How about a magic trick?

And... here... we... go!

Oh! The Olympics started yesterday, I've gotta hand it to those Chinese, they certainly know how to throw the best opening ceremony ever ... or distraction from all the cries of the now homeless people who's houses were knocked down to make way for a shiney new Olympic Road.

Anyway onto what I wanted to write about.

And what I want to write about is the 12A rating for 'The Dark Knight' in the UK.

Now at first I wasn't too bothered with it, I had actually achieved something that i haven't done for a while and actaully gone into the cinema with no clue as to how the movie will finish or what the actual plot is apart from joker laughing a lot and lots of pretty explosions.

It's pretty rare to go into a movie like that and not know much about it, becuase most of the time they show the plot AND the ending pretty much and it kind spoils it becuase you KNOW what is going to happen (I'm looking at you Tomb of the Dragon Emperor!)

Now The Dark Knight, I'll start by admitting that I HATED Batman Begins. Absolutly loathed it.

It just didn't feel like Batman to me and the bad guys felt underused and overly silly (Ra's al Ghul didn't feel like much of a threat and the scarecrow could have been much scarier) I have only seen the movie once and once is all it's getting from my eyes.

Dark Knight however I intend to watch again and again and again!

Everything was perfect about it. It wasn't boring, the action was great and the villians felt well used and threatening, PLUS we don't actually see what Two Face looks like until we actually go into the cinema and see it, at least I did. They didn't show what he looked like at all in the trailers which was great really.

How everyone seems to agree that Hannibal Lecter is the best pyscho film has ever made, well after seeing the Joker in the Dark Knight I'd say we have a new winner!

This version of the Joker was unlike any we have ever seen before. Be it the comics, the campy live action tv show or the Cartoon ones. This Joker was insane and yet brilliant and a wonderful new take on him in a more realistic sort of world that the Batman reboot series tries to give, and the fact that he just paints his skin and and has a scar for a grin doesn't take away anything from his character, in fact it seems to add more to it, especially since we don't know anything about his past life and the fact he gives conflicting stories about how he got his scars.

It's just a shame that such a great Character can never be replayed the same way again because of Mr. Ledger popping his clogs at too early an age, and it's also a pity that they didn't kill off the Joker in the film because it implies that he would make a return, especially with him saying 'I think you and I are destined to do this forever.'

Yes, this version of the Joker was the most terrifying one yet, and that's where my one problem with the movie comes in... actually no I have two other problems with the movie.

1. How come Dent talks normally after having half his face burnt off?

2. Why are Bruce and Dent so attracted to Rachel? She's like the offspiring of Kirsten Dunst and Carrie Fisher... and then given a Teeth Transplant from Billie Piper!

Anyway back to my original problem.

In the UK we have the following ratings.

U - anyone can see it.

PG - some scenes may not be good for kids.

12A - you have to be 12 or over to see it unless accompanied by and adult.

15 - only 15s and over can see it.

18 - only 18s and over can see it .

Now, the 12A rating was originally invented because of when the first Spiderman movie came out and the little kiddies were upset becuase they couldn't see Spiderman. I guess you could say it's our version of the PG-13.

Now spiderman, I have no complaints about with that rating. I for one thought it was fine. There wasn't anything too violent about it and nothing that was really immitable... ok there's the wall crawling and webslinging but sod that.

The Dark Knight in my opinion was too violent to have been a 12A.

That was the first thought that came into my head as I walked out of the cinema 'How the hell was that a 12A?!'

Joker did one of the most grusome magic tricks I've ever seen and he spent most of the movie holding knives to peoples mouths! Not to mention Two Face's face was a little grusome!

Now ok, people are reading this are probably now saying 'yeah but we didn't see any blood' or 'we didn't actually see the pencil go in his eye' (which is techinally true after i rewatched the scene a few times on youtube, it's amazing really how when you type in a search word it comes up with a list of the most popular search words based on what you are in the middle of typing and when you type in 'joker' the next word that it seems to think you're gonna type in is 'pencil'!)

Now thankfully I haven't seen anything in the papers about kids immitating the Jokers pencil trick but if kids are seeing that in the cinema then I wouldn't have been surpised.

Now I know it looks like I'm bitching about this and making a fuss about nothing but as far as I can see this rating was given just so the movie could make more money. That's the sad truth.

If this movie had been a 15 as it should have been then it would have taken out a huge chunk of the profits which would have been made from all the little kids seeing it.

kids + Superhero movies = Monies!

Superhero movies - kids = Monies but not as much!

I mean, this is a country where you can't turn on a news channel or opening a newspaper without it talking about someone in England getting stabbed to death in muggings or Gang Wars these days and yet there we saw in the Dark Knight the Joker casually holding a knife to someone and making it seem damn cool and a little funny at times. But hey, it's not like kids are impressionable at 12 and under, I'm sure they'd never try to use knives.... or perform magic tricks with pencils!

I don't know, if just feels that they put profit before common sense... but then again, who am I kidding, that's every bloody buisness in the country these days.

Anyhoo. I thought I'd finish this blog with this quote from Billy Connolly.

'Before you judge a man, walk a mile in his shoes. After that, who cares? He's a mile away and you've got his shoes'