Merged: The Movies Thread

The Dark Knight Rises was Fudging Awesome!

This is a SPOILER-FREE review!

Note: Oscar winning cinematographer Wally Pfister shot over an hour of the film in the true IMAX format using 65mm film which was then printed on 70mm IMAX film to be projected. The rest of the film was shot using normal 35mm film stock. During the IMAX sequences, you will see the black bars on the top and bottom go away as the image will fill the full screen. If you live in the DC area, the only way to watch the movie the way Nolan and Pfister intended it to be seen is at a true 70mm IMAX theatre, i.e. UDVAR HAZY (Chantilly), SAMUEL JOHNSON (National Museum of Natural History) and LOCKHEED MARTIN IMAX (National Air and Space Museum) Theatre.

How is it possible to give a movie a 4 star rating out of 5 yet still feel underwhelmed? This is one of the toughest reviews I’ve ever written because while I feel the film is very solid, I left the theatre with a very underwhelming vibe.

Anybody who says it’s possible to walk in to this film and NOT think about the brilliance of 2008′s “The Dark Knight”, is clearly mistaken. The expectations set from that film are beyond belief. We are given constant reminders of “The Dark Knight” throughout and it’s nearly impossible not to compare the two. With “The Dark Knight”, Christopher Nolan and Wally Pfister created an absolute masterpiece which transcended the super hero genre. The film left the comic book world and entered the genre of a legit crime drama with brilliant performances and epic/realistic action sequences. The feeling I had when “Shakespeare In Love” beat “Saving Private Ryan” for best picture was the same feeling I had when “The Dark Knight” didn’t get a nomination for best picture back in 2008.
I almost feel bad for “The Dark Knight Rises” considering it has to follow such a masterpiece. Regardless of comparisons to “The Dark Knight”, this is still the weakest overall film of the Nolan Batman trilogy. Though, it’s saying something if the weakest flick is still a 4 star rating out of 5. I still feel that Nolan gave us a satisfactory ending and a very solid film but it doesn’t come without issues.

Nolan and Pfister deliver a visual masterpiece with solid performances but the movie suffers from a convoluted plot and scattered characters. There was so much going on in the film that I was unable to identify with one centralized character. I wanted to feel for Batman as he went through his struggles before he rose to take on Bane but the film kept cutting back to different characters and I lost that emotion for him. It almost creates an anxious feeling for the audience because it feels so jumbled. That being said, once the action scenes start, you forget about plot and character issues and Nolan’s brilliance starts to shine again.

I know this is going to sound a bit persnickety but I don’t want to see Ben Roethsliberger and Hines Ward in a Nolan Batman film. Yes, I know that Christopher Nolan shot the football game sequences in Pittsburgh and the Steeler’s were present during the shooting. But why take real life football players and insert them in to a fictional environment. It completely takes you out of the film and in your mind, you’re saying “Oh wait, that’s Ben Roethsliberger and Hines Ward”, which ruins the horror of that sequence. It also doesn’t help that there was a massive Doritos logo on the stadium screen during Bane’s speech to the crowd. That entire sequence ruined my suspension of disbelief because I felt like everything was being forced.

“The Dark Knight Rises” picks up eight years after the epic conclusion of 2008′s “The Dark Knight” where Batman became the anti-hero to save Gotham City. Batman (Christian Bale) took the fall for Harvey Dent’s (Aaron Eckhart) murders because he wanted to deliver a message of hope to the city. We all know this was a lie because we saw Dent become Two-Face but Batman knew his responsibility and that the Joker (Heath Ledger) would win if the people found out what really happened. Now, it’s been eight years and Bruce Wayne/Batman has pretty much fallen off the face of the earth. Without giving anything away, a new villain by the name of Bane (played by Tom Hardy) poses a new threat to Gotham City and Batman has to rise once again. Though, this time he is joined by a couple of friends including Catwoman (Anne Hathaway), a new detective named John Blake (played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and of course, Commissioner Gordon (Played by Gary Oldman).

Michael Caine deserves an Oscar nomination for his performance in this film. While he may have a much shorter screen time than most, he commanded such an emotional presence and as I walked away from the film, it was his character that I remembered the most. He has many emotional scenes with Bruce Wayne and it is these key scenes and dialogue which really struck a chord with me.
Anne Hathaway as Catwoman was one of the biggest surprises to me. She nailed the character and really displayed a great balance. I almost wish the movie focused more on her and Batman’s relationship as that could have led to a more emotional balance. She was extremely fierce and really gave a great edge to the part. I would almost say I enjoyed her Catwoman over Michelle Pfieffer’s performance in Tim Burton’s “Batman Returns”.

When it comes to the villain, everyone wants to know if Hardy is better than Ledger. That’s an impossible question to answer considering they are playing two different parts. I will say that Ledger’s Joker is arguably the greatest villain in the history of cinema because I’ve never seen a character more relentless. Hardy plays Bane perfectly and he definitely commands an unstoppable presence. Much of his performance is done through his eyes and I feel that he really displayed a great range that way. There was massive speculation when the trailers came out about Bane’s voice being hard to understand and you can tell that Nolan listened to the fans by turning up his voice. Though, I still had a hard time understanding some of the words he said as he mumbles behind the mask.

When it all comes down to it, the action, score and cinematography are on a masterpiece level. Zimmer’s score acts as such a brilliant character in the movie and really keeps the pace going smoothly. I found myself bobbing my head to a film score which is extremely rare. There is one particular fight sequence with Bane and Batman early on in the film where Nolan turned own Zimmer’s score to let us hear the blows, which I thought was an amazing move considering Zimmer’s score plays throughout almost the entire film. It was an interesting and necessary break in the flow.
As always, Wally Pfister’s cinematography is gorgeous, dark and epic. The IMAX sequences of action are absolutely mind-blowing and deserve to be seen. Even if you do go to a digital IMAX theatre, you will still see the transition from 35mm to 70mm but the size of the screen is nowhere near as big as the true IMAX you will get with a 70mm film projector.

Overall, the film is definitely underwhelming but very solid. The action will blow your mind and you will be satisfied to the close Nolan gives to his trilogy. Just don’t go in expecting “The Dark Knight”.

Note 2: I have only had the opportunity to see the film in the AMC “Fake” Digital IMAX theatre before this review but I saw “The Dark Knight” and “Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol” in 70mm IMAX where sequences went from 35mm to 70mm and it is an experience that is beyond belief. “The Dark Knight” had roughly 50 minutes of IMAX footage while “The Dark Knight Rises” has 72 minutes. With that being said, I urge you to see the film in true 70mm IMAX just based on the experience I had with “The Dark Knight” .

The Dark Knight Rises was wonderful. By in far a masterpiece, and a great conclusion to the trilogy. Bane was a complete bad ass and he made for a perfect villain.

The only gripe I have is that at some points you could hardly hear Bane's voice but fudge it! That movie was awesome. They set you up to toy with your mind. Since I'm not a big comic book guy there were some surprises for me which made for a great movie experience.

TDKR was one of the greatest movies I've ever seen. The Dark Knight was in top 3, then this movie came out and wow, what a great movie, just a hair better than TDK. I'll say this, comparing the two is pure preference as to which do you like more. TDKR has less joking lines, more action, less of the whole love plot, not a ton of Harvey Dent. DKR has a better villian, more of a love story, the whole harvey dent character and story which I wasn't really a fan of, and a little less action. If you can see it in IMAX, do it. Its worth the $15. Bane isn't a better villian than the joker, but he was still a great villian and part of the movie. His fights with Batman are epic, and you 'feel' it, when their hitting each other. Ann Hathaways catwoman was great. Joesph Gordon Levitt was great too. I wish the movie was longer. It exceeded my expectations. They really don't come out with movies this good that often.

TDKR was one of the greatest movies I've ever seen. The Dark Knight was in top 3, then this movie came out and wow, what a great movie, just a hair better than TDK. I'll say this, comparing the two is pure preference as to which do you like more. TDKR has less joking lines, more action, less of the whole love plot, not a ton of Harvey Dent. DKR has a better villian, more of a love story, the whole harvey dent character and story which I wasn't really a fan of, and a little less action. If you can see it in IMAX, do it. Its worth the $15. Bane isn't a better villian than the joker, but he was still a great villian and part of the movie. His fights with Batman are epic, and you 'feel' it, when their hitting each other. Ann Hathaways catwoman was great. Joesph Gordon Levitt was great too. I wish the movie was longer. It exceeded my expectations. They really don't come out with movies this good that often.

Epic movie, I said the same on my fb about dark Knight being great but dkr is even better IMO. Nolan's Batman's are absolutely fantastic, even the non comic book or non Batman fan could see the brilliance in these movies. It's so much more than a super hero chasing bad guys.

I agree joker was the best villian but bane is a monster and his story was great as well. Ann hatheway is so fine as CW! But even her role was brilliant, love the ending and the possible future of it.

10 out of 10 imo a must see

I really don't have much to add beyond what you guys have said. It was an epic movie, and for one that's almost 3 hours long I felt the time passed really quickly. I just watched Batman Begins last night on FX, and to be quite honest it really solidified my opinion that the Batman series is probably the greatest trilogy I've ever watched on-screen. Everything was tied up nicely. Even though Heath Ledger's Joker was the best villain out of the 3 movies, I enjoyed Scarecrow/LoS in the first as well as Bane in the last.

I really don't have much to add beyond what you guys have said. It was an epic movie, and for one that's almost 3 hours long I felt the time passed really quickly. I just watched Batman Begins last night on FX, and to be quite honest it really solidified my opinion that the Batman series is probably the greatest trilogy I've ever watched on-screen. Everything was tied up nicely. Even though Heath Ledger's Joker was the best villain out of the 3 movies, I enjoyed Scarecrow/LoS in the first as well as Bane in the last.

Yeah Nolan reportedly made the film 4 hours long before he edited it down to 2:45, but your exactly right the movie goes by fast, hell I wish it was 4 hours long, because its was just so great and so fast moving.

As far as the batman trilogy being the best trilogy, well you may be right about that. Matrix was unbalanced in the sense the first was great and the third was 'ehh'. The Bourne Movies were great, but not nearly the money makers of batman, and some of them ran a little long in parts, and sometimes confusing. LOTR was good, but the third ran 30mins longer than needed(hell they all ran really long). Star wars was great, and thats were people will debate your statement, but none of the last set of star wars films made nothing close to what TDK made.

I will say this though, Christopher Nolan is right now the best director in hollywood and has the highest success rate of films of any director. He hasn't made that dud of a film yet.

I'm shocked nobody posted this. If you saw TDKR this weekend, most likely you saw this trailer. Looks promising.



Zld8i2mRxb0

Saw Batman on Saturday morning, I loved it. My only wish is that there would have been a movie in between The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises, where Batman was in his prime and you saw him cleaning up gotham. Spoilers below so don't read down if you don't want my opinion on some things....





In The Dark Knight, he was almost there....but by the time TDKR, Batman is shot physically and has to rely on gadgets and trickery even more.

Loved the 1st bane fight, i don't know how anybody couldn't. Batman goes in unprepared with no gameplan, Bane dissects him pretty handily. Batman tries his gadgets, they don't work against bane. Plus the music score is haunting and it's very sad to watch as Batman gets angrier and angrier while losing to Bane and you realize it's pretty much hopeless.

I teared up a little bit when Alfred talked about how from the moment he heard Bruce's cries in the house he cared for him and always wanted to watch out for him and keep him safe. The scene at the end with Alfred standing in the graveyard and crying out to Bruce and his parents how he failed them all, it was heartaching to watch. Alfred had gave it all and had nothing left....very emotional moment...