The Dark Knight Rises

[Emperor Ing]

As if Zack Snyder has ever made a good movie. He is a hack and will only bring his hack-abilities to the Superman franchise.

Expect to see a bunch of that "speed-up slow-down speed-up" shit in his poorly-shot action scenes that made him declared such a "visionary director" (ha!).

==
==

This movie was good, but not really great.

It's funny that Nolan consistently wanted to portray a gritty, realistic Gotham, but continuously had every single character talk like they were cartoon characters or a poorly-written comic-book character. When you have such poorly-delivered I'M GUNNA DO THE ONE THING GORDON COULD NEVER DO CATCH THE BAT and all the one-dimensional characters walking around spouting off one-dimensional lines, it's hard to really get pulled into the world. You know you're watching a movie, not the "legendary end of the dark knight trilogy" (which is a laugh in and of itself. I guess they didn't have the foresight to call Batman Begins "The Dark Knight Begins").

Bane was ok. His performance and character were a bit thin. I don't know why everyone just believed him when he kind of blew up a football stadium and armed a bunch of ex-cons. Yeah, giving back to the people. Nolan, you're so subtle.

The whole "rich people doing bad things row row fight the powah" angle was underplayed and trite. There was excitement that Nolan would incorporate the whole 99% issues into the movie. And he does with the finesse of a bull in a china shop. Characters, much like in every Nolan movie, constantly and directly tell us the themes of the movie instead of having us use our brains and piece things together. We don't see the Gotham elite be irresponsible and wasteful, we need Miranda and Bruce Wayne and Bane telling us "GOTHAM'S ELITE IS IRRESPONSIBLE AND WASTEFUL." Whoa man, blowin' my mind over here.

Anne Hathaway (why call her catwoman? Nobody in the movie did.) also gave an uninspired performance. She may look nice in tight leather, but that's about all she had going for her. Her snarky line-readings and eye-rollings had ME rolling my eyes. The scene with her in the prison was pointless and didn't do anything to establish her shallow character or move the plot forward. All she did was do an implausible somersault in the air and a cheap punchline came out of it (yeah as if one woman in an all male prison would ever fucking happen). Her stupid whore friend was also a really bad actress. WHAT DO YOU MEAN THIS IS THE PEOPLE'S HOUSE NOW. There's Nolan being edgy again. IT'S JUST LIKE WALL STREET WHOA OH YEAH

She also shared zero chemistry with Bruce Wayne. Which made their romance very forced. They only "fall for each other" because the script demanded it. You don't really believe it. Especially when they share so little time together. Like, three scenes totaling maybe 3 minutes. You'd think in a two-and-a-half hour movie we could build character but no, we need more of Joseph Gordon-Leavitt obviously telling the world that he's going to be in Batman 4. Even in such a long movie his character arc felt incredibly rushed.

All in all, it was an enjoyable popcorn flick, but nothing really more than that. More of Nolan's trademarked bad-acting with some explosions to keep us entertained. And the PG13 rating really held back the movie from being as gritty as it wanted to be. When you can't show blood or death, it kind of lessens the threat of your murderous villain.

Some other thoughts in the movie. The questions might seem to some of you Mr. Plinkett-esque:

SPOILERS

Why does everyone believe Bane when he read's Com. Gordon's speech at the jail? Wouldn't the fact that this masked man with a bunch of terrorists and armored vehicles releasing deadly convicts and arming them seem less like a liberation and more like a coup?

Everybody knows Bruce Wayne is batman. Why does he still talk in the batman voice to them? Even at the end of the movie he still does.

How does Batman get back into the city when Bane said that anyone entering the city would force him to detonate the bomb? Did Bane just forget? In fact, how did batman even get back to America?

How did batman learn to walk again after losing all the cartilage in his knee? He just had to wear a brace? My dad lost all the cartilage in his hip and he had to have a hip replacement.

How does punching someone in the back magically fix a broken back? Wouldn't that cause more damage? And wouldn't falling the equivalent of several stories suspended by a rope tied to your back exacerbate the problems?

Why did Batman wait out there in the ice while Gordon and the others were being sent to a certain death? Was he just hoping that none of them would fall in the ice, so he could make a dramatic entrance?

How did Talia even die? There was no blood and she clearly wasn't crushed by the impact (lol, PG-13). Did she realize how stupid her character and her plan was and decide to save herself further embarrassment?

Batman loses the first fight against Bane but he wins the second time because he figures out the winning strategy to fighting Bane is to merely punch him in his face. Why didn't he try this strategy the first time? Did he really have to go to Turkey to learn how to punch someone in the face?

Why did Batman waste the time to tell Gordon-Leavitt to wear a mask when Gordon Leavitt is a police officer and shouldn't be wearing masks to begin with? Or did we need to further jam down the audience's throat that Leavitt is the next Batman?

Why doesn't Batman have keys to his own house?

In fact why would batman leave his house full of booby traps and weapons to a bunch of orphans? Wouldn't that be very dangerous?

How does Batman expect to live the rest of his life retired when he's an international celebrity? Wouldn't someone somewhere in the world recognize him at some point in time?

[Maetch]

Did aybody catch [spoiler]"Scarecrow"[/spoiler] popping up again?

[HYRUL3]

Did aybody catch [spoiler]"Scarecrow"[/spoiler] popping up again?

As judge, jury and executioner? Yes.

Emperor Ing... I have some responses to some of your points (nothing fan boyish, I'm not excessively loyal to Nolan), but I'll do it later as I'm on my phone and it'll take forever to type out.

[jacobe12]

The main thing that I completely didn't understand was how Batman got back to Gotham. It looked like he was in a different country, and then how could he have gotten in without Bane noticing? Even if Bane knew he was coming there's no way he could've gotten back.

I didn't have a problem with Selina Kyle and Bruce Wayne, what I did have a problem with was the relationship between Bruce and Miranda Tate. It seemed like they only did that so it would be more "tragic" when she betrayed him but I just wasn't feeling it.

And you're right about the rich people of Gotham. They're talked about a lot but we never actually see them "eating Gotham's wealth and spirit" like in stories like Batman Year One.

Oh yeah, and Holly 4L.

[HYRUL3]

I didn't worry too much about how he got back. Remember in Batman Begins, he escapes the League of Shadows, and Alfred is just waiting at an airstrip? Well, one can assume that some time after he called Alfred using a satellite phone somewhere.

In TDKR, you have to assume he took a flight in somewhere and snuck in. He is a trained ninja, is it so hard to believe he snuck in?

[Emperor Ing]

I'm glad the movie makes us assume this and just has batman magically appear underneath a viaduct at the most opportune time imaginable.

Seriously, didn't anyone else laugh out loud at the theater when Bruce Wayne magically popped into Gotham?

[gigatravis]

If Dark Knight was the Godfather of superhero movies, then Rises is the Return of the King.

Wow.. That is the perfect analogy, in that I liked Return of the King more than the Godfather, and I liked Rises more than the Dark Knight. And the [spoiler]Scarecrow cameo[/spoiler] was actually my favorite moment of the movie.

[HYRUL3]

I'm glad the movie makes us assume this and just has batman magically appear underneath a viaduct at the most opportune time imaginable.

Seriously, didn't anyone else laugh out loud at the theater when Bruce Wayne magically popped into Gotham?

Its one of those things in movies that if they dedicated an entire scene to showing him hitch hiking to an airport, getting back to the US, etc, it would be unnecessary and drag things out.

Sometimes you just need to not nit pick and let the movie entertain you.

[jacobe12]

My favorite part was [spoiler]when he made the jump without the rope. It got all silent in the theater and then Bruce made and everyone starting applauding.[/spoiler] It was awesome.

There was a guy in my theater in a full Batman costume. Everyone loved him.

[Emperor Ing]

I'm glad the movie makes us assume this and just has batman magically appear underneath a viaduct at the most opportune time imaginable.

Seriously, didn't anyone else laugh out loud at the theater when Bruce Wayne magically popped into Gotham?

Its one of those things in movies that if they dedicated an entire scene to showing him hitch hiking to an airport, getting back to the US, etc, it would be unnecessary and drag things out.

Sometimes you just need to not nit pick and let the movie entertain you.

It's not nitpicking when it's sloppy editing.

He leaves the prison battered and bearded. And the next time we see him, he's cleaned up and in a suit. They could have just shown one shot of a plane flying to establish that yes, Bruce is on his way back.

I'm not saying I wasn't entertained, but I didn't leave my brain at the door either. I'm ok with pointing out flaws of movies I've enjoyed.

[HYRUL3]

In your first critique post you criticized the movie for having characters say things rather than us figure it out on our own; now you complain they didn't explain that he caught a flight and shaved rather than let us figure it out on our own?

Does not compute, it's something easy to infer.

[Emperor Ing]

Both complaints are a subset of my "Nolan has no grasp of subtlety" complaint. A point I made in my post if you took the time to read it.

What's the easiest way (ie most blunt with little finesse) to get across your movie's themes? TELL THEM TO THE AUDIENCE VIA "CHARACTERS"

What's the easiest way to transport a character who is miles and miles away with no financial or physical cushion to rely on? WELP IT'S SOMETHING EASY TO INFER

It's not hard to get what I'm trying to say. It doesn't matter if it's easy to infer because it's pretty fucking obvious because Bale is standing right there. It doesn't make it any less sloppy.

Which again, is the point i made in my posts (if you read them): that this is an enjoyable, sloppy movie.

[HYRUL3]

Of course I read it. That's why I referred back to it in my last post.

I just think, of all the things that could be nitpicked, something that isn't outright shown but easy enough to use your imagination is ridiculous.

At that rate, I could ask "how did they move The Bat from Applied Sciences to Wayne Manor without anyone noticing?" "if he hung up his cape 8 years ago why did he still develop new bat tech and a new bat cave complete with hidden platforms?" and many more, but I don't care, because those are unimportant to the plot, and it's a movie.

A good example of what I would take issue with in a film: in a promo video for Amazing Spider Man, Doctor Connors, who becomes Lizard, says that reptiles are an incredible species. But reptile is a family, not a species. You expect me to believe a world class biologist doesn't know the difference? THAT is lazy, when you don't fact check. Not when you leave out a scene that is easy enough to figure out without thinking too hard.

[Aiddon]

Another thing I thought was neat about the movie was how many references to certain comics and arc of Batman it had such as

[spoiler]Batman saying "so that's what it feels like" from Kingdom Come, Daggett being an obvious stand-in for Roland Daggett from the Animated Series, Blake being a pastiche of the first three Robins, Gordon mentioning "alligators in the sewer", the R in the Gotham Rogues' game looking like the Red Robin emblem, and the ending basically being the one from The Dark Knight Returns. TONS of little comic geek moments[/spoiler]

[Jesse D]

Anne Hathaway in a body-tight catsuit.

That's all I have to say.