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

To the posters that think the citizens of Gotham wouldn't go all anarchic, have you ever seen footage from the L.A. riots?

 

Well it's not like falling several storyes onto a moving van in the first movie was healthy. And I guess you forgot how badly beaten he was after only one night in the first movie, he slept for hours. We have no idea how much punishment he took in between the first two movies.

 

I thought it was a great movie, and Anne Hathaway really stole the show. That being said, though...

Batman was really hard to understand at times, and the police tactics in this movie were pathetic. It's pure idiocy to march 3 thousand men toward heavily-armed mercenaries. In real life, the police would have died in a hail of bullets.

 

I saw The Dark Knight Rises today and thought it was excellent. Although critics say that The Dark Knight, starring Heath Ledger as the Joker was undoubtedly the best in Nolan's trilogy, I feel that I liked this one the best. The story was much more coherent and more cohesive; TDK to me was like watching a miniseries condensed into a single movie. The storytelling was all over the place and overshadowed by the Joker's presence.

Christian Bale carries himself as a tormented and isolated soul. As billionaire Bruce Wayne, who has lived in seclusion for a long time, he also bemoans the long absence of his alter-ego, the Batman, who is accused of murdering Harvey Dent, Gotham City's golden boy-turned-psychotic criminal. It's not until the appearance of a professional thief named Selina Kyle and the threat of a vicious masked villain named Bane, who's intent on destroying Gotham City, that Bruce Wayne springs back into action as the Dark Knight.

"There's a storm coming, Mr. Wayne. ... When it hits, you're all going to wonder how you could live so large and leave so little for the rest of us," warns Ms. Kyle.

Anne Hathaway does a very good job as Catwoman, although she's never called that during the movie. I only wish her character had been more fleshed out. She sees herself as a bit of a modern-day Robin Hood, and yet she doesn't really give to the poor after stealing from the rich. She has her own agenda, and yet there are some redeeming qualities about her.

Tom Hardy, who transformed himself into a husky, menacing figure, Bane, is a different kind of villain from the Joker in The Dark Knight. Bane's plans are more politically motivated, although no less sinister, while Joker's psychotic character was the personification of evil.

Michael Caine's performance as Alfred Pennyworth, Bruce Wayne's faithful butler and only family, was among my favorite in the movie. He's a fatherly gentleman figure who provides wisdom and guidance to Bruce. "Gotham City needs Bruce Wayne, not Batman." And he reminds me a lot of an old friend I have in real life.

Overall, the movie makes a social commentary on the haves and have-nots, telling a good story of social injustice, although we know that in the real world, not everything is black-and-white. Growing up poor or having had a tough childhood doesn't necessarily turn one into a deranged criminal; in fact, it turns others into heroes like Bruce Wayne ... and Detective John Blake.

Overall Rating: A

 

I don't think so as all the people who rioted were dressed in the outfits that Bane's people wore. The only other people we saw with guns were the prisoners, never any citizens. None of them looked particularly inspired when Bane told them to rise up, either, so I don't think we're supposed to read that Gotham went crazy. Whenever we saw citizens, which was rare, they always looked scared shitless.

 

Yes I have, and they were inspired (right or wrongly) by intense anger over the Rodney King beatings and perceived injustice at treatment by the cops.

There's nothing in this movie to suggest the people of Gotham have nearly as much to be angry about.

 

I thought it sounded ridiculous as hell early on, but after awhile I kinda got used to it.

 

^ I absolutely loved Bane's voice right from the get-go. It really made the character, and I had no trouble understanding anything he said, nor did the voice sound odd or disembodied in any way to me. It sounded like he was talking though something over his mouth, which he was.

That's pretty much it. You answered your own question.

 

Didn't Bane say something about keeping their hope up only to ultimately crush it?

 

And tada



You've probably seen it already though

 

Yeah, but I'm not quite sure where the "hope" part came in. The people knew from the very start that Bane had himself a nuclear bomb.

It's not like he withheld that knowledge and let everyone believe they could run wild and steal anything they wanted without consequence (which would have made a lot more sense, frankly).

 

In the end Bane and his crew were just assholes spouting off crap to rationalize their actions. The agenda was to destroy Gotham as a symbol of western decadence and corruption. The fact a lot of innocents would be killed as well is just too bad. It's no different from the 9/11 attacks with the "rationalizations" behind those. Behind it all is just hatred papered over with an excuse.

My issues with this film are mostly quibbles, but I do have a few reservations. Mainly the lack of nuance.

- Gotham is almost crime free after eight years and certainly free of organized crime and corruption. This a big one to swallow.
- Batman/Bruce hangs it up after the events of TDK. This paints him as emotionally weak and defeated after being Batman for only about a year or so. This doesn't ring true with the Batman of the comics or the character shown in the previous films. Batman/Bruce can be hurt, but he's resilient and perseveres. And this is contradicted late in the film when someone says has been fighting for years. So which one is it?
- Practically all the cops go underground and get trapped down there? Another biggee to swallow.
- Bane's and Talia's supposed agenda rings hollow because of Gotham's current peaceful state. It would have had more credibility if the city were more like it was in the previous two films. No one amonsgt the citizenry looked particularly unhappy and ready to stage a revolution.

This story is basically a comic book version of 9/11, but it's told in such broad and simplistic strokes that lack the nuance of reality. Not much grey here. I still quite like the film, but it does stumble.

 

Fear works just as well as anger.

 

I think there were a few shots of normal citizens being inducted into Bane's army of thugs. His few hundred men certainly couldn't have held control of the city themselves.

 

Yeah, it was a bad Connery, with Eastern European overtones. The overdubbing wasn't positioned well in the mix either - in trying for an expansive effect, it ended up sounding like someone off screen was saying Banes lines for him...

 

There were a few scenes where it worked really well and a few that it didn't work at all. The effect they used on it was very inconsistent.

 

I'm writing this before I get around to reading the rest of the thread, so I apologize if I step over ground already covered.

Overall Impression: A good movie, not as good as The Dark Knight, but still a good movie. I voted excellent on the polls.

Little and Not So Little Things:

• Maybe its because its the one thing I read from the reviews, but I did feel the movie dragged here and there. Though having read the "Should DKR be a two parter" thread, I think that problem could have been solved by splitting into two movies and stretching out "No Man's Land."
• I am the only disappointed that the President wasn't at least a bald guy?
• I completely missed that Tate was really Talia and wonder how I missed it.
• I think Blake was too close to Drake, especially with Bane breaking the Bat's back. I spent the first half of the movie wondering if I heard the name right and the second half wondering when Blake would put on a mask. They did it right with Robin, but a less obvious name may been better.
• Judge Crane. 'Nuff Said.
• Maybe this was in the comics, but who in there right mind would put a maximum security prison in the middle of an island city?
• Was Gotham so obviously Manhattan in the first two films?
• After having the people on the boat not blow up the prisoners in TDK, I was surprised at how quickly they made the people of Gotham turn the city to shit.
• I'm not sure what burst Nolan's realism to me more: the fusion reactor cum neutron bomb or Bane's army of seemingly competent and loyal mercenaries.
• The series seems complete to me and flows pretty well with the League of Shadows' attempt to destroy Gotham essentially creating the whole series. (Ra's makes Wayne able to become Batman, Bats defeat Ra's, Joker escalates, Talia and Bane try to complete Ra's plan. The End)---But I still would have liked to see a Nolan Penguin

 

Yeah the ADR with Bane's voice just wasn't mixed or layered well into the movie. Compare this here where you're looking at a Bane's face with all of this subtle noise in the movie, the "on-set" voices of other people and then Bane comes in and says, "YOU'RE GOIN' TO BE GOTHAM'S RECK'NING!" and then think of how, say. Darth Vader's voice is dubbed into the Star Wars Trilogy.

And the accent was just.. Odd. It didn't bother me quite as much as it has others, and never felt the Connery connection but looking back I can hear it. But it didn't seem to "fit" the character and it didn't sound like Hardy's natural voice.

 

The actors voices where barely audible over the music in my viewing of the film, they seemed so muted
Adding Banes garbled voice to the mix was a real detraction from my enjoyment.

My friend who I went to see it with wondered when the subtitled version would be released.

 

its too bad that alot of you had trouble hearing the actors, especially Hardy. In the theatre i was at, i could hear everyone just fine.