying to show off the new villain — we already know how awesome Christian Bale is.)

To judge for yourself — if you somehow haven’t watched it already — here’s the page.

On the other hand, the prologue (which is the first 6 minutes of the film) is totally awesome. Unless you want to go into the movie as fresh as possible, you need to watch it.

Shitty quality IMAX bootleg that still manages to be amazing.

Heat: Joker Edition. Apparently it looks absolutely incredible in IMAX, due to Christopher Nolan utilizing IMAX cameras in filming that scene (in addition to a few others in the movie). I really hope I don’t have to trek into the city to watch The Dark Knight in IMAX, because I think it’s pretty much necessary after knowing that.

I really cannot wait. After finally getting around to watching Memento, I now have even more faith in Christopher Nolan. And that movie was based on a short story by his brother Jonathan, who helped to write the screenplay for The Dark Knight. All signs point to awesome.