Movies: The Dark Knight Rises

On Wednesday I got to watch the wonderful conclusion to the Nolan Batman series.

Did it live up to the hype? It certainly did. But of course everybody asks, "Well, will it be as good as The Dark Knight?"

No.

Heath Ledger did a bang up job on The Joker and I don't think anything can really top that. So let's just... like... leave it at that. The Dark Knight Rises is its own movie and a good ass one at that.

The Dark Knight Rises takes place eight years after the events of The Dark Knight. Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) is currently laying low, without spoiling anything from The Dark Knight (also if you haven't watched The Dark Knight at this point, then you're just being silly), because Gotham City is in peace time and they don't need Batman right now.

Then Bane (Tom Hardy) comes along and starts messing with stuff, essentially throwing Gotham City into disarray with the whole notion that the rich must be knocked down several pegs. So now Batman's gotta CLR the rust and get going so he can stop this Noob-Saibot-Mask-Wearing-Terrorist-Mastermind-Beefcake.

Like most Christopher Nolan movies, he shoves you in media res and expects you to figure it out as the movie plays out. Granted it wasn't too hard to understand, but some things just didn't make sense up until the ending of the movie.

Even for a two and a half hour movie this movie felt very "straight to the point". Like conversations. I'm used to listening to characters banter about so and so until they actually get to the point.

One thing that I wanna pick at is: Christopher Nolan must be messing with us. When his characters talk, they always seem like they have to pop out, not only in actions, but also vocally.

Every time you hear Bruce Wayne talk, he's fine.

Every time you hear Batman talk, he sounds like he's been trapped in a desert for eight months and all that he had to sustain himself with was 100 cartons of cigarettes.

This time around we have Bane who sounds like an old eccentric billionaire talking through a 1940s AM radio station.

It was to the point where every time Bane started talking, all 13 of my IQ points had to adjust itself to understand Bane and his radio play filter voice. Basically 79% of the time Bane started talking, I would miss what he would say.

But hey, it's a fresh take on Bane right? They could've just copped out and just made Bane have an angry muffled growl the entire time.

At first I thought the addition of Catwoman was gonna taint the movie a bit. But Anne Hathaway played it off very well. Maybe it's just me but I've had a crush on her since Get Smart.

Catwoman was something of a middle point in regards to morals. On one hand she's a cat burgler, who will do whatever it takes to get that $$$. But on the other hand, she will only steal from the extremely wealthy. Sorta like Robin Hood, but instead she takes from the rich and gives to herself.

What I love about every Nolan movie is how you're left in a suspense with a dash of confusion throughout the entire film, but by the end of it, he ties everything together.

Naturally TDKR was no different.

Everything I had said earlier were the only gripes I had with the movie. Aside from that this movie was bueno with a very satisfying ending to the series.

Of all the rebuilds of Batman, The Dark Knight series truly captures the darkness that surrounds Batman. It's the closest a comic book movie can get to reality without having the over-the-top comic book feel.



Should you go see it? Absolutely.

Comic book movies always suffered from this stigma where they would seem too over the top and cheesy or that they'd be horribly off from the original material making the die hard fans lose a part of their souls every time somebody mentions it.

The Dark Knight series shows that comic book movies can be done extremely well if you spend the time into such a thing as opposed to just making a movie about whatever just for the sake of making it.

Case and Point
The Dark Knight Rises is: The unofficial film of the 99%.