This year comes the conclusion the Nolan-Saga that the fans have long awaited. Who expects a better film than the brilliant predecessor, will be disappointed. The last part of this series can not reach its heights. Why this is the case, you can read in this review. The story begins eight years after the second part. The peace returned to Gotham City and Batman retired, but a villain again begins to threaten the city. Now is more the time then ever that Batman is needed, to rescue Gotham of the hands of the ruthless mercenary called Bane. In difference to Joker, who symbolized Chaos, tries bane to archive anarchy through calculation. He give the people of Gotham many possibilities to hope for the better so he can crush them even more. His characterization is a double edged sword. For once, he is different than the joker and attacks Batman in different ways than him. On the other hand, were joker does all kind of crazy things all of a sudden, banes calculated everything, which makes all of his moves expected.
The second weakness is Bane's masquerade. Through the occlusion of the mouth are countless emotions lost, even a first class actor as Tom Hardy can not make up for that with only his eyes. As Spider-Man 3 at the time, Nolan's third story also struggles with too many foes. The foe them selfs get enough screen time, but act like they weren't needed for the story at all. Victims of the time limit is surprisingly Batman himself. He is merely 20-30 minutes visible in a 3 hour long movie, which shows surprisingly well his broke down psych. True hero of the story is the Butler Alfred, who carries all emotion weight of the story in his scenes.
The main role of the hero is taken by the citizen and police of Gotham and shows what runs through all parts of the trilogy, that the good is within all of us. That Batman itself is no more than a symbol, rather than the true hero. This also leads the story to the most stereotyped ending i watched in 5, no more like 10 years, with possible the worst acted death i ever saw. [Spoiler:The only way to make it more of a happy end would be reviving the dead parents of bruce wayne.]
The special effects are gorgeous as always, but most of them already shown in the trailer as the football scene. The camera perspectives are incredible as well. So many cool flights above the city, showing mass fights or just metaphoric pictures. Stylistically, the film is based on the first part, especially its content inconsistencies. There are a variety of strange coincidences and implausible answers, that it leaves a bad aftertaste. Examples of that are found at the end, so i won't spoil you anything, but believe me, that are just a few of the many i named here.
After so many words my result looks bad, doesn't it? Wrong! The Dark Knight Rises is unquestionably a great movie, but it doesn't meet the high expectations the fans had of it and is the weakest of Nolan's major films, which makes it also far better than most of movies shown in theaters.
Examples for strange moments: [Spoilers from now on]
1) Selina Kyle steals an ancient necklace of his mother, who has a tracking device. Bruce was eight at the time of his mother death, which means that his father was either suspicious, or Bruce believed for thirty years that someone might want to steal them.
2) The police officer Jake recognizes the true identity of Batman, because of Bruce Waynes fake smile?
3) In the final chase Talia drives the bomb towards the only way to defuse it. If she stopped, Batman wouldn't have a chance to rescue the city. Instead, she drives as carefully as possible, so that nothing happens.
1) Selina Kyle steals an ancient necklace of his mother, who has a tracking device. Bruce was eight at the time of his mother death, which means that his father was either suspicious, or Bruce believed for thirty years that someone might want to steal them.
2) The police officer Jake recognizes the true identity of Batman, because of Bruce Waynes fake smile?
3) In the final chase Talia drives the bomb towards the only way to defuse it. If she stopped, Batman wouldn't have a chance to rescue the city. Instead, she drives as carefully as possible, so that nothing happens.
4) Somehow without need are now several tumblers produced, which was firstly the only prototyped created.
5) Many more, but minor things like dead people who look like sleeping children or neck fractures with choking noises.
Don't forget the piece of vertebra sticking out Bruce's back, which somehow doesn't paralyze him, even when someone fixes it by shoving it back in place.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the fact that in at least 20 mins of very clumsy fight scenes, it never occurs to Batman to just cut or yank the stupid mask off Cain's face.
Honestly, I don't see this as a great movie. I'm not a movie snob by any means, but I was bored halfway through. Bruce Wayne does very little, Christian Bale's face looks as ridiculous as ever in that cowl, and the Batman in this movie shows none of the foresight, intelligence and acrobatic fighting ability of the original.
I would give this a D.
Sorry, that's supposed to be Bane, not Cain. And the D is for the movie, not your review (which I think captures the pros and cons of the movie well).
DeleteWe do have a lot of similar views, which is funny, because A LOT of people disagree with us!
ReplyDeleteI loved this movie, every bit of it. My hubby and I saw it 3 weeks ago but we still talk about it every time we see the commercials for it. I wish there were plans for another one.
ReplyDeleteit is indeed a great movie with more deep than most comic adaption will ever have, but i think that he did to many things wrong in the end that he couldn't top his previous part with this one.
Deleteanother thing is that i don't feel that there was memorable content, which TDK had. i saw so many people afterwards mimicking the joker and his pencil trick, but no one repeating a line of bane.