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

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

This review is very short and very funny!

"Mmmph blrrg grug Batman glogg freedom raaar!" -Christian Bane, The Dark Knight Rises


The movie's gimp mask-wearing, MMA fighter-like villain no doubt has many profound things to say. But he talks like he's got an Egg McMuffin lodged in his trachia, so you're left to guess as to his motives for destroying a city, trapping every single police officer in a sewer, beating up Batman and rocking a smelly tanktop.

Bane stands as a symbol for his movie, which may as well be called The Dark Knight Bloats. Christopher Nolan followed up his two Caped Crusader masterpieces with a dud of a finale that, like Bane, is giant, slow-moving, talks too much and doesn't have a heck of a lot of reason to exist.
The movie runs a little long at nearly three hours, but I recommend taking a nap for an hour or so in the middle to make it pass quicker. Nolan helps you out with that by making the mid-section into a sort of cinematic lullaby that rocks you to sleep with board meetings, emo conversations and many, many, many scenes that do not show Batman being Batman.
This is not a movie to watch if you'd care to see Batman in action, doing Batman-like things like catching crooks or swooping down and punching people in the back of the head. The first act is mostly a poetry slam of one character after another reciting expositional monologues about how and why Batman has been away for eight years, and why that's a good thing or a bad thing.
Bruce Wayne is holed up in his stately manor, which really should be called Wayne's World, limping around with a cane like Willy Wonka when he first appears in his 1970s movie. Bruce Wayne has made some questionable business decisions, such as hiring Catwoman (Anne Hathaway) as a maid and spent all his money on a nuclear fusion bomb that could either provide the world an eternity of free energy or explode the city, depending on who's got it at the time.


You know how Bruce Wayne always kept it a deep, dark, double secret that he was Batman? Well, he's pretty much done with that now, willing to have a heart to heart about it with a cop (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) he's just met. Bane also knows, probably because he's — as Rush Limbaugh has cleverly deduced -- a stand-in for Mitt Romney, and figured it out because he's best pals with many billionaires. Also, I'm pretty sure Catwoman figures it out, unless Batman has a special Bat-kiss that differentiates his Bruce Wayne smooching experience.
It doesn't really matter that people know Bruce Wayne is Batman because he doesn't want to be Batman anymore. It takes a heck of a lot of boringness to get him back in his suit, and shortly thereafter something bad happens and he's no longer Batman again until just in time at the very end.
If I'm being a little hard on the movie, it's because I expected so much more from it, and because it does a great job of reminding you how good the other two were by flashing back to scenes from those films again and again. The point of the flashbacks is to restate profound philosophical points from those movies, I guess to avoid having to come up with any new ones of its own.
The Dark Knight Rises isn't awful and is perfectly watchable, but just doesn't make much sense or build upon the groundwork laid by the earlier movies. It's this series' version of The Matrix Revolutions, The Godfather Part III or Caddyshack 2. Nolan's other Batman movies were stylish, deep, exciting and shocking. This one is just content to sort of hang out on the porch and watch the cars pass by.
I'll close with a quote from Bane: "Mrkl mumf unite argyle frankensense blarg."
The words are as true today as they were during the midnight screening.

It's a good movie. However, it practically begged for a review like this.

[Set Harth]

TDKR "criticism" has been in RLM territory for some time now.

First of all, the motivation of the villains is a bullshit problem. In their motivation the villains of this film are essentially no different from any number of movie villains over the years, including BB. And no one ever had an issue with "motivation" in those cases... just this one. You might as well say "this movie violated fundamental rules of filmmaking that I made up myself". You might as well say "TDKR changed the Force".

Bane also knows, probably because he's — as Rush Limbaugh has cleverly deduced -- a stand-in for Mitt Romney

Don't tell me - you're just joking. At least that would explain a theory contradicted by the fact that this movie was finished shooting before Romney was even the nomney.

Also, I'm pretty sure Catwoman figures it out, unless Batman has a special Bat-kiss that differentiates his Bruce Wayne smooching experience.

She heard Bane call him "Mr. Wayne", but don't let that get in the way of your much more entertaining kissing theory.

[Warped9]

Regardless of what one thinks of TDKR it's on track to make some decent money despite a somewhat stumbling start.

[Mr. Adventure]

I think part of the problem is people try to understand Bane's motivations but I don't think they really make much sense except as Talia's stooge but that isn't revealed to the end. He seems like this guy with some higher purpose but in the end he's just pissing in everyone's corn flakes for as long as he can.

[Saul]

JarodRussell wrote:

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I doubt they will be able to get all the actors (especially Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman and Gary Oldman) back unless Nolan produces/writes the script or they get a shitload of money thrown at them.

Caine has said in Empire magazine he would come back as Alfred even if it was a reboot.

[Donald Draper]

Saul wrote:

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Caine has said in Empire magazine he would come back as Alfred even if it was a reboot.

I would be very happy with that. With these quickie reboots its hard for actors in the supporting parts to really make the characters their own in the little time they have. If Judi Dench could continue as M past the Bond reboot why not similar in Superhero films.

In future Spider-man sequels it would be nice if J.K. Simmons returns as J. Jonah Jameson.

It has happened before. Noel Neill was the first actress to play Lois Lane in live action for the Superman serials. Later when the first Superman series began it was a full reboot with new cast. But after the first season new Lois Lane actress Phyllis Coates left the show. So the producers brought back Noel Neill to the part and she continued for the rest of the series.

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

11 things that didn't work in TDKR

and more things

[JoeZhang]

Just saw it last night - it's an interesting if not particularly enjoyable (in that I wouldn't be that interested in seeing it again) film - couple of points:

1) The Hallucination of Ra's seems to be wearing the same suit as when he first appears in the prison scene in Batman begins

2) When Bruce visits Gordon in the hospital he is wearing a ski-mask very similarly or the same as the one he wears when they first met in Batman begins.

3) Hey look it's Christopher Judge (Teal'c) as "Henchman 17"!

[Agent Richard07]

Mr. Adventure wrote:

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I think part of the problem is people try to understand Bane's motivations but I don't think they really make much sense except as Talia's stooge but that isn't revealed to the end. He seems like this guy with some higher purpose but in the end he's just pissing in everyone's corn flakes for as long as he can.

I eventually settled on this as well. He did have a plan, or at least was going along with one (Ra's), but it got lost along the way as he became more of a sadist.

[Locutus of Bored]

Flying Spaghetti Monster wrote:

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and more things

I read that the other day and had some ideas to address some of those issues:

When and how did Bane find out about Batman’s identity and Applied Sciences? -

When Bane and Batman first meet, Bane knows his true identity. He likely learned this from Talia Al Ghul, his boss, who likely learned it from Ra’s Al Ghul, her father. But the timeline doesn’t quite fit. Talia Al Ghul and Bane were trained when Taila was young and escaped the pit. Maybe around 12. She and Bruce seem to be around the same age so, that was about 15 years before Bruce met R’as in his late 20s. Bruce then kills Ra’s mere months later at which point Ra’s finds out Bruce is Batman. So did Ra’s call his daughter at some point in this small window, tell her Bruce is Batman, then give her the idea to become a Wayne Enterprise Board Member (even though the nuclear device didn’t exist yet) as a long con back up if his plan in Batman Begins failed? Seems like there should be a more concrete explanation as this information is crucial.

And even if that’s how it went down, it doesn’t explain how she or Bane knew about the existence of the Applied Sciences wing of Wayne Enterprises, that it was Batman’s armory and its specific location in the building. Yet they do because Bane was building his hideout right below it. Even if the aforementioned identity leak was possible, Lucius Fox himself said Applied Sciences was “completely off the books.”

John Daggett:



Daggett is initially a trusted member of the Wayne Enterprises board who runs a WE subsidiary construction company. After the events of Batman Begins damage the lower levels of Wayne Tower, Lucius Fox needs someone on the inside of Wayne Enterprises who can be trusted to discreetly construct a new Applied Sciences Vault in the new Wayne Enterprises Tower across the street, so he gives Daggett's construction company the task.



Fox also needs Daggett to build:

- A secret elevator from Fox's top floor office to the new Applied Sciences Vault.
- A new concrete Bat bunker at the Gotham docks with pop-up equipment vaults and a concealed elevator big enough to lift the Tumbler up to the surface.
- A "panic room" with Batman's equipment in Bruce Wayne's new penthouse apartment and a secret elevator to the sub-basement so he can sneak out.
- The renovations to Wayne Manor and the new upgrades to the Bat Cave.

So Daggett knows all of Bruce's and Fox's secrets but is willing to keep them to himself in exchange for more power at Wayne Enterprises and ownership of the construction company outright. Lucius agrees.

This partnership remains intact until years later when Bruce has retired Batman and is barely a shell of his former self at Wayne Enterprises. He invests most of the company's money in developing a new fusion reactor, which he hides in his old floodable Bat bunker (notice the bunker is nearly identical to the Bat Bunker in TDK and also is accessed from a secret elevator in the docks next to the river. It would be floodable originally to prevent unauthorized access to Batman's weapons, vehicles, and identity). Then suddenly, after learning that the fusion reactor can be converted into a bomb, Bruce shelves the project and leaves Wayne Enterprises in dire straights financially.

Daggett is furious by this development, so he puts into motion a plan to take over Wayne Enterprises completely and reclaim its former glory. He uses his brother's (yes, I know they just changed the name for the movie) contacts with the Gotham underworld to set up a plan to bankrupt Bruce Wayne and take over the company so he can restart the fusion project. This gets the attention of agents of the League of Shadows who have penetrated Gotham's criminal element again in hopes of continuing their mission to destroy Gotham. This is when Miranda Tate/Talia al Ghul and Bane learn who Bruce is, how they can destroy Gotham with the fusion bomb, and get revenge on Ras's killer all in one sweeping plan. Miranda infiltrates Wayne Enterprises as a board member to be one of the people who can authorize activation of the bomb.

They use Daggett's construction company to dig beneath the Applied Sciences Vault and Gotham Stadium, and to rig the sewers, bridges, and tunnels with explosives in order to turn Gotham into No Man's Land. Daggett only thinks they're digging into the Applied Sciences Vault, but his second in command is working with Bane and keeping their other activities secret. Eventually, after they are no longer needed, Bane kills Daggett and has the second in command sentenced to exile at "judge" Crane's court.

Blake Intuits That Bruce Wayne is Batman -

WTF, dude? First of all, I’m highly skeptical that anyone could “see” just by looking at Bruce Wayne’s face that he was Batman. But even if this were not-at-all implausible, the fact that this development occurs in the first act of the film is a strong indicator of this film’s issues (namely, the need to cram in as much plot development as possible). In any other film, such a reveal would normally come after the end of some sort of prolonged interaction between these two characters, where it might be somewhat understandable that one character saw the truth in the other. Here, they get it out of the way right from the beginning in a fashion so abrupt that it has no emotional resonance whatsoever.

Also, if Blake was able to put this together, wouldn’t other Gothamites have started to put two and two together? As a separate issue, by the end of the film, practically all the main characters already know that Bruce Wayne is Batman. By the time Commissioner Gordon figures it out while Batman is taking off, I didn’t think “Wow, what a revelatory moment!” Rather, I thought, “Oh man, he is so late to the party on this one.”

Remember when Batman saves that little bastard Joffrey from Game of Thrones during the fear toxin rioting in the Narrows during Batman Begins?


(Ned Stark says thanks, Bats)

I'm making that kid post-Crisis Jason Todd. His parents were living in a slum in the Narrows and constantly fighting. Batman gives the kid a pair of his night vision goggles and later after saving them during the riots Rachel calls Batman "Bruce" right in front of him.

So, the kid's dad gets sent to prison, and his mom ODs, which means he gets sent to St. Swithen's Home for Boys where the older John (Robin) Blake also lives. When the kids exchange stories about Batman, the blond kid mentions that he has his night vision goggles, that he met Batman, and that his name is Bruce. Later when Blake first meets Bruce Wayne, he uses his deductive skills (along with seeing the haunted look on his face) to determine that this is the Bruce the kid was referring to and that he is Batman. He simply omitted mentioning the rest of it to Bruce and went for the more personal connection between them.

After TDKR when John/Robin Blake starts to become the new Batman, he could contact Jason Todd and have him become Robin, and perhaps even contact the now adult Barbara Gordon to become Batgirl and eventually Oracle after Joker shoots and paralyzes her after escaping BlackGate Prison during TDKR. Blake will need a team to support him as he initially lacks the training, skills, and resources of Bruce Wayne.

Why Wouldn’t the SEC Just Overturn Bane’s Fraudulent Trades -

I mean, it’s pretty clear that they were done fraudulently, right? Else what the hell did they think Bane was doing there?

They will, eventually. Fox just said it will take some time to sort everything out.

Also, the League of Shadows has used financial means to topple governments before, and has infiltrated the highest levels of governments, so is it not possible that they have people at the SEC who might make things difficult? It would sure explain the too little, too late reaction by the SEC to the short selling and credit default swaps during the credit crunch in 2008 and the subsequent Great Recession. It was the League trying to destroy the world economy.

Christian Bale and Marion Cotillard Have Sex –

On the one hand, yes these are two very attractive individuals. Why shouldn’t they give in to their carnal desires? On the other, more reasonable hand, there is virtually no development in the relationship between these two. They’re running in the rain, then they start making out, then in the next scene they’re naked. If only real-life romance worked like this…

Seriously though, with no emotional attachment to this relationship, Talia’s eventual betrayal is nothing more than a Shyamalan-style twist with no impact behind it. A missed opportunity.

I don't get the complaint here, frankly. Bruce was just destroyed financially, outsmarted by Selina, is physically and mentally in pain, and lost the only friend/mentor/father figure he had in Alfred. Is it not understandable that when he's at his lowest point that he would turn to someone who offered companionship, and who --bonus-- happens to look like Marion Cotillard? You don't need the Riddler to figure this one out.

Plus, did people think Bruce never did anything with all those women he was wining and dining while he was putting on his playboy persona in better days? Sure, he was pining for Rachel too, but I think news would get around town if Gotham's wealthiest bachelor always dropped the women he was dating off at home without sleeping with any of them. He seemed to have some sort of ongoing relationship with the ballerina in TDK. So, it's not like Bruce was a priest or anything.

So Batman is a street artist now? -

After months away, being mentally tortured and physically broken, Bruce Wayne returns to Gotham. He spends the first few hours of what could be the final day in Gotham history getting purposely caught by Bane’s cronies, a huge risk, and then escapes and saves Commissioner Gordon and John Blake with mere seconds to spare. Yet somehow, with this impossibly frightening ticking clock, he finds the time to use gasoline to make a huge Bat symbol on the top of a bridge with the knowledge Gordon will be there, pick up the flare, and light it up. Theatrically is part of Batman’s persona, yes, but it seems like there might have been a better use of his time.

He didn't know Gordon would be there when he initially set up the display, but he knew that was where Bane and the criminal element of Gotham was exiling/executing the wealthy and enemies of the movement, so it was a logical spot to get their attention.

How Does Bruce Wayne Get Back to Gotham? –

How does Bruce Wayne travel back to Gotham in a matter of days with absolutely no resources what-so-ever? No only is he bankrupt, but Alfred has disappeared, he has no identification of any kind which includes the necessary passports to get back into the United States. Even if he somehow gets through customs with no delay, all the entrances to Gotham City are being guarded by Bane’s thugs. The Bat is stuck on a roof of the building where Wayne left it, so he doesn’t have access to his new flying machine. And speaking of which, somehow The Bat has not been discovered in the months Wayne has been exiled in the prison. Are we supposed to believe that no one checked up there during Bane’s occupation? Or maybe that the sheet of camouflage has kept the secrecy? And when Bruce Wayne gets back, how does he know exactly how much time is left on the bomb and where Selina Kyle will be?

First off, he's the goddamn Batman. That's really all you need to know to explain those things. However...

Did they miss the entire first third of Begins where young Bruce drops all of his money and possessions on the spot, hops on a ship heading overseas, and travels the world for the better part of a decade without a dime to his name to learn how the homeless, starving, and the criminal element lives? He knows how to get anywhere in the world without any resources, and how to sneak back into the US on a ship.

In each one of the movies Bruce winds up in Asia either in prison or doing something illegal (in China and India respectively). It's logical to assume he might have some resources staged throughout Asia just in case he needs to make a quick getaway. Hell, the same guys who did the Fulton STARS blimp and hook kidnapping of Lau in Hong Kong were nice enough to lend their white C-130 to Bane to snatch the CIA plane, so clearly they're still in business. Maybe Bruce used his prior relationship with them to bum a ride back to Gotham with the promise of future payment and then parachuted into the city.

Or, Bruce hitched a ride on one of the many food, water, and medical supplies shipments coming into the city to sneak back inside, just like the special forces team did.

As far as where the Bat was hiding, I assume it's atop the building where his penthouse apartment is (the one that must have a secret elevator for him to sneak in and out on), so no one would likely mess with it, at least until someone else bought the apartment, but that wasn't happening during No Man's Land.

[Star Wolf]

Mr. Adventure wrote:

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I think part of the problem is people try to understand Bane's motivations but I don't think they really make much sense except as Talia's stooge but that isn't revealed to the end. He seems like this guy with some higher purpose but in the end he's just pissing in everyone's corn flakes for as long as he can.

It is worse then just Bain. I can understand the lone lizard who wants to force the evolution of the rest of the world. But a suicide cult of a mercenary army willing to stand until they are nuked. Why because people in Gotham City have money, the 1, 10 or 100 percenters, and presumably before they found god they killed people for money

[Locutus of Bored]

JarodRussell wrote:

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Was the side step move done for real? Since Nolan prefers stuff to be done on set.

I think they might have. They definitely did a stunt involving the Bat-Pod shooting out of the alley, because it accidentally blew out a bunch of windows:

Taking over downtown Chicago for 12 weeks was made easier by cooperation from city agencies, but was a difficult proposition. "We were having to close down streets," points out producer Emma Thomas. "They let us take over their financial district at night as long as we were safe, and they made sure that we were," adds producer Charles Roven, though he reveals one mishap invol*ving the Bat-pod cycle.

"It came out of an alley onto the street and created a huge sonic boom that blew out a bunch of windows in a building. That was not planned. But we mobilized glaziers and within 24 hours we had fixed every window."

http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/dark-knight1.htm

They had a full-scale working Bat-Pod that only one stuntman was able to ride because the handling was just too bizarre to figure out and it was dangerous to ride. It had a 360 degree rotating seat and could raise/contract and lower/extend its frame to glide under the Joker's truck, so it seems like they actually included working parts for all the tricks.

Enter the Bat-Pod, a motorcycle-ATV hybrid that lands eye-popping stunts sans CGI, a hand-built bike that fires grappling hooks--while shape-shifting.

After picking through junkyards, a local Home Depot and that surprisingly hands-on garage, Nolan and production designer Nathan Crowley took a month to assemble a foam-and-plastic model for Batman's new ride--enough like the Tumbler, but with a heavy-hauling look of its own. "But to actually have a look at what we were thinking, we went down to Warner [Brothers] and got the front wheels off the Batmobile," Crowley says.

When he first laid eyes on the Bat-Pod mockup, special effects supervisor Chris Corbould wasn't sure if his director actually knew anything about motorcycles. But that's what makes The Dark Knight at once a throwback superhero movie and a green-screen-light breakthrough in digital Hollywood: It turns fantasy into reality. And building a concept vehicle without a team of automotive engineers was one of its biggest challenges. "The gauntlet had been thrown down," Corbould says.

While the filmmakers and Warner Brothers have been tight-lipped about any vehicle specs in the movie, Corbould clearly had to reinvent how a motorcycle's systems make it run. Nolan and Crowley's original sketches had no tailpipe, but anything with a motor needs an outlet for exhaust. Weaving around the bike's carbon-fiber and Kevlar body and steel chassis, the design team built the exhaust system into the frame, ducting it through the hollow steel/aluminum/magnesium tubing. Two months later, the high-performance, water-cooled, single-cylinder engine--geared toward the lower end for faster acceleration--was ready to power the Pod. Only there was another headache: Who in the world could drive this thing?

Bruce Wayne's monster-truck tires worked just fine on the Tumbler, but integrating them with the Bat-Pod's steering system was "totally bizarre," Corbould says. At about 20 in. wide--enough to balance the bike without a kickstand--the wheels didn't look like they would go anywhere but straight ahead. "We skimmed layers of rubber off and then started changing the angles of the steering joints and things like that," says Corbould. But that didn't stop the rear tires from blowing in test after test.

At the suggestion of stunt driver Jean-Pierre Goy, the design team restored the rear tire to its original radius and modified only the front, allowing Goy to control the bike. Still the only one can actually drive the Bat-Pod, Goy refused to drive any regular motorcycles during filming--the Pod was just too one-of-a-kind, too confusing for other on-the-road styles.

In order to give Batman the ability to maneuver under low clearances, the Bat-Pod can physically lower and elongate itself. On set, the front forks extended and the chassis hugged the ground, positioning Goy parallel to the ground--and that's before pulling a 360. "The saddle is free to rotate," Crowley says. "It allows you to do all kinds of odd movement within the frame of the bike."

http://www.popularmechanics.com/tech...ffects/4273883

Here's a gif of the horizontal turn out of the alley for the people who wanted a closer look at how it worked:



Maybe it was mounted on some kind of crane rigging for that stunt, because I don't know how someone could make that turn without falling off or getting crushed.

Now I'm going to have to watch the extra features on TDK to see if they show any of the stunt riding on the Bat-Pod.

[Agent Richard07]

So the whole front, guns and all do spin. I thought it was just the front and back tires alone that did that. That's what I remember.

Locutus of Bored wrote:

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Maybe it was mounted on some kind of crane rigging for that stunt, because I don't know how someone could make that turn without falling off or getting crushed.

I figured it was CGI.

[Locutus of Bored]

Agent Richard07 wrote:

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So the whole front, guns and all do spin. I thought it was just the front and back tires alone that did that. That's what I remember.

I figured it was CGI.

From what I gathered the only part that was CGI was when the Bat-Pod ejects from the Tumbler, because they couldn't get it to work as a practical effect mounted on a frame.

[Agent Richard07]

^ The bat-pod is apparently very hard to maneuver as a real motorcycle, so I can't imagine how they'd pull off some action like that without CGI. At best, it could be a mix of stunt work with some CGI for things like the wheels.