Spoiler-rific Dark Knight Rises *****/moan/praise thread

[zelda2fanboy]

Here's another nitpick and this one is more from a filmmaking perspective (and I've never made a movie). They have the scenes where Batman and Gordon are planning to take back Gotham and everything. So they go through the whole plan and explain what they are going to do... and then they do it without too much trouble. Unless it's a movie like The Killing where they explain how the plot is supposed to work and then show how the plot goes bad, why bother running through it with the audience beforehand? Most movies tend to go "okay boys, here's what we're gonna do." Then it fades to black and they do it. Seems like they could have saved some time there, but then again, I'm just some dude. Pretentious complaint is pretentious. I won't feel like that's an actual "problem" until I see the movie a second time.

And this movie is definitely worth a second viewing. Anyone else feel like the action sequences were slightly better than the previous movies? The first had the jittery shaky cam and the second had the weird editing (see Jim Emerson video on google), but this one seemed the most balanced and had the best sense of weight and space. The shots seemed to be held longer and you could tell what was going on easier. Less ambitious maybe, but I don't know, "better" from a story perspective.

 

[Luna]

A minor detail not many people have brought up... Why 8 years later? 8 years seems like a while. I guess it would give some logic to the timeframe of Joseph Gordan Levitt seeing Bruce as a kid then growing up and becoming a cop.

 

[Froggy Slayer]

Seriously, I am willing to forgive absolutely any flaws that this movie had if it's setting up a Batman Beyond movie.

 

[FalloutJack]

Nope, sorry. I can't possibly listen to anyone bad-mouthing the movie. Not over all the CHEERING AND CLAPPING after the movie was over. I'm calling it worthy material and then bowing out of this discussion.

 

[Launcelot111]

Not a great movie by any stretch. A perfectly fine movie, but the worst superhero movie of the summer and Christopher Nolan's worst movie (that I've seen).

Anne Hathaway and Joseph Gordon-Levitt were great in their roles and were the best parts of the movie. Gary Oldman continues to be good. Michael Caine was good in his bits, but it was odd to just ship Alfred off mid-film and bring him back for a couple cheesy and meatless scenes at the end. Christian Bale was underwhelming. Marion Cotillard's presence in the entire film was filler and a distraction. Who was she in the first place, and why was she given control of Wayne Enterprises? And then the big reveal just muddies everything up more. Bane was hard to read, and the big reveal made him immediately obsolete.

The action scene at the beginning was fantastic, and the scenes of stuff blowing up were cool, but all the Batman-related punching and shooting weren't great. And to think the cops beat all the Blackgate guys with the AK-47s (even after Talia mowed through them) is a great stretch of credulity.

Plot-wise, Bane's plan was a mess. Why make a great upheaval of the people if you're just going to sentence everyone to death anyway? The presence of Ras al Ghul in the story was a travesty. Was the goal of the League of Shadows to kill everyone? Does that "restore balance"? The suggestion that Bane was Ras's son and the eventually appearance of Talia just muddied the plan more. What everyone else was doing in the meantime were interesting, but Bane's ability to appear anywhere no matter how off-limits it should be was a big part of the mess.

The ending was wrong in every storytelling way. I don't want to get into it, but there wasn't a redeeming part.

All in all, it had its good parts, but there was just too much, and it was poorly stitched together

 

[Sean Hollyman]

Nope, sorry. I can't possibly listen to anyone bad-mouthing the movie. Not over all the CHEERING AND CLAPPING after the movie was over. I'm calling it worthy material and then bowing out of this discussion.

This, all this negative stuff is threatening to hurt my amazing feelings for this movie.

 

[applesandoranges]

edit

 

[Kolby Jack]

Yea, I watched moviebob's review before seeing it, and I really disagree with all of his points on flaws in the movie other than pacing. Yea, the pacing was skittish at times, but I was still fully able to follow the plot pretty easy.

But then he says Bane shares nothing but a name with his comic book counter-part? Did... did he read the comics?

Spoiler: BANE

Bane is smart as hell. Check
Bane is strong as hell. Check
Bane is talkative as hell. Check
Bane was born and raised in a harsh, vicious prison. Check
Bane breaks all the criminals out of Stonegate Penitentiary. Check
Bane figures out Batman's identity. Check
Bane breaks Batman's back (but he gets better). Check
Bane becomes an associate of Ra's al Ghul. Check (he was his heir in the comics, though not in his introduction, and he was his pretend heir in the film)

So really they didn't make him THAT different to his comic book counterpart at all other than the race lift and the plot details like being friends with Talia or trying to blow up the city. Usually Bob has his facts straight, but I can't really see how he came to his conclusion about Bane at all. :/

The only thing I really thought was stupid about the ending was... Robin. Really? His NAME is Robin? Why not name him Dick? Or Tim? Or Terry? Why Robin? That's just dumb.

Still though, loved it.

 

[twistedmic]

I think at one point they referred to it as a "neutron bomb" which would account for the lack of a major tsunami... but it would emit so much radiation that it would still kill a lot of people that distance at sea.

Yep, magic future bomb. I'll go with that.

It was a fusion bomb, not neutron or fission. And it wasn't really a bomb, it was a jury-rigged fusion reactor.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

They keep calling Ra's Raaz, instead of Raish!

It was a very good movie, but it was structurally all over the place, and it suffered from Spiderman 3 too many villain syndrome. Also, some rather undignified and weightless deaths.

 

[MisterGobbles]

I think it was very entertaining, but it was very much a mess. Things felt like they were being done to move the plot, and not organically, and I didn't really feel for the characters. And a lot of the time, it was just...boring. That said, the overall plot with the annexing of Gotham was pretty cool.

 

[The_Blue_Rider]

4. Bruce retiring is a nice send-off, but it seems like kind of a dick move to pull on old Alfred. Of course, this is the same film franchise where they let Gordon's family believe he was dead for no good reason at all.

5. Gordon-Levitt is a fine actor and a worthy inheritor of the Batman role (if they do indeed choose to carry on this mythology instead of just doing a full reboot), but...he's kind of little.

4. On further reflection, I can sort of see why he didn't reconnect with Alfred. In theory, the League of Shadows is still out there somewhere, so it would be in everyone's best interests to assume that Bruce Wayne/Batman is dead (don't forget, the League of Shadows knows who Batman is/was). I mean, he killed Bane and Talia, but he also killed Ra's, so you never know. It was interesting though how the Ra's hallucination/thing seemed to provide new information to the plot. I guess he could have just heard it on the TV or from the doctor and it got jumbled in his mind.

5. I hope he goes Nightwing because if he does, we might have a chance at a fully realized Batgirl / Barbara Gordon.

Another question: The only reason Wayne would ever shack up with Catwoman is if she was fully reformed and quit stealing. So... what do they do for money? He's lost everything and even if he didn't, he couldn't get at it because he's in hiding. I imagine Selina Kyle would also have to be in hiding to avoid the wrath of the League of Shadows.

Also, about the bomb. Everyone looks at the flash, which would blind them in real life. I know it's just a movie, but they even mentioned that in True Lies with Tom Arnold yelling "don't look at the flash, don't look at the flash."

'

I was thinking Levitt could go Nightwing as well. But still him as Batman could work, I mean Tom Hardy is only an inch taller than him (Levitt is 5'9, Hardy is 5'10), and he is imposing as fuck in Rises.

Like when I saw Bane he just looked massive

 

[The_Blue_Rider]

They keep calling Ra's Raaz, instead of Raish!

It was a very good movie, but it was structurally all over the place, and it suffered from Spiderman 3 too many villain syndrome. Also, some rather undignified and weightless deaths.

Im pretty sure they realized their mistake, but after Ra's referring to himself as Raaz, itd seem kinda weird for everyone to start calling him Raish

 

[Zenn3k]

It was good, entertaining, actual closure.

Little slow though, MB is right the pacing is kinda poor. I would have preferred to leave the whole "retired" part out of the movie.

Bane was good, glad they added that extra volume to his voice, seemed a little unrealistic, but worked for the movie.

"Scarecrow" as the judge was a nice touch. I dunno how I feel about Selena Kyle and Bruce Wayne being a couple...they don't know each other at ALL at that point, seemed a bad idea...or was that just Alfred's imagination...? It did happen pretty much exactly as he described it to Bruce.

Anyway, I liked it. Sucks for the shooting victims

 

[TerribleAssassin]

2. I find it unlikely that Wayne could have rehabilitated a brutally broken back in dirty prison in such a short period of time. Also, he looked pretty well fed. Who was supplying these prisoners with food and water? They live in a hole..

It's implied that the Wayne's back wasn't broken, but dislocated, meaning he wouldn't be a paraplegic for the rest of the film. And also, said section is supposed to take months but the leaps in time are barely mentioned.

However my problems are:

1) I remember Bane's mask is to supply pain-reliving gas for a back injury, but then when Talia makes her big reveal, Bane is shown with a bandaged face, implying that the mask is there to cover facial scarring, when did this change?

2) As mentioned before, the time jumps do make the film seem epic, but they're barely shown, with the only obvious one being a Gotham suddenly covered in snow.

However, fucking epic movie, everyone should see it.

 

[Vanitas likes Bubbles]

I really liked the movie. Sure some of it was contrived and Bane gets overshadowed at the end but a good movie is still good. Also, as much as I liked Scarecrows cameo, why wasn't there a Joker cameo? Bane busts every criminal in Gotham out, surely the Joker was in that prison (yes, yes, Heath Ledger is dead but he wouldn't have needed a speaking role).

 

[zelda2fanboy]

I really liked the movie. Sure some of it was contrived and Bane gets overshadowed at the end but a good movie is still good. Also, as much as I liked Scarecrows cameo, why wasn't there a Joker cameo? Bane busts every criminal in Gotham out, surely the Joker was in that prison (yes, yes, Heath Ledger is dead but he wouldn't have needed a speaking role).

Yeah, it would have been cool to at least acknowledge it. In my imagination, the Joker just disappeared into the ether after Dark Knight. He came from nowhere and he went back to nowhere... but a line to that effect could have been useful. If they keep the Nolan-verse going with different directors / Nightwing / Batman Beyond, it feels like they could very well bring the character back. They never even knew the Joker's real "identity" in the Dark Knight, so one could raise the question of "is this the same guy or just a copycat?" If he's creating just as much mayhem, it wouldn't matter. Also, Harley Quinn in a movie would be great.

The whole idea regarding "no one else can play the Joker now because we have to respect Heath Ledger" is so weird, considering his last movie Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus they had other actors finish his scenes. It was like "Um, he looks different here because" and that was it. (I thought that was a good movie, too.)

 

[Lovely Mixture]

Can we use this as the general criticism thread for the movie? The other threads are too polarizing and are MovieBob threads.

I agree that this was Nolan's weakest film, but I still heavily enjoyed it.

Not gonna use spoiler tags for obvious reasons:

THE GOOD

Catwoman: Hathaway was very fun to watch. I was very skeptical of her, but she played this role wonderfully.

Bane: Tom Hardy's Bane is very interesting, but not without criticism.

The acting: Michael Caine's performance is one of the most emotional I've seen.


THE BAD

Pacing: The first half rushes you with information. Other than the opening scene, there is no build-up to Bane being a threat and doesn't characterize him as much as say the the Joker.

Silly stories ideas:
1. Bane taking Batman to fucking Morocco (IMDB says it's Mexico, but all evidence to me suggests an Arabic country, along with "deshi basara").
2. Timer on the bomb.
3. Introducing the Special Forces guys, only to have them killed off immediately
4. Blake being able to discern Batman's identity from the emotional connection (arguably reasonable for some though)
5. Bane using Gordon's letter as an unnecessary device. The contrived sequence of him acquiring the letter would be forgive-able if the letter was of any importance, but he has no proof that Gordon wrote the letter.

Reveals at bad times: Gordon revealing that Bane is from the League of Shadows 10 minutes of the movie. Talia within the last 10 minutes of the movie.

Romance feels shoe-horned in.

Overuse of flashbacks at points.

 

[Unsilenced]

I know this is a minor gripe, but was anyone else annoyed by the scene where a few dozen criminals all with high-caliber automatic weapons open fire on the dense pack of mostly unarmored cops and only...what, 3 die? And then, still clutching their fully loaded automatic weapons, they all engage in hand-to-hand combat?

I know that's pretty much standard Hollywood, but to me it just made the whole scene seemed silly. They had a bunch of guys with automatic weapons all fighting like they were 18th century light infantrymen. Or maybe they were just all terminators. Fuck if I know.

I'm not sure why that one stood out more than all the other stuff everyone's been pointing out.


EDIT: Bane reading the letter also pissed me off. I mean come on, there's absolutely no way of anyone watching to verify that. He might as well have added "Also I'm a huge ****** lol" at the end of it. Who would know?