Reviews

I am sincerely confused by all the hype around this movie. It just didn't seem that great to me. No characters had any personality or motivation whatsoever, except the Joker. There was no plot structure at all... the entire thing was just the Joker threatening to kill people and everybody freaking out, then repeat, then repeat again. No break in the action, no climax. And all this for at least two hours. By the end I was TRYING to fall asleep.

Not to mention the really, really stupid plot devices. (If you don't care to hear my rant/list of these, which may include SPOILERS, skip to the next paragraph!) Being able to remotely transform all cellphones into high-resolution sonar devices? This idea is just stupid. Wayne chooses "taking a boat ride with the entire Russian ballet" as an alibi? Because somehow he trusts all these near-strangers enough not to blow his cover? That entire plot device was clearly an excuse to fit in at least one scene with scantily-clad women. And the Joker escapes from jail because they didn't bother to put his handcuffs back on after Batman took them off. How lame is that? As soon as he got into jail it was obvious he'd escape, because that's how these stereotypical plots always go, but I at least hoped it would be because of Joker's cleverness rather than because of a completely unrealistic and inexplicable lack of security. He was an infamously dangerous criminal, obviously an entire police station wouldn't be so lax around him. And when he holds his knife to an officer's neck to make demands, another officer about ten feet away is pointing a gun and has a clear shot at his head, and a reason to shoot, but he doesn't. Why not? This movie follows SO many other predictable plot stereotypes. Like the fact that as SOON as Harvey is disfigured, it's completely obvious that he is going to become a villain. Because you can't be disfigured without being evil... Only the handsomest of men are heroes. The most annoying thing is how they didn't even feel the need to explain his lighting-quick transition to being a supervillain with no convincing motivation except for showing his burns, because as soon as you saw that his face was burned you just knew he was evil, end of story. It's just like the way that as soon as you see a child in this movie, you KNOW that group of people won't die, because children never die, of course. The audience might be offended. Also, both protagonists are totally infatuated with some boring girl for no apparent reason, which is a pretty good sign that a movie isn't very thoughtful.

Some of the ridiculousness and predictability of the movie's plot could have been forgiven if it wasn't so very tedious. Two hours of the exact same continuous action sequence with no breaks to allow for deeper plot or character development is just too much. Unless you like watching violence for its own sake regardless of plot, and have a really, really long attention span, I can't understand why you like this movie (and you probably do, everyone does, apparently). Not to mention that this long tedious action sequence mostly consists of the exact plot of the first half being reused as the second half (Joker's setup on the boat and the hospital were the same story, it's as if they couldn't decide which one to use and then thought "hey, let's make this movie REALLY long and just use both of them, one right after the other...").

It did have some redeeming qualities. The joker WAS great, the nihilistic spin on his character was well-done. The beginning was relatively interesting, before they got into the repetitive action sequences. And toward the end they killed someone who I really didn't predict would die. But, I would never, EVER sit through this again.

I find this one of the creepiest episodes of seasons 1 & 2. It's all about the fluke-man. It looks terrifying, but in an interesting way. It's like a painting by Michael Hussar or Chris Mars, but less pretty. Just its presence makes this episode eerie, I think it's my second favorite monster so far (the first is Tooms!). The fact that they bring it to a mental hospital is absolutely hilarious, I wish they'd shown more scenes from that situation. I'd love to watch that psychiatric evaluation they talk about doing (what a tease).

Despite loving this episode I only give it 9/10 because of the fact that right at the end they very briefly explain away fluke-man's existence with "radiation" from Chernobyl. Yeah, that's creative. Even "alien DNA" would have been better... Plus, to make things worse, they moralize about it. "Radiation. Abnormal cell fusion. The suppression of natural genetic processes. Mulder, nature didn't make this thing. We did." This whole theory comes out of nowhere and isn't integrated with anything. Furthermore, it actually contradicts what Scully says about the impossibility of sudden, complex mutations in a previous episode (yes, pointing this out makes me a nerd). It's as if right before they finished this episode someone said "Wait a second! We forgot about the explanation for fluke-man!" and then squeezed in this disappointingly unoriginal 15 seconds or so.

I'm absolutely thrilled by the originality of this monster. Who ever made up the idea of a man who eats 5 livers every 30 years, and nests in his own bile in between, is a genius. Of all things... It's such a delightful idea! The fact that he looks so normal and acts kind of like a silent version of Daria (you know, stoic on the outside but angry on the inside?) makes this even better. The first-person rendition of his slow-motion victim-spotting vision is quite enlightening, it really gives a good sense of how this guy thinks and sees the world. The fact that they've actually created a convincing psychology for such an inhuman person is very impressive. This episode is definitely a refreshing watch! It's so weird that it's almost funny, but still creepy as well.

So, as far as I gather, this episode is trying to make a statement about how real-life villains are very bad people, and this is just as scary as the paranormal. The "paranormal" imagery associated with the villain, Donnie, is purely symbolic. He's actually just a normal human being.

The problem is that I just don't buy it. Donnie is simply not scarier than the paranormal. He's not even that scary at all. As a guy who seems confused and weird rather than malicious, likes dead girls and hair, and has only newly become a murderer, he's significantly less disturbing than most well-known real-life serial killers (eg: he's like a VERY watered-down version of Ed Gein). Which is why Scully's horror at seeing nothing but bodies with hair and nails cut off (something not too different from a normal personal hygiene routine), before anybody has even been killed or hurt at all, is completely out of character. She sees things a hundred times worse in almost every other episode and hardly flinches.

So, as Comic Book Guy says... "worst episode EVER!"