Product Description

Based on the blockbuster Warner Bros. Pictures film starring Christian Bale and Heath Ledger.

Allied with both the police department and the district attorney’s office, the vigilante known as Batman continues to bring justice and hope to Gotham City.

But one man dares to mock Batman’s mission. A man with a twisted sense of humor. A man whose grotesque smile is reflected on the calling card he leaves at the scene of his crimes: The Joker.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #462724 in Books
• Published on: 2008-07-18
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780425222867
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Customer Reviews

Movie deserves better
Dennis "Denny" O'Neill has been one of the principal architects for Batman over the past thirty years, doing everything from comic writer to editor to novelization author. His adaptation of Batman Begins was quite solid, so I had high hopes for this, which I read--and recommend you read ONLY--after seeing the movie.

Put bluntly, the master is either losing his touch or rushed this into print. Despite being one of the sources for the characterization of the Joker, O'Neill fails to capture any of Ledger's manic intensity, the deep depravity, and utterly chaotic nature of his violent streak. Granted, Ledger's portrayal is stunning and hard to capture with the written word, but O'Neill should do better with a character he revitalized back in the 1970s (The Joker's Five Way Revenge, for instance).

There is very little back story added, so much of what remains unexplained in the movie is unexplained here. There's a back story added for Harvey Dent, but I'm not sure whether it actually explains anything beyond what the movie does. It does make Bruce's affection for Rachel Dawes more understandable: It is less love than a deep need for her, he is almost creepy in his obsession for her.

Obviously, the action scenes are hard to put into writing, so I forgive O'Neill for making the finale of the movie so condensed (and leaves out the climactic scene in all the trailers of Gordon smashing the Batsignal). However, he inexplicably fails to capture the intensity of the scene inside the ferries at the end of the movie.

The book would be shorter if it did not begin with about 60 pages dealing with material from Batman Begins or the animated Gotham Knight.

That the book was rushed is indicated, I think, by glaring typos that made it seem as though it was scanned in from a typewriter or pages. For instance, in one sentence the "real deal" (referring to the real Batman rather than the wanna-bes" reads as "red deal." Things like this are irritating but also indicative of a broader on-the-cheap feel of the whole novelization.

Of course, without the DVD, this is your only shot, since DC isn't releasing a comic book adaptation.

Nice read for those who want that little extra before/after watching the movie
Dennis O'Neil did a good job at writing this movie novelization. It was written around Feb 2008 so it closely follows the final script. Unlike the Superman Returns novel, don't expect much more than what's shown on the big screen.

No huge differences except more character development (histories are explored more in depth). The major differences from the movie are 1.) Dent's adolescent history is explored by an undercover Wayne and 2.) we learn what Scarecrow did in between both movies.

Ledger's stunning Joker character was not captured well in the novel. You'll have to watch the movie for that treat!

Depending on your reading speed and comprehension, you should be able to finish the book in 2 to 3 hrs (about the same length as of the movie).

Blatant Rush Job
This book is abysmal. It's poorly written, shallow and feels rushed. A lot of the subtle moments from the film are totally removed , (for example, the tone of the Jokers voice, his walk, just how terrifying he is - all these details add up to make a mental picture in your mind which is part of what reading fiction is all about. O'Neil describes none of them, the Joker could be a postman for all the info we get.)

We get no inclination about how the characters are feeling, or how they do things - much of the dialogue from the film is reported with little emotion and it feels as if Denny O Neil was rushing his way through the Nolan script in order to meet a tight deadline. The action scenes are dull and overall the writing just feels stale, it doesn't jump off the page at all.

A sample of the turgid prose - he describes Comissioner Leob's death as '...he made a few gurgling sounds and within seconds was dead.' Talk about sucking the drama out of a scene.

There's also page after page of boring exposition. Fair enough, the story of what Crane got up to after 'Begins' is a neat inclusion, but it bogs down the book and gets in the way of the actual TDK story. O' Neil seems to do this for more than one of the characters, even the infodump for Bruce Wayne is annoying. The events of the film don't begin until you're a quater of the way through the book, the first couple of chapters should've been called 'In case you haven't read Batman Begins...'

Poor. Only gets a star because I'm a Batman fanatic, otherwise I would've stopped reading it after the first chapter.