The Dark Knight

My family went and saw the Dark Knight on Friday night 7/18/2008. Even with all the hype it was an awesome movie and left a lot of discussion afterwards. My 13y thought it was awesome, he even said it was better than Live Free Die Hard, which is a compliment as he watches that movie often. As this movie is rated PG-13, keep that in mind. As my 9y is usually thick skinned, from seeing Orcs, Vampires, and can even put up with Spongebob's voice... ;-) but he loved the movie except the part with two face (Harvey Dent). It is pretty graphic, when two face is revealed (think of the first terminator movie but with our computers in today's world it is much more graphic, very realistic) yet my son understood the make up and digital world of computers helped make that a reality in the movie. We had a discussion before and after the movie, I didn't send him to bed right when we got home either. We watched something uplifting and fell asleep. (You can never be too sure!)

Things to discuss before and some after watching this movie:
1. Losing someone close to you and positive ways to cope with the loss.
2. Revenge is it really worth it?
3. Why did the Butler tear up the letter from Rachael?
4. Why did the Batman want Harvey Dent to be the good guy that people could look up to and see?
5. What do you think of the people in the boats having to push the button to blow up the other boat? What would you have done? Do you understand how they felt?
6. What is different between Batman & the Joker? What is the same?
7. How do you think those that maintain the order from chaos (cops, etc) deal with things every day?
8. Talk about media coverage and how they interpret the role of Batman as being a criminal, Why?
9. Does keeping the public safe from harm justify curtailing the publics right to privacy?
10. Talk about movie magic and about reality how they differ.

My review of the Dark Knight is this I give it Five Stars out of five stars!
For children over 13, if your child is around 9 on up talk to them YOU know your children best. Read reviews, discuss, and pay attention to how they watch the movie if they are scared, talk with them...