Batman: The Dark Knight (Movie Novelization)
 RRP £6.99 Lowest New Price £2.31 
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Titan Books Ltd Number of pages: 400 Language: English (Original Language) Language: English (Unknown) |
RRP: £6.99
A constant debate - do I like it, or not?
Review date: 2008-09-02 Rating: 6 out of 10
I recieved the book earlier today and began to read with anticipiation..., but I'm afraid a few of the chapters did not capture or enlighten me.
With this said, I didn't enjoy chapter one much-- the description was mediocre and it had little point to it. I continued to read nevertheless, and found that some of the description was a bit flakey. Overall, it describes the movie reasonably well, with other outlooks on characters such as Lucius Fox, but description does lack occasionally and I find myself skipping pages to reach a more interesting part. Re-written, I think the novelization would be more of a hit than it's currently deemed.
Reviews
OK - but more like a children's adaptation
Review date: 2008-08-17 Rating: 4 out of 10
This book is the official 'novelisation' of the new film "The Dark Knight". Accordingly, the story of the book follows the plot of the film. In this sense, it's a good story - as the movie is well written and action packed. However, in every other sense this is a poor novel.
There is very little character development, and the overall style and tone of the book feels as if it were written for very young adults (age 11 to 14). But this is not the intended readership - as there is a children's novelisation, quite distinct from this book.
Like a different reviewer, I agree this book reads as if its writer were rushed. I say this because I've read other books by the same writer - Denny O'Neill. In fact, he wrote the novelisation for the film "Batman Begins" - which was a better book (3 stars).
Even so, in my view O'Neill should not have been asked to write this book (or any other Batman novel, regardless of whether they are slightly better than this) - because he's simply not a "great" fiction writer in terms of full-length novels. He is good in terms of comic books, but that's very different from novels.
The story of Batman's origins, as well as his first few years, has never been well presented in conventional book format. The story needs to be handled by a great writer - which O'Neill is not.
If you are a big fan, or a young reader, this will be ok - otherwise avoid.
The Batman - the Joker - and Harvey Dent makes three
Review date: 2008-07-31 Rating: 10 out of 10
In keeping with previous novel adaptations of blockbuster movies, The Dark Knight written by Dennis O'Neill Batman: The Dark Knight (movie novelisation)does not fail to grip the reader and enthrall him on every page. The descriptions are spot on and as you read the text spoken by the Joker, you can almost feel the manic maniac is looking over your shoulder with that evil grin plastered across his face. Even if you have been lucky to see the movie already, the book is well worth a read and the atmosphere of a dark and moody Gotham City are perfectly captured. At such an incredibly low price offered by Amazon it has to be one of the best bargains around at the moment.
An Obvious Rush Job
Review date: 2008-07-29 Rating: 2 out of 10
I'm about seven chapters in and I've gotta say this book is abysmal. It's poorly written, shallow and feels rushed. A lot of the subtle moments are totally removed; the tone of the Jokers voice, his walk, just how terrifying he is for example, 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 recieve no inclination about how the characters are feeling, or how they do things - much of the dialogue from the film is reported with litltle 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 writing; 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 the 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...'
Very poor. Only earns a star because I'm a Batman fanatic.
Product Details/Specifications
Authors:
Denny O'Neill
Recording label: Titan Books Ltd
Manufacturer: Titan Books Ltd
EAN: 9781848560420
Binding: Paperback
ISBN: 1848560427
Number of pages: 400
Publication date: 2008-07-21
Language: English (Original Language)
Language: English (Unknown)
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