Allergic to Hype

"How can you say that?!?" Pete exploded. Pete explodes in surprise on a pretty regular basis but this particular explosion was about a month ago after I had declared my belief that the upcoming 'The Dark Knight' movie would suck.

His explosion was not unsurprising and was not the first time I'd received a reaction of shock or surprise to my declaration that I disbelieved in the positive quality of this film. It's not the first time I've said this sort of thing about a film nor do I expect it to be the last. You see, I'm allergic to hype.

I learned as a child to fight the urge to get too excited over things. My imagination is such that I can generally imagine something more exciting than the reality. If I spend too much time pondering how awesome something is to be, chances are that the version I've 'seen' in my head will be better than anything on screen and I'll be disappointed. The lower I set my expectations and the less I think about it, the more likely I am to enjoy myself. If I don't end up enjoying myself, I know something is wrong. Heck, I set my expectations so low for 'Electra' that I managed to enjoy myself. Not by much, but I think my point is made.

Now, being a comic book geek, I've been hearing about how 'awesome' this 'The Dark Knight' movie is for about six months straight now, apart from a few weeks when we enjoyed 'Iron Man' and 'Hulk'. There is no way I can build my expectations that high for that long and have it pay off with anything but disappointment. Even if it is a great film, as many of my friends have already said it is, and I go in expecting a great film, then it'll be hard to be excited. I got what I expected. If I expect crap and get great film, I'll be happy.

Yes, 'The Dark Knight' sucks and I'll continue to believe that until I see it. After that, I can have a real opinion.