"The Dark Knight Rises" Review and Discussion Thread (spoilers)

[Donald Draper]

It would be cool to see a Nightwing movie with Levitt. It could be separate from any Batman reboot.

[Davros]

I liked what I saw of it but the power went out right as the climax was beginning. Considering what had just happened a few miles away last night, it was pretty creepy.

[Venardhi]

C_Miller wrote:

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Or Richard Blake. Blake being his mother's maiden name that he took after his father died or something. His father's name being Grayson.

Or maybe his name is just Robin Jonathan(?) Blake and is intended to be a new character who echoes similar notes to the comic characters who became Robin. I prefer that to the idea that this is some strange adaptation of one of the comic characters.

[Donald Draper]

They intentionally made him as close to Dick Grayson as possible. Its likely that part of the reason for the 8 year gap since TDK was so Blake could be young when Batman first appeared.

[DigificWriter]

Attempting to jump through a bunch of hoops in order to 'rationalize' the character's real name being something other than what it was said to be is completley unnecessary. Nolan and Co. were able to pay homage to the Robin character (and the myriad individuals who have worn that mantle) without compromising their vision for the trilogy and the tone that they had established back with Batman Begins, and they did so flawlessly.

BTW, here's my full review of the movie:
The film is the best of Nolan's trilogy (although it's not nearly as epic as TDK [nor does it have to be]), and the perfect capper to this particular on-screen iteration of the Batman mythos (albeit leaving the door open to some type of future continuation should Warner Bros. decide that they want to go forward without Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale).

I also need to give Nolan props for masterfully re-using the same twist from Batman Begins, but doing so in a way that was not in any way repetative. I think most of us Internet fans figured out that Miranda was Talia long before the film actually came out, but the way Nolan used the 'Bane is an al Ghul' red herring managed to leave the Miranda = Talia reveal enough 'oomph' that it didn't feel anticlimactic.

Back when the first press release for TDKR was released and we found out that Selina Kyle/Catwoman would be involved in the film, many people were quick to call her a villain, which is something that I resisted doing. It turns out that I was right to not call her a villain, because she wasn't; she was an antagonist (which is not the same thing as a villain), in that she wasn't willingly working for Bane. She did lead Bruce into a trap, but she didn't do it out of spite or malice.

I've seen people elsewhere trying to rationalize a way in which John Blake's real name could have been Richard Grayson, but I think such 'hoop jumping' is completely unnecessary. Nolan and Co. managed to pay homage to the Robin character without compromising their vision for what they wanted their trilogy to be, and they did so flawlessly. There is absolutely no reason why the Nolan-verse 'Robin' had to be one of the characters who occupied that mantle in the comics, because Nolan and Co. were able to get the same message across.

FWIW, though, I genuinely believe that the way things were ended pretty heavily implied that Blake was eventually going to take up the mantle of Batman from Bruce rather than adopting his own costumed identity to continue Bruce's legacy of protecting the city.

[Admiral2]

Just my two cents:

Excellent

-Is it better than Avengers? Nope. I don't care what the newspaper critics say. All the gravitas and depth and practical effects don't beat six Marvel superheroes teamed up against a Norse God and a buncha aliens written and superbly directed by Joss Whedon. But it was excellent just the same.

-I caught a lot of flak for dissing Anne Hathaway's performance before seeing the movie. I'm happy to say I was wrong. Looks like somebody spent a few days studying Michelle Pfeiffer in Batman Returns.

-Meanwhile, nice job on the casting of Ra's Al Ghul's kid.

-And speaking of, enough with the "Roz Al Ghul" shit. It's "Resh." The guys who made him up said it's "Resh." Roz sounds so uneducated, like everybody's thinking "Duuuh, I have to say it like it's wrote cause it's one of them furner names!"

-Bane pulled off what Occupy Wall Street had wet dreams about pulling off. And they might have done it...if they weren't mostly a bunch of uncoordinated hippies...

-Again with frigging Cillian Murphy? Can he find a movie I don't have to watch him in?

-Not that impressed with The Bat. It looks like Faye Valentine's ship in Cowboy Bebop.

-Christopher Judge? Is Mercenary #3 all he's got going since SG-1?

-Nice nerdgasm ending!

[Venardhi]

Ehh, not necessarily. Blake could use the same gear but alter it slightly in order to create a new persona to take up the legacy but not the name. Batman is now a martyr, and bringing him back would somewhat diminish that.

Blake is much more limited in what he can accomplish anyways. He doesn't have the money or the resources that Bruce did.

[doubleohfive]

SG-17 wrote:

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I loved it. Loved that President Henry Hayes from Stargate SG-1 was the President in the Dark Knight Rises.

Did you happen to catch Teal'c in there too? He was the terrorist fighting Blake toward the end of the movie, just before Batman returns.

[Donald Draper]

I am not jumping hoops. We will never know what we don't see outside of the film. Past present and future. This probably the end of this version. The name does not matter. If they called him Dick Grayson him being a new take on Robin would have been known a long time ago. Also Bruce's retirement/fake death.

I like that the movie leaves the future vague. We don't know for surethat Bruce is done forever as Batman. Or if he and Selina will stay together. What happens to Robin Blake. Its open for speculation. We will never know. Its either a definite ending to Bruce as Batman or an end to this chapter in his life, with no sequels.

[Agent Richard07]

The movie's midnight showing brought in an estimated $30.6 million. That's the second highest take after Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, which brought in $43.5 million on it's midnight opening. The Avengers brought in $18.7 million.

Admiral2 wrote:

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I caught a lot of flak for dissing Anne Hathaway's performance before seeing the movie. I'm happy to say I was wrong. Looks like somebody spent a few days studying Michelle Pfeiffer in Batman Returns.

She based her performance on Hedy Lamarr. Read about it here. And who knows, maybe she did study Pfeiffer since she thinks of her Catwoman as iconic.

[Samurai8472]

Just got back. Sorry "Amazing Spider-man" but I think this movie's going to steal your "Amazing" part

My sporadic thoughts

I was surprised a how little Gary Oldman and Michael Caine there was in this movie.

Gordon's in the hospital for the majority of the film. Alfred has left Bruce.

With these reduction we get a bigger role for Morgan Freeman which was nice btw.


I could understand 90% of what Bane said. The stadium was crystal clear. The sewer fight was a bit hard as was the prison speech.

It almost felt as if Bane voice was disembodied. Sideeffect of redubbing it too much now.

The voice doesn't even sound like it's there in the scene.

Speaking of that. I could not understand some of Oldman's dialog while he was at Blake apartment.


Was it me or did it sound like some people were hurrying through their dialog. Especially during the opening and the Harvey Dent celebration at Wayne Manor.

The back break of Batman was brutal.

I'm a bit sad we'll never see Joseph Gordon Levitt take up the mantle. Maybe in a hypothetical 4th movie Bruce returns.

I was a bit surprised at how fast John Blake just blurts out "I know you're Batman"

Alfred's extensive knowledge of Bane was a bit too convienent

There were alot of allusions to "Rising"

Nolan went all out with the CGI for the Bat. It felt like a character even without the autopilot


I could have done without Gordon learning Batman's identity.

Anne Hathaway did an alright job as Selina/Catwoman

Hathaway- I'm sorry you lost all your money

Bruce- No you're not


More thoughts to come as I digest the movie

[CaptainCanada]

Donald Draper wrote:

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We don't know for surethat Bruce is done forever as Batman.

The movie's pretty clear that he is done forever. He faked his death and moved away, and is living out the scenario Alfred envisioned for him.

[Donald Draper]

But for 8 years he thought he was done too. Can he walk away from that for good? Who knows. I agree that was the point though.

The only problem I had with the movie is what did he really achieve as Batman? The movie's trying for the weight and significance of being a final adventure. Like The Dark Knight Returns. But here due to all those years in Wayne Manor doing nothing, he really had a short career as Batman.

[SG-17]

Admiral2 wrote:

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-And speaking of, enough with the "Roz Al Ghul" shit. It's "Resh." The guys who made him up said it's "Resh." Roz sounds so uneducated, like everybody's thinking "Duuuh, I have to say it like it's wrote cause it's one of them furner names!"

This is the part that bothered me the most. I see TDKR and they all say "Ras/Roz" and then I watch the Batman TAS episode "The Demon's Quest" and they say it "Resh", correctly, every time.

[Lapis Exilis]

The Dark Knight Rises has some flaws as a movie, but as a Batman tale, especially for those of us raised up on the Dark Knight as invented in the 70s and reinvented in the 80s, this like the others, was remarkably satisfying.


Nolan is a cold movie maker - his films rarely involve characters with whom the audience deeply identifies, and TDKR is no different. While the characters are often enjoyably constructed, they are characters, not people. Fair enough - it is superhero land after all, so no one should expect multi-faceted human characters. Here, his coolness results in a slightly off feeling during the first half of the movie. We are plunged into Gotham, where the characters are moving about and speak of having deep feeling over what has happened in the city, but that emotion, even for Bruce Wayne, doesn't really reach the audience.


But it's not much of a problem - rare is the Batman story in any medium that treats with character in any multifaceted way (Gotham Central notwithstanding). Badassedness generally suffices, and does here. Interestingly, this movie tends to turn on femal badassedness - it is Selina Kyle's jump out the window of Wayne Manor that really incites the whole story.


I never cared much for Bane as a villain, and didn't particularly care for him here. He's very one-note. The retired badass being brought back into the game is a fairly cliched storyline, but it suffices surely enough as the plot is carefully set up, and set up, and set up. I wasn't bored, but my engagement was largely intellectual - where will this lead, how does this piece fit in?


Surprising then that the payoffs felt so delightful. Whatever his shortcomings, Nolan gets Batman in this way - at its core Batman is about the will to strive to overcome ones own pain for a greater good. That's a good story and a good hero. I actually felt that element was missing from TDK, so that while it was a good police procedural, it lacked some heart. Here, the set up all works around in wonderful ways - for a Batman fan at least. I truly wonder how this movie plays for someone not steeped in the mythology. I was able to appreciate how the story wove together DKR and No Man's Land and Knightfall, how it reworked Talia as cleverly as BBegins had reworked Ra's (finally a Talia I can get behind, who doesn't slavishly give herself heart and soul to men who devalue her, but is a fiendishly clever villain in her own right!)


Selina Kyle I also appreciated as her own character. Even though there were half-hearted attempts to keep the romantic element between she and Bruce Wayne, it didn't fly, mostly because the chemistry between them was intellectual and moral, not sexual. All in all an excellent interpretation of Catwoman, mostly because it didn't try too hard.


The weaving together of Bruce's rise from the prison with Bane/ Talia's backstory worked very well, though I'll agree with some other posters that the pacing of it within the movie felt a bit off. The climactic battle scenes had great emotional payoff - I see why critics praise the second half of the film.


As for John Blake, he is from start to finish the heart of this story. It is, should they choose to make it so, his origin story - and a damn good one. Names matter little - the filmmakers had to drop that one in a way the broader audience would understand, so calling him Dick Grayson would not have worked (though my heart skipped a beat hoping for it when he said, perhaps its under my birth name...) Gordon-Levitt, one of my favorite actors, was perfectly cast.


As for Bruce Wayne's ending - for a moment I really thought they might kill him off, so kudos for keeping that suspense in the air. His denouement worked - though honestly more for Alfred's sake than for his own. In the grand tradition of Batman, I never felt that Bale's Wayne could or would end up happy - it is simply not that character's fate.


All in all, I couldn't be happier with Nolan's trilogy - but then his vision and my favorite things about Batman have always lined up.