Just saw The Dark Knight Rises. It’s about Bruce Wayne and his one man war on crime. This time it’s eight years after the last movie, The Dark Knight, Bruce’s body is worn down (like an athlete) and so is his faith in people. There’s a plot to destroy Wayne Enterprises and Gotham, which bring both Bruce and Batman out of “retirement.”
The good; the movie is about three hours long, but it certainly doesn’t feel like it. It had me pretty much on the seat of my pants the entire time, beautifully edited.
The acting is great. Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle, love me some Anne Hathaway. Much like Charlize Theron in Prometheus, Anne Hathaway’s in that catsuit most of the time, no complaints there.
Gary Oldman as the ever faithful Gordon. Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Blake. Tom Hardy as Bane. Michael Caine as Alfred the father-figure. Everyone delivers a wonderful performance.
The Bat, flying thing, what’s great about these movies is the science and logic behind the technology, they make it believable. From the movie physics of the Bat-Pod to the Bat vehicle, I just love it all cause when you watch it move on screen you think, “yeah, that’s how that would move.”
The bad; oddly enough, I do have some complaints. There wasn’t enough Batman, when you’re watching the movie you don’t really notice this, but thinking back, Bruce Wayne is Batman in the end of the first act, and then at the of the third act, I kinda wanted more Batman-time… on screen that is.
Bane’s voice – in the comic books he’s supposed to be Latin-American, I don’t know what accent he has in the movie, but it’s obviously dubbed and very stage present-ish. In a shot where he’s in the far background of the scene his voice is still coming in very present at the center channel, that bugged me.
*SPOLIER* When Bane breaks Batman’s back, it doesn’t take him long to recover, there could’ve been more passage of time at this point. His back goes from a vertebrae protrusion to doing push ups and scaling the wall to freedom.
*SPOILER* The ending, very easy, almost too easy, and predictable. Much like Nolan’s previous movie Inception, this one ends in a montage and we’re given information visually. Alfred is away on holiday and sees Bruce just like he’d imagined years and years before Batman showed up, he’s sitting at a table with Selina. I wonder how it would’ve been if they’d taken the ambiguity of Inception’s ending and applied it to The Dark Knight? Leaving us with Alfred’s forming smile instead of cutting to Bruce at the table? And then to have Blake’s character’s real name be Robin? That almost felt like the studio pushed that onto the movie. Don’t get me wrong, I liked that the cowl and mantle would be passed along, but why dumb it down?
Overall, I enjoyed the movie, despite the criticisms I state above. I guess I’m so critical of this new film because I extremely enjoyed the previous films
Definitely worth watching on the big screen, and what a way to end a trilogy.