[07/21/2012]
Before I start my review, I give my thoughts and prayers to the victims and
their families at the Aurora, Colorado shootings. It is terrible that to
have a tragedy like this occur on one of the best times a movie-goer has – and
that’s the midnight showing of a new movie. Besides this obvious
pain now inflected on the victims and their families (which I am not putting
down the intensity of their pain and suffering), this is now impacting theaters
across the nation. I heard radio news reports that many theaters,
including the local AMC theaters, are banning people dressing up in costumes
for the showing of “The Dark Knight Rises”. That is unfortunate.
I’m not sure what they will do when “The Hobbit” is released in December, but
hopefully banning is short term. I don’t personally dress up for a movie,
but I have been in many releases when people due dress up (Star Wars prequels,
Lord of the Rings, the DC and Marvel comic book movies, etc.). This
tragedy does have a parallel, in my opinion, to the themes of this movie, but
I’ll explain that later…
Eight years on, a new terrorist leader, Bane, overwhelms Gotham’s finest, and
the Dark Knight resurfaces to protect a city that has branded him an enemy. (www.imdb.com)
“The Dark Knight Rises” is a fantastic third installment of the now known
Christopher Nolan Batman trilogy. I remember initially right before
“Batman Begins” was released in 2005 that Christopher Nolan would probably do a
series of films, similarly that was done by Tim Burton and the forgettable Joel
Schumacher. But that was not the case. Christopher Nolan has
achieved a task that rarely any director has done before – make a high quality
trilogy. Most of the story does tie to both “Batman Begins” and
“The Dark Knight”, and closes the Batman story in as much as any storyteller
could – so watching or recalling the stories of the prior two films will
enhance your experience on this film greatly. Please note that this film
is as dark if not more than “The Dark Knight”. Don’t expect a lot of
comedy in this.
Godfather 3, Superman 3 (Superman 4 does not exist in my mind), Aliens 3, X-Men
3, Spider-Man 3, and Matrix Revolutions, have all failed in one level to
another in closing the story in a satisfactory means. Either the story
failed or they threw too much stuff added that made it too heavy to bear.
“The Dark Knight Rises” is more epic in scale than the other two films.
Some critics say that it’s too epic. After sleeping over the story of the
movie, I believe that it ties much of the story together pretty well – for all
the character. It deals with themes that are so relevant to our post 9-11
society, especially dealing with terrorists, radical Muslims, and – I’m going
to get hit on this – the Occupy movement. The movie does not directly ram
ideologies down your throat (like environmentalism in “Wall-E” and “The Happening”),
but like a great story, you see those conflicting ideas between civilization
and revolutionary thought. Also, there is a good and interesting way that
Nolan ends the film.
Now to the actors…
Christian Bale hit a homerun again in his performance as Bruce Wayne /
Batman. Even though “The Dark Knight” centered more on the performances
of the late Heath Ledger as the Joker and Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent /
Two-Face., “The Dark Knight Rises” re-centers the main character of Bruce Wayne
again, as it did in “Batman Begins”. In “Batman Begins”, Bruce deals with
his fears and the loss of his parents. In “The Dark Knight”, Bruce /
Batman deal with the Joker with his morality as well as the morality of Gotham
as a whole. How he deals with the ramifications of “The Dark Knight” as
well as dealing with new revelations in this new movie is central to the
core.
There was an initial concern about Anne Hathaway as playing Selina Kyle
/ Catwoman. She played a realistic version of Selina Kyle and not pushing
the comic-booky portion of Catwoman, like the other two actresses have
did. In fact Catwoman is never mentioned in the film. She is
good as playing Selina Kyle in a realistic version, better than all of the other
non-animated versions on film, but she is not play like the idealistic comic
book version. I give her a B, but not an A.
Tom Hardy is the most controversial in the fan boy universe – not due to
his performance but to hearing his dialogue. He wears that mask that
muffles his sound a bit. When the IMAX prologue was released a
couple months ago, many people complained about not hearing him
well. Nolan did get the response and made his voice clear and
louder than before. However, there were some scenes that it was still
hard to hear his dialogue, but I understood the context of what he was
saying. Besides that little issue, Tom Hardy played Bane to a
tee. He is quite intimating physically and emotionally. You can see
that in his performance in his eyes. When Batman and Bane first
meet, it reminded me of the first encounter of Rocky Balboa and Clubber Lang
(Mr. T) in Rocky 3. I got that “all crap” feeling in that scene.
So, great performance by Tom Hardy as Bane. He did well, especially
having to follow up to the post humorous Oscar winning performance of the Joker
by Heath Ledger.
Gary Oldman as Commissioner Gordon, Morgan Freeman as Fox, and Michael
Caine as Alfred, were still 5-star veteran performances as before. However,
Gary Oldman gets more screen time than the other two, and he really does a
great job. I wish there was more of Michael Caine, a big fan of his, but
the story must go on.
The other new actors – Marion Cotillard as Miranda and Joseph Gordon-Levitt
as Blake – played well. However as with Aaron Eckhart in “The Dark
Knight”, Joseph Gordon-Levitt was the surprise performance of this film.
There is a lot of sympathy and humanity that Joseph betrayed, and he is
definitely breaking out as one of the great actors in current time.
Please note that these new characters are not side line characters. They
are crucial to the story line.
Also note that there are cameo appearances of other actors the other two
movies.
In conclusion…
There is a lot of stuff that I would like to say, but if I say too much, then
spoiler will arise too much. So, I can do a summary of what I think of
this movie. This is definitely the best movie of the year. In my
opinion, it did surpass “The Avengers” as a movie in both story-telling,
character development, and story themes – even though “The Avengers” is a great
movie.
Christopher Nolan method in making Batman (and a comic book fantasy world) as
realistic and close to the source material has been surpassed by no other
director. He Batman trilogy is the gold standard of comic book
movies in terms of storytelling, character development / depth, and shirr
thrill. It’s the original Star Wars trilogy of the comic book
genre.
I don’t think he would be able to do a comic book movie of
any other superhero – basically due to the lack of reality they have (i.e.
superpowers, future technology, space flight, and magic). Batman is the
superior superhero character and that only Christopher Nolan – the modern day
Alfred Hitchcock of our time – could have directed him as well. There are
rumors that another Batman reboot will occur – who would of think Warner
Brothers would stop the money train of Batman. But in my opinion, it will
not be as good.
Sure “The Avengers” and other Marvel comic movies will be more popular, less
dark, and make more money, but they will always have the little sense of
campiness in them that the Christopher Nolan Batman trilogy does not
have.
In the future …
There was a teaser trailer for “The Man of Steel”. They did not show much
as they did at Comic Con 2012, but that looks like the only other comic book
movie I’m looking forward to. There might be other films I watch this
year – the only other anticipated film in the first half of “The Hobbit”.
But besides that, “The Dark Knight Rises” rises to the top as best film of the
year.
“The Dark Knight Rises” is a definite watch and a definite buy as a
Blu-Ray. I’m pre-ordering it now.
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