[Closed] Recent Viewing Part III

I'm disappointed by the movie and I haven't seen it. It's not my idea at all of how a Batman film should look.

The whole visual style of the Nolan trilogy is a complete turn-off for me... And Christian Bale doing that god-awful voice?

Some people may recall my rant on 'The Dark Knight' from a few years back. I still stand by that.

I have the Burton and Schumacher films and those are the ones that do it for me.

Yes, I am completely loopy and weird... thank the heavens for that.

You haven't seen it yet you rant.

SO yawn.

I rant because the film doesn't interest me in the slightest, yet I love the character of Batman, just not Nolan's take on the characters and world they inhabit. Gotham should look a little more fantastical, a little less real looking. I'm all for the production design of the 80s and 90s films. And I have zero interest in seeing Nolan's films again (1 & 2) or for the first time (3).



I actually don't mind that... You're saying you have a problem with nipples?

Batman & Robin definitely is a guilty pleasure. I love Clooney's version, and Arnie's villain is hilariously over the top. I may be the only living person that likes B&R, but I'm proud to call myself the only one!!! At least the score is a thousand times more interesting than any random cue from Nolan's trilogy.

The Nolan films ( still not seen Rises yet ) are farrrrrrrrrrrrrr better than all the Bat films before them, having said that I don't exactly jizz myself over them. Score wise it's the complete opposite, not mad on Elfman's scores though at least there's a proper theme, Goldenthal's scores are excellent though overwhelming in the films ( shite films anyway ) and Zimmer's scores leave me stone dead cold.

I have an opinion.

Visually stunning. Although as expected most of the greatest stuff can bee seen in the longer trailers as well. I really enjoyed the feel and the mood of it and it is just a joy for fantasy fans. The costumes, make-up, castles and woods, all looks amazing. Pick any movie still and you could frame it to your wall.

Charlize Theron did well as evil queen, but her scenes were even more impressive because of the effects I guess. The vibe was great when she got angry and since she sufferened a bit from chronical frustration, that happened quite often.

Kristen Stewart is not a great actress at all, still it bothered me only a couple of times. Her speech to the army was still better than Aragorns in front of the black gate! Most of the time she just seemed young and innocent, which was the point and her being fair and good of heart was believable too.

Surprise for me was Christ Hemsworth. I thought he could only swing a hammer and look pretty, but he is certainly a better actor than Stewart, who is good at looking pretty also. Him being narrator was a brilliant move because his voice and pronounciation are beautiful. And like I said, I thought his acting was really good, at times better than Theron's. He looks natural and not acted.

The story was good enough for me and there was balance between action, fights, the queen in the tower and more peaceful stuff. I can understand how the end may be unfulfilling to some, but I thought it was OK. Leaving out the obvious is not bad and perhaps better than ending with clichés.

The music was nice although I noticed it in the movie only a couple of times. I must say now that I'm checking out some clips on YouTube I really like what I hear and there's a lot I hadn't noticed.

As I've stated before music becomes such in integral part of my film viewing it affects how I rate a film in the end. That's why I'll always like a film more if the score is good. I know Batman & Robin is generally hated but I can't help being entertained by it all (score, production and character design, dialogue, character interaction, I especially like the Bruce Wayne and Alfred scenes), which is something The Dark Knight has totally failed to do. I don't like the overly serious and grim tone of TDK and I never will. I am aware it's supposed to work on a much more intellectual level and I get that, but it's not my idea of how a Batman film should be, which is not take itself too seriously and TDK is too much of that.

So yeah, The Dark Knight Rises.

Bob pretty much beat me to all the good points, and I basically agree with almost all of them.
Especially the very rich psychological and ethical layers from The Dark Knight are sorely lacking here.

Slight spoilers below, but nothing you couldn't have gleaned from watching the trailer.
However, caution advised when proceeding.

For the more Bat-knowledgeable under us: the story in large part is based on the critically acclaimed Cataclysm series, which already presents problem number one for me: I really don't care very much for Batman in an "apocalyptic" post-civilised world. It's just not a setting that appeals to me.

Problem number two is the villain, Bane.
Like Alan, Bane doesn't mean anything to me.
He's an unstoppable killing machine. So what? How is that interesting?
In the film it's suggested that he's incredibly smart and insightful, but that's only shown by him being (apparently) omniscient (without any explanation where all this knowledge actually comes from).
So as a plot device, that's actually rather boring.

The character of Bane was created in the eighties to once again present Batman with a foe he (and hence us, the readers) couldn't be sure he'd be able to beat. The Joker had been built up as such since the fifties, Rah's Al Ghul having been created for that reason in the seventies...but both of these are far more interesting characterwise and motivationwise than Bane, who is just a sort of a smart Hulk: a (destructive) force of nature than a true, fullblooded adversary.
Sadly, it just not all that interesting as a character.

Problem number three I already alluded to, and Bob described it eminently: no layers. It's more or less just a very big and loud action flick (though certainly not a bad one at that). I do like the time they took for the build-up (the film starts several years after The Dark Knight and shows a broken and hesitant Wayne).

And number four - and this is where I part ways with Bob- is the music...well. The noise.
It's just thunderous drums and FISHY FISHY BUTTER BUTTER for three whole hours (well, not the entire three hours, but it certainly FEELS that way!), to the point where it crosses over from annoyance to honest aggravation: there IS an emotional and physical reaction to a body being subjected to three hours of ominous pounding. It's like voodoo. It's like being in a hardcore dance battle. It relentlessly makes the viewer feel uncomfortable, put upon and agitated. And that's the best way to describe it: it's utterly relentless.

So this goes well beyond the dark knight CRYING for a proper theme in NUMEROUS places (we've been over that, true as I feel it to be), but goes to the music effecting the very opposite (agitate and distract the viewer) of what it's supposed to do (support the film).
For that reason, in many ways, this may -and I do hesitate to say it, but I do mean it- well be the worst soundtrack I have ever heard.

These issues (and the ridiculous running time of three hours...it honestly could do with whittling away half an hour or so) brought me too to a 3 out of 5 score, with the same rumination as Bob that Nolan shot himself in the foot with such an excellent second installment -5 out of 5 for me- that the third one could only disappoint).

HOWEVER, and I guess this will only be appreciated by comics fans, there is a certain denouement -although the signs in hindsight were there- that got me dropping my jaw and bump the score up to 3.5: [spoiler] Miranda being Talia (who is a VERY well known character in the comics)[/spoiler]. I did NOT see that one coming, and I thought it was an EXCELLENT turn-around.



So, now the only question remains...how to tell Jordi and Krisztina?

Agreed with this, 100% Nolan's films definitely pick up with the comics in the 80s (Miller, Moore, Morrison, etc). I liked the new one (actually, probably my favorite of the three), but I can see where that style might not appeal. The score could be so much more (hell, Selena Kyle's theme in the new one was a fun piece of music), you keep waiting for that 2-note theme to be developed into a full, heroic theme and when it finally does develop, it just seems to fizzle out. Oh, I also need to point out the atrocious sound mix. The booming driving percussion is cool and all, but when it's drowns out dialogue, you've dropped the ball. No excuse for that on a film this big.

But back on the comics, I'd love to see an adaptation of "Arkham Asylum: A Serious House On Serious Earth" You could have a lot of fun with the score on that!

Thanks Bregje.
I heard some truly terrible things about the film (basically that Charlize was the only redeeming value), so it's good to see a more balanced view.

What did you mean by "The story was good enough for me"?

Reading too much into it is half the fun! I see where you're going, but I do think that Rises draws more from The Dark Knight Returns than it does from Cataclysm (only the later on a superficial level). Obviously it takes a lot from Knightfall, which was mid-90s, so I can generally agree with what you're getting at

Now it'd be totally awesome if they did continue it into the Az-bat stuff (which would be a really neat twist on the ending). But either way, if you don't like where the comics went with batman, then Nolan's movies will be equally unappealing. I should mention that while I really liked the new film, when I was done, I was happy with the experience and went home. At the end of Avengers I wanted to watch it again immediately.

Oh, and Julie > Anne > Michelle, but that's just me

Martijn, not knowing anything about the Batman backstory other than that in the films, what happened in your spoiler comment just came across as being just a contrived plot twist.

I just think there's a bit of a moment where -- in script form -- someone should have said 'wait a second'. [spoiler]And that is when Marion Cotillard turns out to be tougher than the guy whose meant to physically and mentally best Batman. There's a shot of her jumping into the front seat of a truck and commandeering it where I was thinking -- 'now there's an image that completely fails to best Liam Neeson OR Heath Ledger's villainy'.[/spoiler]

A film is about contrasts though, and I'm not sure it's a script that allows for the contrast between her and a certain other character to not result in ridiculous thoughts. It seems to me there's very few problems in that film that aren't problems with the script. It all starts there and echoes out.

I talked about it too, saying that it was visually stunning, score worked wonders and that's it's a pretty enjoyable movie.

Thank God.
Someone said it.