Batman - The Dark Knight Returns, Teil 2

Part one of The Dark Knight Returns was already good, but part two is a whole other level of greatness. You hardly ever get to see so many great scenes, perfectly crafted dialogues and situations you'd never even dreamed of. Part two is not only much darker, more violent and brutal, but, above all, incredibly emotionally packed. The whole movie is so intense and frantic that it’s just one great fight after another. The whole part with Joker is something absolutely incredible, and his duel with Batman made me read all the books. And the final duel with Superman? A blast! I'm already looking forward to Znyder adapting it to the big screen. “It's finally here, isn't it? The moment we've both dreamed about.” (19.08.2015)

Maybe the best comic book adaptation. Nolan milks the maximum from it in his movies, but still he remains in Miller’s shadow. Part two of the Return of the Dark Knight pulls a joker from its sleeve. The chilling and brutal confrontation with the loon with the smile across his face in the tunnel of love is probably better than the epic finale with the Man of Steel. The action sequences are of course longer than in the book and it’s a treat to watch them. All the people I've murdered...by letting you live. (26.01.2013)

A step better than the arbitrarily interwoven first part, but it doesn't reach a higher rating even after having thought about it for a longer time. I admire Frank Miller for Sin City, 300, and even for the heavily criticized Holy Terror, but his trips to Gotham didn't speak to me. The original suffers from a strange perspective on legendary female characters (the contrast between the appearance of Batman or the Joker and Lana Lang or Selina feels disturbingly aggressive) and the adaptation refuses to update the now-questionable period realities like Soviet enemies or the falsely cheerful President Reagan. And while the unnecessarily sharpened perspective on Superman doesn't suit me either, paradoxically, it's the only place that deserves to be stretched out rather than shortened in the film adaptation, so I have to stay in the average rating. Because in my mind, there remains only Kal-El's battle with a chemical reaction and a sufficiently intense (although clumsily edited at the end) fight with the Joker. It's almost not enough in the end, but I've gotten used to that with works bearing Jay Oliva's signature. (30.11.2020)