The movie is the first in the franchise to get a PG-13 rating because of "sensuality", so it will be interesting to see if there is any hankie-pankie in the movie. Although with assets like these, I can see where the sensuality is coming from .
I have had a bad feeling about this 3rd Batman movie since it was announced about Bane, and that they cast Anne Hathaway as Catwoman....
Are they up against a 3 movie deal contract and are just slopping it together because they just don't care anymore?
There are a lot of better villains as well as casting choices than Anne 'Princess Diaries' Hathaway....
I guess it is just to hard to put a good 3rd film in this series to follow on after Heath Ledger as the Joker.
Now that I think of it you know who might be an interesting choice as Catwoman, Beth Riesgraf, from Leverage.
Well, considering how few folks online had any conception beforehand how good Heath "Ten Things I Hate About You" Ledger would be, and considering how good the first two were, I tend to take pessimistic predictions about this one with a rather large grain of salt.
I'd think that covering the face around the eyes wouldn't be enough to ensure someone might not recognize you. Bruce Wayne must have horrible eyesight.
Because they're silly for a burglar or anyone who might need to run
Pretty much. I was fond of how the Nolanverse tried to ground itself in something less cheesy. This isn't nearly bat nipples bad, but it really doesn't feel like it fits with the rest of the aesthetic developed by the previous two films.
Well, the whole costume is clearly designed for sex appeal, rather than pragmatism. As long as it makes sense for the character to make that her priority, then the costume makes sense.
Fafnir wrote:Not a fan of the heels. I mean, I don't particularly care for the outfit much at all, but the heels just kill it.
The heels are supposedly detachable -- there's talk about them being weapons or tolls or some such.
C & P time
1. It’s the shoes. Men dig the shoes.
The stiletto heels still look ridiculous, but they look significantly less ridiculous now we can see how they fit with the rest of the boots. Hathaway’s reference to them being detachable as weapons seems to make a lot more sense now and these almost look like those ‘crampon’ attachments hardware stores sell every time all that global warming that isn’t happening causes freakish snow falls. In fact, these could be climbing spikes too. There’s certainly something very climbing shoe-esque about the foot of the boots, which looks designed to hold the foot in a specific position which isn’t necessarily the one we’re seeing here.
2.The Jim Balent Commemorative Boot Jamboree
Those boots are just Jim Balent-tastic aren’t they? Interestingly, and this bears out the removable heels claim, they also look a little baggy. The look here is clearly the sort of pseudo-dom thing that the character has played with for years but it might, just, also be practical.
3.Cat Shark Repellant Not Included
The Cat Utility belt looks a little thin on the ground doesn’t it? Hathaway’s made reference to how the goggles in particular do a lot of the character’s work for her and that’s certainly born out by the small amount of small pouches on her belt. Normally I’d say this embodies the character’s basically non lethal approach, fists and feet approach to combat but then there’s item 4…
4.The Gun
Catwoman is packing heat. It’s hard to tell exactly what from the angle and the frankly irritating black pseudo-comic border around the image, but it looks a lot like one of the new Heckler and Koch sidearms.
However, I’d argue it’s not what sort of pistol that’s important but the fact we’re being shown it this early in proceedings. It implies, very heavily, that Catwoman has absolutely no problem with gun play in exactly the way Batman does. It also implies that her using that is an important plot point, especially as we’re being shown it this early.
5.Shark Skinning A Cat
The material of her, well, catsuit, has a very interesting and very specific pattern to it. It’s visually similar to the pseudo-chainmail in Thor’s costume, weirdly, and if I had to guess, I’d say it’s some sort of armour, possibly designed to spread kinetic impact as wide as possible. Not quite as stylish as these but you get the idea.
6.Cat’s Eyes
Apparently the character’s goggles are another vital part of her work loadout and we can see a tiny hint of that here. The domino mask looks to have some sort of connection port under the eyes for the ‘ear’ component of the goggles. It also looks similar to the weave on the catsuit, suggesting her eyes are if not armoured, at least protected, as well.
7.Cat’s Ears
The infamous goggles work a lot better now we can see that they’re part of the same rig as the domino mask. Again we can’t see much but, again, what we can see suggests a lot of high tech functionality in a small space. There’s a hint of electronics, a definite hint of crosshairs if you really squint and they look a lot chunkier, a lot more tech than fashion, than in previous shots.
All in all, you get a much better idea of how each element fits together now they’e all actually visible. What isn’t functional at least looks it, and there’s much less of a feeling that the cat ears have just been stuck on a black bodysuit than before. But the real question is: What’s going on with that gun?
Looking at those ears I wonder if they might well indeed have some sort of.. i dunno.. sonar/echo location tech or something. Maybe something along the lines of the not terribly clear it really does stuff they used in the 2nd film.
I’m puzzled by the complaints regarding her heels. Catwoman has always worn heels. She wore them in the comics, in the 60’s show, in the cartoon series, in Batman Returns and in Arkham Asylum. They are an important part of the characters persona.
Yes they are probably impractical, but then again so are Batmans ears and no one would suggest taking those away for the purposes of ‘realism’.
LuciusAR wrote:I’m puzzled by the complaints regarding her heels. Catwoman has always worn heels. She wore them in the comics, in the 60’s show, in the cartoon series, in Batman Returns and in Arkham Asylum. They are an important part of the characters persona.
Yes they are probably impractical, but then again so are Batmans ears and no one would suggest taking those away for the purposes of ‘realism’.
Well, the Nolan movies, while not being entirely realistic, have been MORE realistic. And the ears don't make it impossible for bats to perform basic functions like running.
Nothing major, just google being overcautious. If you host bad images/data in the past, they will punish you after the fact for a while and that is probably what is happening here.
LuciusAR wrote:I’m puzzled by the complaints regarding her heels. Catwoman has always worn heels. She wore them in the comics, in the 60’s show, in the cartoon series, in Batman Returns and in Arkham Asylum. They are an important part of the characters persona.
Yes they are probably impractical, but then again so are Batmans ears and no one would suggest taking those away for the purposes of ‘realism’.
The texture on the suit also kinda evokes the fishnet that was part of the costume at one time. Really, it's a bit of a mashup of Catwoman's uniforms over the years.
And regarding heels, let's face it...the Catwoman character has certain and obvious undertones in her outfits and gear. Much like Wonder Woman.
She's got all the curves of 100 miles of Texas road...
If you compare her to a porn star or a fat girl. Real women who are slender don't have cartoon boobs sticking out when they're standing in that position. Love and Other Drugs, thankfully, does give us wonderful evidence that Anne's no Keira. She could maybe use a little more curvature down below, but the angle of the photo doesn't tell us (the catwoman shot attests she's all set, but that is undoubtedly photoshopped. Still looks nice, though).
Bingo, its a hate fest. I remember on this very board, when it was announced that Heath was going to play the Joker. SO MANY PEOPLE were so pissed and talking how terrible the movie was going to be. And now, hes arguably the best thing to happen to the Joker. Sooooooo.........definitely haters gunna hate
KingCracker wrote:Bingo, its a hate fest. I remember on this very board, when it was announced that Heath was going to play the Joker. SO MANY PEOPLE were so pissed and talking how terrible the movie was going to be. And now, hes arguably the best thing to happen to the Joker.
"Argueably" is the right way to put it. I'll not argue that he played the part well, or that he didn't do the 'scary psyco' part well. What Ledger lacked was the zany humor that was always the Joker's stock and trade. Ledger's Joker was grimdark, not bat insane. Nicholson, on the other hand, nailed both sides of it perfectly.
KingCracker wrote:Bingo, its a hate fest. I remember on this very board, when it was announced that Heath was going to play the Joker. SO MANY PEOPLE were so pissed and talking how terrible the movie was going to be. And now, hes arguably the best thing to happen to the Joker.
"Argueably" is the right way to put it. I'll not argue that he played the part well, or that he didn't do the 'scary psyco' part well. What Ledger lacked was the zany humor that was always the Joker's stock and trade. Ledger's Joker was grimdark, not bat insane. Nicholson, on the other hand, nailed both sides of it perfectly.
I agree that Nicholson's Joker is in my opinion the better Joker, but Ledger's Joker really fit the tone of Nolan's Batman movies. Ledger was being grimdark in a grimdark movie; honestly, it would have felt really out of place to see, say, the scene in the 1989 Batman movie where Joker and his henchmen start screwing around with all the different paintings thrown into the Dark Knight.
Alpharius wrote:Good one but... isn't that Keaton under the cowl there?
It certainly is! But its friggin hilarious either way! And yea, the throat cancer joke bit made me crack up. Its terribly bad of me to find that humorous, but I laughed
Alpharius wrote:Good one but... isn't that Keaton under the cowl there?
It certainly is! But its friggin hilarious either way! And yea, the throat cancer joke bit made me crack up. Its terribly bad of me to find that humorous, but I laughed
Don't feel bad. I did too.
I'm looking forward to this movie. For the haters claiming Bane is a bad idea...he's the villain who broke the Bat-literally. Snapped his spine. Um...he DESERVES a spot in the films. Ignore the Batman&Robin version of Bane-that wasn't Bane, it was a guy in a monkey suit. The real Bane is intelligent, strong, fast and deadly. He's probably Batman's 3rd most dangerous villain of all, after Raz Al Ghul and the Joker. Oh, wait...look at that. Can't imagine what Nolan is trying to tell us there And I'd rather see Catwoman than Robin. Don't get me wrong, I like Dick Grayson, but I prefer him as Nightwing, playing the anti-hero version of Batman who makes his own rules. I think Catwoman can be a great balance to Batman's persona, and Anne Hatheway has done some SERIOUSLY messed up things in movies-I remember her doing a great sensual job in LaOD and she killed her husband in Brokeback Mountain (my mother saw it, told me that part of it). I've seen her do crazy s*** in other movies too, names just escape me. I think she can pull of Selena Kyle's 'driven' personality and do it justice, much the same way that Heath did with the Joker. Don't expect a humorous Catwoman-expect a dark, brooding Catwoman with an itch that only a bat can scratch.
Agreed Ill be honest, Ive watched brokeback mountain, a few times even. I thought it was a very good movie. And the ending.....just fething killed me, I felt so bad for Ledgers character.
I couldn't get into (shuddup) Brokeback Mountain, it just bored me to tears.
Tried watching it because people said it was good and because it had Heath in it (and after his performance in TDK I was curious about how he was in his other stuff), but I gave up about... I dunno, halfway through?
Ronin-Sage wrote:I wonder if we'll actually see Catwoman using firearms much in the film.
I wonder if she will actually be called 'Catwoman'. I see her being called Selina, Selina Kyle, and referred to as a cat burglar at some point probably, but I'm not certain she will be specifically called by that name.
Avatar 720 wrote:I couldn't get into (shuddup) Brokeback Mountain, it just bored me to tears.
Tried watching it because people said it was good and because it had Heath in it (and after his performance in TDK I was curious about how he was in his other stuff), but I gave up about... I dunno, halfway through?
Totally OT here, but have you seen a Heath Ledger movie called the Order? If not I suggest it, its pretty good, and rather dark.
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Ahtman wrote:
Ronin-Sage wrote:I wonder if we'll actually see Catwoman using firearms much in the film.
I wonder if she will actually be called 'Catwoman'. I see her being called Selina, Selina Kyle, and referred to as a cat burglar at some point probably, but I'm not certain she will be specifically called by that name.
The official run time was released as well. Prepare for a brisk two hours and forty minutes.
Am I the only one that liked Bane's voice more from the earlier trailer? It was a little more difficult to understand, but it had an edge to it, slightly demonic almost.
Mixed on his voice, but it is easier to understand.
Saw Bane drop the broken Batman mask, will he break the bat? And who is the guy they keep on focusing on in the trailer, are they gunning for a Robin/Nightwing spinoff? I like the 'good' Catwoman that I see so far.
Cool trailer, but you can pretty much suss out the entire movie now.
Weary Bruce Wayne broken by Bane
Batman comes back (hopefully via a training montage) and kicks Bane's butt with new toys
Ending is anyone's guess (though I understand there are some huge spoilers kicking about which I've avoided)
Also looks like Batman II and Catwoman join up with funky hovercraft evading missile love.
So Frazzled's theory:
Bane gets jiggly.
Catwoman gets jiggly as well (yowsa yowsa)
Batman gets all up in Bane's business.
Bane aint gonna llow that disrespect.
Bane gets Batman in the open with all the bridgey blowy uppy.
Bane busts up Batman.
Bane disses the feline. Never tick off the females.
Woman scorned joins force with Batman II (aka the bus guy) and bust a cap in Bane's ass with their neeners.
Possibly. A lot of them are kind of couch potatoes who only do the most basic of exercise (if they did a lot of exercise they'd not have such huge sacks of fat to begin with).
Melissia wrote:Possibly. A lot of them are kind of couch potatoes who only do the most basic of exercise (if they did a lot of exercise they'd not have such huge sacks of fat to begin with).
Depends. There's always a sort of lower limit to bust size before you start getting into unhealthy territory as regards body fat percentage. In college I knew a girl that was 5'0 110 lbs with a 32 F who had been athletic early in high school but lost the ability to do much of anything athletic due to the pain her chest caused her. Needless to say, she's since had a reduction.
But yeah, barring extreme examples, strength training generally helps though certain types of cardio can be problematic no matter what; for obvious reasons.
Amaya wrote:There's a lot of slender women with large natural breasts.
Because God loves us.
In his name we pray, amen.
So have you guys seen anything about Venom? Bane doesn't seem to be a Druggy in this, though I think the dude they keep showing is the person with Black Veins in the earlier trailers.
Slarg232 wrote:So have you guys seen anything about Venom? Bane doesn't seem to be a Druggy in this, though I think the dude they keep showing is the person with Black Veins in the earlier trailers.
Spoiler:
Going by the IMAX footage shown there is no magic steroid that makes people stronger. Instead it seems they are going with a back story that he either sustained an injury to the spine or was the victim of some surgical tests and now requires a constant supply of pain killers to function. In images you can see surgical scars along his back and in the IMAX footage some fellow asks him if he removed the mask if he would die and Bane replies that he wouldn't die, but that he would be in a lot of pain. I think they aren't going for more of a special forces look and feel than that of a body builder.
Considering the movie is 2 hours and 40 minutes I imagine there is still a lot we don't know quite yet. My guess is that this all ties back into the League of Shadows maybe being less than happy with Batman's actions in Batman Begins.
Bringing this thread back from the dead, in honor of the movie coming out tomorrow and to share this awesome trailer.
The guys over at The Hub are showing a mini-marathon of the animated series, and decided to bring the original voice cast back together to make an animated version of the Dark Knight Rises trailer:
I saw it last night......I don't want to ruin it for everyone, but it was certainly a lot different than I expected. Also, I very much want to see it again, FWIW
kronk wrote:I'll be watching Batman on the IMAX this Sunday. If any of you fethers spoil it, I'll get you, your dog, and your neighbors for good measure.
Yeah - no spoilers in open conversation for at least a week - or else!
kronk wrote:
Also, why is the picture on the first post censored? I need to see a picture of Anne's ass while she wears heals...
It was probably a teaser/preview pic.
Now that we're almost at the official USA release...
Avoiding any posts, but one of the really nice theaters (Rave if that means anything to you) is doing a marathon of Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, and at midnight The Dark Knight Rises. I couldn't pass up seeing the first two on the big screen one last time so I will be attending.
Ahtman wrote:Avoiding any posts, but one of the really nice theaters (Rave if that means anything to you) is doing a marathon of Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, and at midnight The Dark Knight Rises. I couldn't pass up seeing the first two on the big screen one last time so I will be attending.
The wife shot it down, but that was my plan for today. Almost 9 hours of IMAX fun. She said no...
Now I am watching the first two on DVD while prepping for the last one.
Ahtman wrote:Avoiding any posts, but one of the really nice theaters (Rave if that means anything to you) is doing a marathon of Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, and at midnight The Dark Knight Rises. I couldn't pass up seeing the first two on the big screen one last time so I will be attending.
That sounds awesome - wish someone was doing something similar around here...
d-usa wrote:
The wife shot it down, but that was my plan for today. Almost 9 hours of IMAX fun. She said no...
Now I am watching the first two on DVD while prepping for the last one.
That's why God invented the couch my friend - time to fly solo!!!
In other news, I'm basically taking Nolan on faith with this one. He's got a track record that good enough that despite me having a fair few doubts about the choice of villains and some kinda dodgy looking production stills, I expect this to be an very good movie.
Amaya wrote:Only at 79% on RT from Top Critics. 3 stars from Ebert (only reviewer that I consistently follow and typically agree with).
Plot is up on Wikipedia. Plan on seeing it tomorrow even though I read all the spoilers.
Not a big spoiler, just a little hint.
Spoiler:
Nolan does a great misdirection.
Really? I looked 2 days ago and RT said 97%. Did you maybe hit the buttons in the improper order? Cuz on Tuesday it was at 97%-only one guy in the critics section disliked it. I'm looking forward to seeing it tomorrow.
timetowaste85 wrote:Really? I looked 2 days ago and RT said 97%. Did you maybe hit the buttons in the improper order? Cuz on Tuesday it was at 97%-only one guy in the critics section disliked it. I'm looking forward to seeing it tomorrow.
It's at 87% right now. It isn't surprising that it'd drop from the early number - the first reviews are from reviewers given special early access, and they almost always repay that access with generous reviews. But 87% is still a solid result, and a long way from the 79% you'd expect of a more mixed reception.
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Amaya wrote:Only at 79% on RT from Top Critics. 3 stars from Ebert (only reviewer that I consistently follow and typically agree with).
Ebert? I like reading the guys reviews, because his understanding of the process of making movies really shows through, but I'd have to say his conclusions are idiosyncratic at best.
I mean, I say he's the classic example of a guy who's reviews you read to try and learn what a movie is about so you can make your own choice about whether or not to see it, and never, ever just see a movie because the reviewer says he liked it.
In my opinion, easily the best of the trilogy. And if not, easily one of the best ending movies to a trilogy, ever. This movie surprised me at almost every turn. I loved it.
Well as I have no plans to go see it at the cinema I've read up the plot and some dialogue on the webs.
I think I am have to sit in the corner on this one, with the firm belief I just don't like Nolan's vision of Batman.
Looking at Gutters this morning, a snippet from a review in the states cemented my position. Sohmer took this as a positive, I take it as a negative.
The question of "Who will win the summer: The Avengers or Batman?" is about to be answered. Though according to a guy who knows a little bit about Batman, Neal Adams "'The Dark Knight Rises' does NOT beat 'The Avengers.' The reason? It is a totally different kind of movie — to compare them is an empty exercise. 'The Dark Knight Rises,' it turns out, is a classic Batman epic. How can I relate it to you? A Greek tragedy? 'The Iliad?' 'Macbeth?' It’s a giant movie. 'Avengers' was a great comic-book movie. 'The Dark Knight Rises' is a great epic."
Perhaps Nolan was aiming at the wrong auidience, or just maybe I like comic book movies. *shrug*
Just finished the movie, and I will add my vote to the "go see it" crowd. It certainly stands with the first two, makes a great conclusion, combines a couple comic storylines, and Anne Hathaway plays a pretty gpod catwoman.
Morathi's Darkest Sin wrote:Perhaps Nolan was aiming at the wrong audience, or just maybe I like comic book movies. *shrug*
Let's just say I don't think the problem is Nolan's.
Enjoyed the film immensely. It really caps off the series in a big way, and was quite enthralling. Tom Hardy's Bane was quite menacing, and they did a terrific job of making him seem quite a bit bigger than Hardy actually is. I was surprised by how much I liked Catwoman. Hatheway really pulled the character off quite well.
Well, I just came from seeing The Dark Knight Rises, and as finales to trilogies go, it was triumphant. I/m not going to spoil it, but like the previous film, there are some really surprising actors in small supporting roles, and some really strong performances in the bigger supporting roles. And the PG-13 was not because of Catwoman, rather the other female supporting actress. And one of the most unexpected laughs in an action movie, ever.
Amaya wrote:Only at 79% on RT from Top Critics. 3 stars from Ebert (only reviewer that I consistently follow and typically agree with).
Plot is up on Wikipedia. Plan on seeing it tomorrow even though I read all the spoilers.
Not a big spoiler, just a little hint.
Spoiler:
Nolan does a great misdirection.
Really? I looked 2 days ago and RT said 97%. Did you maybe hit the buttons in the improper order? Cuz on Tuesday it was at 97%-only one guy in the critics section disliked it. I'm looking forward to seeing it tomorrow.
I just saw it. I think the best way to describe it would be as "bloated". They tried to fit too much into too little time.
All the actors that had been around since Batman Begins were fine, but none of them were exceptional. Anne Hathaway and Gordon-Levitt were the most interesting characters in the film. Hardy as Bane ended up being a slight disappointment.
Best parts
Spoiler:
Blake calling Gordon out on the Harvey Dent lie.
Kyle (catwoman) vanishing when Batman turned his back.
Blake being revealed as Robin.
Saw it last night. I thought it was great. The scale of the film was far bigger than I thought it would be. Never dragged, nothing felt out of place. If anything the pacing was a little too quick (I didn't feel the passage of time as much as I think we were meant to).
Catwoman was good. Levitt's character was great. And
Glad to see some repeat actors making cameo roles (don't know how to use spoilers, so won't give names), and I was quite content with it. I think Avengers was better, but this movie was still fantastic. Is it as psychologically disturbing as The Dark Knight was with Ledger? Not even close. But it's still a fantastic movie that deserves an audience. Bane was great, and I'm glad he didn't use Venom in this-Nolan has avoided the fantasy of certain Batman characters (Joker's acid bath turning him into the clown prince of crime, Ras Al Ghul's immortality, Bane's Venom), and has instead made all of them normal people. I see Bale's airway is still cut off 95% of the way when he puts the mask on though.
From a storytelling standpoint I think Bane is who Bruce Wayne would have been if he had killed the prisoner in Batman Begins and lead Ra's crusade against Gotham. The Joker represented the opposite of Batman whereas Bane is an evil version of Batman.
Amaya wrote:I just saw it. I think the best way to describe it would be as "bloated". They tried to fit too much into too little time.
All the actors that had been around since Batman Begins were fine, but none of them were exceptional. Anne Hathaway and Gordon-Levitt were the most interesting characters in the film. Hardy as Bane ended up being a slight disappointment.
Best parts
Spoiler:
Blake calling Gordon out on the Harvey Dent lie.
Kyle (catwoman) vanishing when Batman turned his back.
Blake being revealed as Robin.
Spoiler:
I laughed my ass of when Batman looked away for a second, looked back and Catwoman was gone, and he says "So that's what that feels like." And when that idiot rookie accidentally shoots Batman's EMP gun.
Been a while but here's a post that sums it up for me:
Tbh not even sure if this movie was better than The Avengers, but still good. Felt like a more epic version of the first two Batman movies but it tried to be too epic. And the epic action scenes, while still blockbuster worthy, just aren't even in the same ballpark as The Avengers. This Batman also introduced too many new characters while trying to tie up a bunch of loose ends with the old ones.
Still everytime the movie began to lose my attention like during a lengthy Bruce Wayne scene or a flashback, it still somehow got me cheering for Batman to overcome everything. However I didn't really like the chemistry between any of the characters in this movie, tbh, although it had some fun lines...Joker was much more awesome.
List of minor, not so minor, and random faults that puts this movie down for me compared to TDK......SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS? :
Spoiler:
- Too many clumsy flashbacks. Pays off in the end although it makes the storytelling overall feel lazy and unimpressive
- Bane's facemask doesn't translate well to the big screen, should have redesigned his character even further. Hooking up his voice to stadium speakers was an experience. Wasn't that impressive of a villain, was basically a smooth talking brute. Loved the line about the kid's voice though
- Bane's neckbreaking and face-crushing, while undeniably brutal, also just doesn't translate very well to the big screen and not very dramatic. Doesn't help that Steven Segal made it infamous
- That chant sounds like "THIS IS AWESOME, AWESOME!". Thought they said "Gotham" in the trailers. But "Awesome" works and makes the pit climbing spectacle that much more entertaining
- How did Batman have all that time to make his symbol on the skyscraper during the ice walking scene? Seemed like he wasted a lot of crucial minutes when Gordon was sentenced to death by exile
- The passing of time also felt clumsy and awkward, too much time was covered
- Qui Gon Jinn, a lot of themes/scenes felt like Star Wars, and not in a good way
- Cops vs Bane's men in the end, why the hell didn't both sides just shoot eachother instead of brawl it out? I wanted to care about Pvt Joker's death but yea not so much. Visually, the fight was also a spectacle, but a relatively unimpressive one
- Sentencing scene was funny and felt like a comic book. Could have used more Scarecrow....why not use more of a villain that the audience is already familiar with?
- Cat Woman. Didn't do much for me. Her background felt rushed, acting felt average, chemistry wasn't there with Bruce or Batman, who the hell was that blonde lesbo, and really wasn't that much eye candy either
Also not enough dark bad ass Batman stuff like "PRAY TO ME" and his interrogation against the Joker.
3/4 stars. I wonder if the director's cut will address some of my whining
Seemed like there were two main story lines being combined in the movie (big spoiler).
Spoiler:
You have the Knightfall story ark, Bane terrorizing the city, breaking the Bat, you have a Robin stepping up even though he is not "Robin", and the rehabilitation of Batman to overcome his injuries.
But the movie also reminded me of the Dark Knight Returns ark to an extend. A retired old and injured Batman returning to the fight at the beginning of the movie, overcoming those injuries to face an enemy. As well as the staging of his death at the end.
Cane wrote:Been a while but here's a post that sums it up for me:
Tbh not even sure if this movie was better than The Avengers, but still good. Felt like a more epic version of the first two Batman movies but it tried to be too epic. And the epic action scenes, while still blockbuster worthy, just aren't even in the same ballpark as The Avengers. This Batman also introduced too many new characters while trying to tie up a bunch of loose ends with the old ones.
Still everytime the movie began to lose my attention like during a lengthy Bruce Wayne scene or a flashback, it still somehow got me cheering for Batman to overcome everything. However I didn't really like the chemistry between any of the characters in this movie, tbh, although it had some fun lines...Joker was much more awesome.
List of minor, not so minor, and random faults that puts this movie down for me compared to TDK......SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS? :
Spoiler:
- Too many clumsy flashbacks. Pays off in the end although it makes the storytelling overall feel lazy and unimpressive
- Bane's facemask doesn't translate well to the big screen, should have redesigned his character even further. Hooking up his voice to stadium speakers was an experience. Wasn't that impressive of a villain, was basically a smooth talking brute. Loved the line about the kid's voice though
- Bane's neckbreaking and face-crushing, while undeniably brutal, also just doesn't translate very well to the big screen and not very dramatic. Doesn't help that Steven Segal made it infamous
- That chant sounds like "THIS IS AWESOME, AWESOME!". Thought they said "Gotham" in the trailers. But "Awesome" works and makes the pit climbing spectacle that much more entertaining
- How did Batman have all that time to make his symbol on the skyscraper during the ice walking scene? Seemed like he wasted a lot of crucial minutes when Gordon was sentenced to death by exile
- The passing of time also felt clumsy and awkward, too much time was covered
- Qui Gon Jinn, a lot of themes/scenes felt like Star Wars, and not in a good way
- Cops vs Bane's men in the end, why the hell didn't both sides just shoot eachother instead of brawl it out? I wanted to care about Pvt Joker's death but yea not so much. Visually, the fight was also a spectacle, but a relatively unimpressive one
- Sentencing scene was funny and felt like a comic book. Could have used more Scarecrow....why not use more of a villain that the audience is already familiar with?
- Cat Woman. Didn't do much for me. Her background felt rushed, acting felt average, chemistry wasn't there with Bruce or Batman, who the hell was that blonde lesbo, and really wasn't that much eye candy either
Also not enough dark bad ass Batman stuff like "PRAY TO ME" and his interrogation against the Joker.
3/4 stars. I wonder if the director's cut will address some of my whining
Blonde girl was Catwoman's friend who is in every Batman iteration. Nolan was thorough, what's wrong with that? I don't agree with everything you said, but this comment is really the only one of ignorance I feel justified commenting on.
JohnnoM wrote:I thought it was an alright movie overall however, the ending really, REALLY made me crack the feths. Thats all im gonna say.
You're probably going to have to same more, because I have no idea what you're talking about.
Anyway - I like the movie, and I liked the ending too.
Though I think that
Spoiler:
when there's another Batman movie, it is probably going to be a total reboot ala The Amazing Spider-Man.
The ending is completely ridiculous:
Spoiler:
Reason 1: The Bomb. I actually thought it was a really great, and touching moment for Batman to go and sacrifice his life to save the city. But then we find out that he survived. That made me rage.
Reason 2: Robin. The last bit is the most blatant attempt at setting up a sequel that I have ever seen, and I'm sick of hollywood movies doing this over and over again.
Reason 3: The Lady being the child. I thought that was just bloody ridiculous, as my friend put it: " They had a even more ridiculous answer for every ridiculous question."
Saw it this morning at the IMAX. Not sure I have anything to add that previous posters didn't already say; so I'll just consider these "votes" instead.
Spoiler:
NAY on Batman's deux ex machina at the end. I like Batman and all but it would have been a more powerful movie had he died.
NAY on him turning out to be Robin, that was stupid and lame and dumb.
YAY on Anne Hathaway's appearance and performance. She looked great and really delivered the role.
Ouze wrote:Saw it this morning at the IMAX. Not sure I have anything to add that previous posters didn't already say; so I'll just consider these "votes" instead.
Spoiler:
NAY on Batman's deux ex machina at the end. I like Batman and all but it would have been a more powerful movie had he died.
NAY on him turning out to be Robin, that was stupid and lame and dumb.
YAY on Anne Hathaway's appearance and performance. She looked great and really delivered the role.
Overall enjoyable, but one thing almost killed it for me:
Spoiler:
The sudden emergence of Thalia as the main villain felt embarrassingly clumsy. They spent the entire movie building up Bane as the main villan(and doing a pretty good job of it, imo) only for her to be the real threat in the end? Come on.
Why didn't they do subtitles for that foreign dialect that Bane was speaking?
As for the rest of the rest of the movie, I felt that it didn't really flow well. It seemed to drag a bit at the beginning and then it had a climax that fell apart and was eventually restarted.
Vaerros wrote:Overall enjoyable, but one thing almost killed it for me:
Spoiler:
The sudden emergence of Thalia as the main villain felt embarrassingly clumsy. They spent the entire movie building up Bane as the main villan(and doing a pretty good job of it, imo) only for her to be the real threat in the end? Come on.
Spoiler:
They addressed that The League of Shadows was responsible for what was going on, put a flashback of Ras in, and it made sense to have Thalia show up. They also pulled her out perfectly-a trusted source/lover knifing Bruce in the back-literally and figuratively. Also explains how Bane knew Bruce was Batman-she informed him, after her father informed her. I'm not quite sure what the problem is here. Nolan did right by her. Granted, Bane didn't have his comic book abilities, nor was he a solo act like in the comics, but they worked him in VERY well while still showing at the end that he wasn't the #1 villain. If you hated this setup, I'm sure you must have hated Batman Begins too-Ras Al Ghul wasn't the main antagonist through the movie, Scarecrow was: as his agent. Bane is the same for Thalia. It's the way Nolan chose to have the LoS operate in his incarnation of the Batman universe.
If you pay attention to what Miranda/Talia says you'll notice she uses a lot of dialogue similar to Ra's. For instance, she talks about restoring balance on at least two occasions.
Spoiler:
The last bit is the most blatant attempt at setting up a sequel that I have ever seen, and I'm sick of hollywood movies doing this over and over again.
Nolan has been saying for the last two years this was the final movie in story of Batman, and there would be no sequel; this is a stand alone story in which people die, age, and go on with their lives. There will be a reboot, but it will have none of the people involved in this trilogy, though I wouldn't be surprised if they try to get Nolan as a consultant. DC wants to make a film universe like Marvel's, and this version of Batman is in a world on it's own, and, at this point, no longer exists as it told the story of Bruce Wayne to its conclusion. It was also foreshadowed quite a bit during the film: several references to the auto-pilot, Alfred telling him that he wishes he wasn't in Gotham as all it has for him is pain, giving Blake tips on what it means to be like Batman as well as the importance of the mask meaning it could be anybody, and two different women asking him to run away from the city. So, in conclusion, there is not going to be a sequel to this, so it wasn't a blatant setup for one. You let an odd bias influence you interpretation of the scene and make you dislike it. It also tied into the title of the film, as the closing shot is the new Dark Knight rising to take the place of the old one.
I understood Bane jsut fine - about 90% of the time!
Also, someone watching the movie who couldn't figure out:
Spoiler:
1) The last scene with Bruce in the movie was clearly going to be in the cafe that Alfred mentioned!
2) The Bruce was clearly going to be able to fix the autopilot on the Bat!
3) That Miranda Tate was going to be the 'inside man'/trigger man, especially after the fireplace/bearskin rug 'scars' comment!
...well, I guess they weren't actually paying attention.
And I don't think it was too heavy handed/ham fisted in setting those things up - it was still a very enjoyable ride and a good conclusion to the trilogy.
Some friends said at the start it sounded like he was trying to do a Sean Connery impression. Though there is room to start a new one if they wished. Not that things should be dragged on of course.
I liked it though, the ending was pretty decent.
Spoiler:
Even though the twist was pretty expected. It could have even worked quite well without it. Simply leaving Bruce dead. But, that's probably the grimdark.
Vaerros wrote:Overall enjoyable, but one thing almost killed it for me:
Spoiler:
The sudden emergence of Thalia as the main villain felt embarrassingly clumsy. They spent the entire movie building up Bane as the main villan(and doing a pretty good job of it, imo) only for her to be the real threat in the end? Come on.
Spoiler:
They addressed that The League of Shadows was responsible for what was going on, put a flashback of Ras in, and it made sense to have Thalia show up. They also pulled her out perfectly-a trusted source/lover knifing Bruce in the back-literally and figuratively. Also explains how Bane knew Bruce was Batman-she informed him, after her father informed her. I'm not quite sure what the problem is here. Nolan did right by her. Granted, Bane didn't have his comic book abilities, nor was he a solo act like in the comics, but they worked him in VERY well while still showing at the end that he wasn't the #1 villain. If you hated this setup, I'm sure you must have hated Batman Begins too-Ras Al Ghul wasn't the main antagonist through the movie, Scarecrow was: as his agent. Bane is the same for Thalia. It's the way Nolan chose to have the LoS operate in his incarnation of the Batman universe.
Except the difference here is:
Spoiler:
Up until the last 25 minutes(?) or so, Thalia's character was developed as a 'good' one. The switch to evil felt almost comical and cheesy to me(the moments where she tried to 'talk in a dark tone' felt...funny). It felt like a plot twist for the sake of a plot twist.
Up until the last 25 minutes(?) or so, Thalia's character was developed as a 'good' one. The switch to evil felt almost comical and cheesy to me(the moments where she tried to 'talk in a dark tone' felt...funny). It felt like a plot twist for the sake of a plot twist.
It is foreshadowed throughout the movie, so it isn't a 'comical and cheesy', nor is it a sudden shift with no explanation. One thing I hadn't considered that a friend pointed out, someone not familiar with the comics, was that they were suspicious of Miranda from the start because everything was to easy with her. In all of Bruce's other relationships (Catwoman, Racheal) there were obstacles and issues, whereas Miranda seemed to go out of her way to be there for Bruce and insinuate herself into his life.
By and large very enjoyable, although the 2nd half was a lot better than the first where Nolan expected you to make a lot of mental jumps in plot terms.
For example...
Spoiler:
Catwoman's failed handover to Bane's henchmen randomly turned into Gordon being trapped in Bane's lair in the space of five minutes.
Anne Hathaway was outstanding as Selina Kyle/Catwoman
Up until the last 25 minutes(?) or so, Thalia's character was developed as a 'good' one. The switch to evil felt almost comical and cheesy to me(the moments where she tried to 'talk in a dark tone' felt...funny). It felt like a plot twist for the sake of a plot twist.
It is foreshadowed throughout the movie, so it isn't a 'comical and cheesy', nor is it a sudden shift with no explanation. One thing I hadn't considered that a friend pointed out, someone not familiar with the comics, was that they were suspicious of Miranda from the start because everything was to easy with her. In all of Bruce's other relationships (Catwoman, Racheal) there were obstacles and issues, whereas Miranda seemed to go out of her way to be there for Bruce and insinuate herself into his life.
There were subtle hints, but it still doesn't change the fact that
Spoiler:
As a villan, she was under-developed and not as effective, I would say, as Bane. The acting performance and story-telling aspects of that particular part of the movie were comparably weak.
What's missing for me (IE what makes it hard to suspend disbelief) is how does the league of shadows/bane recruit so many damn loyal people. The opening scene displays how loyal banes followers are, but not necessarily why. They refer to them often as mercenaries but that's problematic because mercenaries aren't exactly willing to lay down theier lives for a cause, they just want money. Look at the scene at the cement plant they were using to make explosives, you've got these two blue collar guys who are apparently just.. evil? I just don't get how "hey lets destroy a city because it's a symbol of corruption and decadence" is a great rallying call to bring the disenfranchised over to your cause and be willing to die for it. Especially seeing as the whole blame the rich thing was a smoke screen designed to keep gotham busy as the bomb built up in strength. Dark knight had a bit of the same problem when it came to joker's henchmen. They have a line about him attracting similar minds to him IE crazy people but that doesn't really speak to long time loyalty, planning or you know, the word getting out that he randomly kills anyone including his followers.
Back to the rises, assuming all the henchmen were adaquetely sated by propaganda/sense of belonging/money, what was the plan after the bomb went off? Ras al ghul wanted to make an example of gotham to "restore balance" just like when they sacked rome. The problem though is if there's no way "post-bomb" to take responsiblity and sorta put the league's intent/manifesto out.. what would be the point? The rest of the world would just look on in shock and think hater's gonna hate as opposed to "ohhhh that's why they did it, we gotta shape up and be less corrupt".
Vaerros wrote:
There were subtle hints, but it still doesn't change the fact that
Spoiler:
As a villan, she was under-developed and not as effective, I would say, as Bane. The acting performance and story-telling aspects of that particular part of the movie were comparably weak.
That isn't a fact, it is an opinion, and not one I find to have a lot of substance.
Vaerros wrote:
There were subtle hints, but it still doesn't change the fact that
Spoiler:
As a villan, she was under-developed and not as effective, I would say, as Bane. The acting performance and story-telling aspects of that particular part of the movie were comparably weak.
That isn't a fact, it is an opinion, and not one I find to have a lot of substance.
I have to agree with Ahtman - just because it was 'hidden' and/or subtle doesn't mean it was... bad?
I thought the same about the The Dark Knight, how does Joker get so many loyal followers when he BURNS all the money they make, and kills half of his own guys?!
feth following him! I think id rather go rob liquor stores than work with that mad fether!
Crablezworth wrote:They refer to them often as mercenaries
When they are referred to as mercs it is either from people who don't know what the LoS is, or Batman under the assumption that the LoS dispersed after he defeated Ra's. It actually is explicitly stated at one point if I recall. Alfred shows Batman footage of Bane attacking security gaurds and says "I see obsession, I see training, I see the the League of Shadows" and Wayne responds the the LoS is gone. Of course we know it is the LoS and later when Batman confronts Bane he finds out that it is the LoS and Bane claims leadership. These men aren't just mercs, and like the members of the LoS in Batman Begins, they are most certainly zealots for the cause.
Crablezworth wrote:Look at the scene at the cement plant they were using to make explosives, you've got these two blue collar guys who are apparently just.. evil? I just don't get how "hey lets destroy a city because it's a symbol of corruption and decadence" is a great rallying call to bring the disenfranchised over to your cause and be willing to die for it.
I imagine the people working on secret stuff and not mundane construction thought it was part of some money making scheme like Scarecrow in the first film or just wanted to get paid.
Crablezworth wrote:Dark knight had a bit of the same problem when it came to joker's henchmen. They have a line about him attracting similar minds to him IE crazy people but that doesn't really speak to long time loyalty, planning or you know, the word getting out that he randomly kills anyone including his followers.
That is a problem in the comic book as well.
Crablezworth wrote:Ras al ghul wanted to make an example of gotham to "restore balance" just like when they sacked rome. The problem though is if there's no way "post-bomb" to take responsibility and sorta put the league's intent/manifesto out.. what would be the point?
It wasn't about restoring balance anymore, it was about revenge and punishment. Batman had essentially wiped out their order, leaving only a handful of men and a bitter daughter. I imagine at some point they may have been planning on escaping the city, but they were fanatics devoted to the cause and would easily die to succeed, so when they had to stay in the city to see it go off properly they didn't give it a second thought. The world wouldn't have known why the bomb went off, but Wayne in his cell would, and would have to live his days in that prison knowing that every person on the island died because of him.
Vaerros wrote:
There were subtle hints, but it still doesn't change the fact that
Spoiler:
As a villan, she was under-developed and not as effective, I would say, as Bane. The acting performance and story-telling aspects of that particular part of the movie were comparably weak.
That isn't a fact, it is an opinion, and not one I find to have a lot of substance.
I would dare say the same about your opinions. We'll have to agree to disagree.
mattyrm wrote:I thought the same about the The Dark Knight, how does Joker get so many loyal followers when he BURNS all the money they make, and kills half of his own guys?!
His followers wouldn't be motivated by money, and they would probably be half crazy as well. Every criminal thinks they are the one guy that won't get caught, so I imagine many of the henchmen think they are the one doing everything right and won't be killed. Of course in the Dark Knight he really only has two gangs: the bank robbery group and his little band of misfits after that. All the bank robbers are killed so no one would know for certain he set them all up as no one could talk. The second group of soldiers we never see him attack. This isn't the comics where there is a long history of him doing this kind of thing.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Vaerros wrote:I would dare say the same about your opinions.
Yes, but I am right, so that doesn't really bother me all that much.
Did you even look at the search you posted? All the results except 1 on the first page are from months before the movie was released and based on trailers.
I could understand Bane's voice most of the time, but it did get a little unintelligible at times. The theater's sound system wasn't the greatest, though.
Did you even look at the search you posted? All the results except 1 on the first page are from months before the movie was released and based on trailers.
They changed Bane's voice for the film.
Not really. I thought they were all new and relevant. I did not realize the problem with bane's voice was worse months ago. Yesterday the problem was new to me.
But maybe the problem I had was similar to Vaerros'. My theater is supposed to have a really good sound system though.
Still Bane's voice is the only one that I have yet to be able to understand 100% of the time.
Did you even look at the search you posted? All the results except 1 on the first page are from months before the movie was released and based on trailers.
They changed Bane's voice for the film.
Not really. I thought they were all new and relevant. I did not realize the problem with bane's voice was worse months ago. Yesterday the problem was new to me.
But maybe the problem I had was similar to Vaerros'. My theater is supposed to have a really good sound system though.
Still Bane's voice is the only one that I have yet to be able to understand 100% of the time.
There was also the issue of it sounding too loud at times. For example, when his character was introduced in the opening scene, it sounded like he was the movie's 'announcer' or something.
Ouze wrote:Saw it this morning at the IMAX. Not sure I have anything to add that previous posters didn't already say; so I'll just consider these "votes" instead.
Spoiler:
NAY on Batman's deux ex machina at the end. I like Batman and all but it would have been a more powerful movie had he died.
NAY on him turning out to be Robin, that was stupid and lame and dumb.
YAY on Anne Hathaway's appearance and performance. She looked great and really delivered the role.
I agree with 1, but why is 2 such a big deal?
It's not so much a "big deal" - it's not like it ruined it for me, so much as it felt awkwardly shoehorned in with how it was presented, and it's a really dumb character to boot. It simply cost them cool points when all they had to do was drop that one line to retain them.
I liked a lot about the movie but I didn't like the movie itself. Sloppy, long-winded narrative with no real justification plus overwhelming everything action plus frenetic editing ... ugh, I just walked out of the theater feeling beaten up. The villains' plans are either nonsensical or absurd -- I mean, either what they're doing just doesn't make any sense or it's just such a narrow, vindictive matter that I'm left wondering why I should care about these small-minded antagonists. Nolan's Bat-films are widely thought to be topical but this film lacked any kind of moral compass. It's treatment of real-world themes lacked reflection and responsibility. My review can be summed up as : this was the film we deserved but not the one we needed.
That said, the individual performances were good even if there was little chemistry between the characters. Joseph Gordon Levitt did amazing things with some pretty hammy poor orphan boy lines. And when Batman first appeared, I was suitably impressed. The lighting of the "bat signal" was very moving and some of the dialog verged on excellent (e.g., Gordon: "The solution has to come from inside the city!"). The overwhelming action I mentioned before is a double-edged sword -- it's exhausting all piled together but in the moments themselves (the Bat-bike chase from above, the second confrontation between Batman and Bane) they were appropriately epic.
Automatically Appended Next Post: It was nice to be vindicated:
I enjoyed it. Not as much as Dark Knight, but still not bad
Spoiler:
I feel the Well/City falling into anarchy section could have been cut in half.
I didn't like Talia. At all. I feel like it would have been Better if Bane had just been the bad guy for the whole film.
I did like Batman and Bane going all Challenge mode and picking each other out of the crowd of guys and brawling in the middle of said crowd. I liked that a lot.
Back to point one, I did like the Scenes with Scarecrow.
I like how they brought Robin in.
I really liked how Hathaway played Catwoman.
The "bane taking over Gotham with bomb" scene was just amazing, but still see point 1.
I liked Bruce living at the end more than I thought I would. At first I was against it, but after watching the Movie.....I preferred it over him just dying
I wish we got some more closure on Bane. Is he dead? was he jailed? Did he stand up after being shot, decide crime wasn't for him and start a barbershop Quartet? They Showed us Ra's al Ghul's Death, and the Joker escaping was just...Well it was just so the Joker. I would have been disappointed if he was just locked up. But with Bane, he just gets shot and never seen again. Most likely dead, but after being the Main Villain almost the WHOLE movie, you'd think they'd give us some closure.
I didn't like Bane's voice, but mostly because I wanted the voice to be from the guy that voiced Ulysses in Fallout New Vegas. That would have been epic.
That's pretty much all of my thoughts about the Movie. It was ok, but not great
Well, just saw it, and as expected, it was not as heart-pounding and electric as TDK. Heath Ledger made that movie impossible to follow.
Spoiler:
I really liked bane. Forget the name of the actor, but I feel like that was one of the strongest performances in the film. And I loved Bane's look, too. Much better than the luche libre sort of look from the comics.
Spoiler:
Bruce not dying felt kind of contrived to me. Other than that though, I felt it was pretty solid. Not the masterpiece that TDK was, though.
Iur_tae_mont wrote:I wish we got some more closure on Bane. Is he dead? was he jailed? Did he stand up after being shot and the Joker escaping was just...
Considering that the same cannon just tore apart a barracade, and people in Nolan's univesre aren't meta-human, I'll let you decide for yourself whether he lived or died after a 40mm grenade tore a hole in his chest. Remember, Nolan doesn't do the normal comic convention of never-ending, never-aging, death defying comebacks. We are so inundated with typical comic book tropes that when someone is shot in the chest at point blank range and knocked back 40 feet we assume they are alive.
Iur_tae_mont wrote:and the Joker escaping was just
What? If you are referring to when he escaped from the MC Division fine, but since the other two are examples of what happened at the end of the movie as opposed to the middle, I am a bit thrown off.
Iur_tae_mont wrote:I wish we got some more closure on Bane. Is he dead? was he jailed? Did he stand up after being shot and the Joker escaping was just...
Considering that the same cannon just tore apart a barracade, and people in Nolan's univesre aren't meta-human, I'll let you decide for yourself whether he lived or died after a 40mm grenade tore a hole in his chest. Remember, Nolan doesn't do the normal comic convention of never-ending, never-aging, death defying comebacks. We are so inundated with typical comic book tropes that when someone is shot in the chest at point blank range and knocked back 40 feet we assume they are alive.
Iur_tae_mont wrote:and the Joker escaping was just
What? If you are referring to when he escaped from the MC Division fine, but since the other two are examples of what happened at the end of the movie as opposed to the middle, I am a bit thrown off.
I will admit it has been a while since I saw Dark Knight. Meant to watch to today before I left for the Dark Knight Rises. Didn't the Joker escape from the chains before the cops got to him?
Great. I was about to go to bed an Youtube doesn't have the scene. Now I gotta watch The Dark Knight so I'll remember how it ended. Damn you Ahtman.
Iur_tae_mont wrote:Didn't the Joker escape from the chains before the cops got to him?
Nope, the cops arrest him. I know originally they wanted to have The Joker have part in the final film, but with Heath's passing they didn't want to even broach the subject in the film at all. As far as in universe story lines I imagine the Joker is still locked up in Arkham*, or was executed.
*It seems likely since after the whole event Batman disappeared, and without his foil he doesn't do much.
....Back to the rises, assuming all the henchmen were adaquetely sated by propaganda/sense of belonging/money, what was the plan after the bomb went off? Ras al ghul wanted to make an example of gotham to "restore balance" just like when they sacked rome. The problem though is if there's no way "post-bomb" to take responsiblity and sorta put the league's intent/manifesto out.. what would be the point? The rest of the world would just look on in shock and think hater's gonna hate as opposed to "ohhhh that's why they did it, we gotta shape up and be less corrupt".
Other than that, I really enjoyed it.
The League of Shadows never takes credit for any of their work.
Manchu wrote:I liked a lot about the movie but I didn't like the movie itself. Sloppy, long-winded narrative with no real justification plus overwhelming everything action plus frenetic editing ... ugh, I just walked out of the theater feeling beaten up. The villains' plans are either nonsensical or absurd -- I mean, either what they're doing just doesn't make any sense or it's just such a narrow, vindictive matter that I'm left wondering why I should care about these small-minded antagonists. Nolan's Bat-films are widely thought to be topical but this film lacked any kind of moral compass. It's treatment of real-world themes lacked reflection and responsibility. My review can be summed up as : this was the film we deserved but not the one we needed.
That said, the individual performances were good even if there was little chemistry between the characters. Joseph Gordon Levitt did amazing things with some pretty hammy poor orphan boy lines. And when Batman first appeared, I was suitably impressed. The lighting of the "bat signal" was very moving and some of the dialog verged on excellent (e.g., Gordon: "The solution has to come from inside the city!"). The overwhelming action I mentioned before is a double-edged sword -- it's exhausting all piled together but in the moments themselves (the Bat-bike chase from above, the second confrontation between Batman and Bane) they were appropriately epic.
Automatically Appended Next Post: It was nice to be vindicated:
What was the security like? I will not be searched to go to a freaking movie and ain't going anywhere until I confirm the theaters haven't gone off the deep end. What was the security situation?
Which, admittedly, was during a "married man with kids who got a chance to go out and see the movie by himself" time of Saturday at 2:45PM - not a time when too much trouble would happen, I'd imagine...
Alpharius wrote:No extra security measures at all when I saw it.
Which, admittedly, was during a "married man with kids who got a chance to go out and see the movie by himself" time of Saturday at 2:45PM - not a time when too much trouble would happen, I'd imagine...
Wow sounds like fun. I remember those days. GC and The Boy chasing each other around the thater until other people showed up. Fun fun.
Alpharius wrote:Any predictions on how they move forward with Batman now?
I'll have to see Man of Steel before I can even have an inkling. MoS is the key to the future of DC movies. If it does big business, Batman will be rebooted to fit into Snyder's world. Right now, Nolan has established "the look" for DC movies (with trickle down to the comics -- even Supes is wearing body armor these days) and MoS looks to be ... no pun intended ... following suit. But if MoS fails, Batman will be rebooted with the idea of making a new line of DC movies. That might even convince Warner Bros. to create a "DC Studios" set-up, like what Disney has so successfully done with Marvel. If MoS fails, I think we'll see a Batman that looks more to Adam West than to Christian Bale. The best take on Batman in non-comics media since Batman The Animated Series was Batman The Brave & The Bold, after all.
Here in Richmond, it was the same as seeing any other movie at any other time. I didn't notice any guards -- but of course that's how I would want it to be run if I was in charge of the theater! Nothing stupid, like airport type security checks.
Here in Richmond, it was the same as seeing any other movie at any other time. I didn't notice any guards -- but of course that's how I would want it to be run if I was in charge of the theater! Nothing stupid, like airport type security checks.
I'm sure they already have the Theater Marshals in place!
Here in Richmond, it was the same as seeing any other movie at any other time. I didn't notice any guards -- but of course that's how I would want it to be run if I was in charge of the theater! Nothing stupid, like airport type security checks.
I'm sure they already have the Theater Marshals in place!
I still think they should have introduced the name of "Robin" at the end by having the lady with his bags go, "Don't forget your bag, Mr Grayson." Having his name be literally "Robin" is just another issue of movies being written for the absolute dumbest guy in the audience to understand.
I think a continuation with him becoming "Nightwing" would be awesome. Or even better, mix Dick Grayson and Terry McGuiness together, and have the next movie be about Bruce Wayne behind the scenes directing the new Batman in protecting Gotham.
AegisGrimm wrote:Overall, My buddies and I liked the movie.
Spoiler:
I still think they should have introduced the name of "Robin" at the end by having the lady with his bags go, "Don't forget your bag, Mr Grayson." Having his name be literally "Robin" is just another issue of movies being written for the absolute dumbest guy in the audience to understand.
I think a continuation with him becoming "Nightwing" would be awesome. Or even better, mix Dick Grayson and Terry McGuiness together, and have the next movie be about Bruce Wayne behind the scenes directing the new Batman in protecting Gotham.
Spoiler:
Drake was already one of the Robins, so I think calling him Grayson would have been stupid. I do agree that calling him Robin was a dumbing down though.
Except weren't they calling him Blake the entire time, not Drake? I doubt the dumbest guy in the audience would have been able to figure out such an intricate thing.
Except weren't they calling him Blake the entire time, not Drake? I doubt the dumbest guy in the audience would have been able to figure out such an intricate thing.
He isn't going to be "Robin" of the comics, he will be a new Batman, who's actual first name is Robin. This character will never be a sidekick. Then again, I don't get upset when an interpretation of material isn't trying to emulate the comics either. At best they should have left out completely that his real first name was Robin, and kept everything else the same.
Oh, and his name was Blake, not Drake. They only say his name maybe once in the film, excluding at the end when he says "John Blake" and the woman tells him there is nothing under that and he tells her to try R Blake, or Blake R, to which she finds the entry. She then tells him he should go by his first name as it is so pretty, which, incidentally, is probably why he didn't tell the other cops his name was Robin.
Just came out of seeing it, the plot twist and ending was incredible but it felt more like Batman Begins than The Dark Knight which saddens me as I greatly preferred the latter. On top of that the first two acts were a little slow...
Just saw it last night. Not the greatest. The first half was excellent, but it kinda dragged on after that. Too much batplane and batbike, not enough batman. Took a turn for the Transformers imo. Not enough swinging from rooftops and jumping out of the shadows. Well-acted, with some really good parts, but not as good as the second or even the first. I am grudgingly satisfied with how the trilogy ended.
Ahtman wrote:He isn't going to be "Robin" of the comics, he will be a new Batman, who's actual first name is Robin. This character will never be a sidekick. Then again, I don't get upset when an interpretation of material isn't trying to emulate the comics either. At best they should have left out completely that his real first name was Robin, and kept everything else the same.
I think DC still aren't learning that lesson. Do a movie good enough, and you don't need to hack apart characters who have a fair swathe of fans ready to go see the film. Pay respect to the fans, but make it interesting and fun enough to appeal to a wider audience.
This is something Marvel is getting pretty much spot on at the moment, Ironman 1 and 2, the 2nd Hulk, Thor, Captain America and obviously Avengers, shame that some of their other licenses are being clung onto by studios that are also not quite getting there. Seriously, imagine a Avengers 2 with Spiderman in it, shame its not happening anytime soon.
I don't think trotting out the old "Batman is different from Bruce Wayne" chestnut is going to help anyone understand these movies. That's not what they're about. (Until the last 30 minutes or so of round 3.)
You don't have to go into some weird montage of Batman takling to himself in a mirror to establish the Batman=Main Character deal, you just have to make sure that a Batman movie devotes most of its screentime to Batman.
Different authors have different takes on the idea of Batman-as-disassociative-disorder. Nolan seems to consider Batman to be Wayne in therapy. Nolan's Wayne is a different person from Batman to the extent that a man is one person when at work and another person on his psychiatrist's couch. Basically -- it's the same guy in different situations. Yes, Nolan flirts with the image of multiple personality disorder in Batman Begins but this is mostly off the table in Dark Knight. It's completely done in DKR, where Blake figures out Batman's secret identity via biographical empathy.
OT but we don't ahve this problem with Iron Man. You have to respect someone so vain he can't help but show off. Look at ME!!!! Its like if Bart Simpson had a super suit. Yes!
That's a great contrasting example. And it could apply to Batman, too. Not every incarnation of Batman focuses so heavily on the death of his parents. The 40s serial and the 60s TV show never even mentioned them. And yet we still had a resourceful, costumed detective in both cases. Since the mid-70s, Batman has been trending dark. The current touchstones are Batman Year One and The Dark Knight Returns, both written by unabashed fascist libertarian Frank Miller. And those were the key texts for Nolan.
Manchu wrote:That's a great contrasting example. And it could apply to Batman, too. Not every incarnation of Batman focuses so heavily on the death of his parents. The 40s serial and the 60s TV show never even mentioned them. And yet we still had a resourceful, costumed detective in both cases. Since the mid-70s, Batman has been trending dark. The current touchstones are Batman Year One and The Dark Knight Returns, both written by unabashed fascist libertarian Frank Miller. And those were the key texts for Nolan.
That made my laugh - spot on too...
Interesting in that Nolan's political leanings are, allegedly, in the other direction, I think?
Certainly Batman Begins drew a lot of inspiration from Year One, but I don't think TDKR was nearly as influential on the rest of the series. There were a lot of different sources of inspiration in the following films, such as Knightfall, No Man's Land, and The Killing Joke.
I don't think agreeing with Miller's politics is required to enjoy either book. While certainly still a bit of that mind, I don't recall Miller being quite as cranky about it back when the two books were released.
I dunno ... if anything Dark Knight Strikes Again is him being more playful about it (and it wasn't any good). TDKR was pretty effin serious and I do think the politics can get in the way of enjoying it just like for some they enhance the enjoyment. The politics of TDKR are certainly in Nolan's movies, if muddled and muted. Miller's cry was shrill but clear. Nolan's is just loud and, like Bale's Batman and Hardy's bane, indecipherable.
Manchu wrote:I dunno ... if anything Dark Knight Strikes Again is him being more playful about it (and it wasn't any good). TDKR was pretty effin serious and I do think the politics can get in the way of enjoying it just like for some they enhance the enjoyment. The politics of TDKR are certainly in Nolan's movies, if muddled and muted. Miller's cry was shrill but clear. Nolan's is just loud and, like Bale's Batman and Hardy's bane, indecipherable.
I was referring more to the person than to his work. He wasn't quite as humorless at the time, but his works were quite a bit darker. As his work gets more playful, as you say, he himself has become more unapproachable.
Cane wrote:Been a while but here's a post that sums it up for me:
Tbh not even sure if this movie was better than The Avengers, but still good. Felt like a more epic version of the first two Batman movies but it tried to be too epic. And the epic action scenes, while still blockbuster worthy, just aren't even in the same ballpark as The Avengers. This Batman also introduced too many new characters while trying to tie up a bunch of loose ends with the old ones.
Still everytime the movie began to lose my attention like during a lengthy Bruce Wayne scene or a flashback, it still somehow got me cheering for Batman to overcome everything. However I didn't really like the chemistry between any of the characters in this movie, tbh, although it had some fun lines...Joker was much more awesome.
List of minor, not so minor, and random faults that puts this movie down for me compared to TDK......SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS? :
Spoiler:
- Too many clumsy flashbacks. Pays off in the end although it makes the storytelling overall feel lazy and unimpressive
- Bane's facemask doesn't translate well to the big screen, should have redesigned his character even further. Hooking up his voice to stadium speakers was an experience. Wasn't that impressive of a villain, was basically a smooth talking brute. Loved the line about the kid's voice though
- Bane's neckbreaking and face-crushing, while undeniably brutal, also just doesn't translate very well to the big screen and not very dramatic. Doesn't help that Steven Segal made it infamous
- That chant sounds like "THIS IS AWESOME, AWESOME!". Thought they said "Gotham" in the trailers. But "Awesome" works and makes the pit climbing spectacle that much more entertaining
- How did Batman have all that time to make his symbol on the skyscraper during the ice walking scene? Seemed like he wasted a lot of crucial minutes when Gordon was sentenced to death by exile
- The passing of time also felt clumsy and awkward, too much time was covered
- Qui Gon Jinn, a lot of themes/scenes felt like Star Wars, and not in a good way
- Cops vs Bane's men in the end, why the hell didn't both sides just shoot eachother instead of brawl it out? I wanted to care about Pvt Joker's death but yea not so much. Visually, the fight was also a spectacle, but a relatively unimpressive one
- Sentencing scene was funny and felt like a comic book. Could have used more Scarecrow....why not use more of a villain that the audience is already familiar with?
- Cat Woman. Didn't do much for me. Her background felt rushed, acting felt average, chemistry wasn't there with Bruce or Batman, who the hell was that blonde lesbo, and really wasn't that much eye candy either
Also not enough dark bad ass Batman stuff like "PRAY TO ME" and his interrogation against the Joker.
3/4 stars. I wonder if the director's cut will address some of my whining
Blonde girl was Catwoman's friend who is in every Batman iteration. Nolan was thorough, what's wrong with that? I don't agree with everything you said, but this comment is really the only one of ignorance I feel justified commenting on.
Specifically Holly Robinson, although she's just referred to as "Jen" in TDKR.
Spoiler:
I did like all of the meta-references, intentional or not, such as Blake being teased about "Giant Alligators" in the sewers too (KIller Croc) and during the stock market heist where Bane is dressed like the Jason Todd version of Red Hood, that and the wonderful gag from Kingdom Come ("So that's what it feels like").
To all those who couldn't understand Bane I have no idea what you're on about, he was fine to me, even with his Romani gypsy/Irish accent going on (which is what Hardy was going for, he based to voice on Bartley Gorman according to IMDB.
I'd argue that The Dark Knight was so good because Batman was the main character rather than Bruce Wayne.
Y'know, I think you hit the nail on the head there. Honestly, I was bored to tears for the first solid hour of TDKR because I was just waiting for something actiony to happen. While I feel that Ledger's Joker was a big part of why The Dark Knight was so good, the fact that the whole movie was an epic duel between Batman and Joker made it a masterpiece in my eyes.
I'd almost like to see something along the lines of the Arkham Asylum and Arkham City games in cinematic form - a whole movie about Batman being Batman, fighting criminals and tracking down supervillains as the world's greatest detective. I loved Nolan's trilogy, especially The Dark Knight, but it was just too...talky, something I never thought I'd say about a superhero movie. I mean, I'm all for having a deep, intricate story, but I'm honestly someone who likes going to see superhero movies (mostly) to see the superhero doing his thing.
Also, random thought I had, is anyone else almost a little stunned that The Dark Knight Rises is officially the eighth live-action Batman movie? Even if it is set across three very different continuities. I just find it kind of amazing that a series of movies about one character has been so good, even after two reboots and a variety of directors. Hell, of the eight, only one of them was honestly terrible.
What the *bleep*, I actually CORRECTLY predicted what the plot of Dark Knight rises would be, just off the trailer and from my limited knowledge of Batman.
Doctadeth wrote:What the *bleep*, I actually CORRECTLY predicted what the plot of Dark Knight rises would be, just off the trailer and from my limited knowledge of Batman.
Congratulations, you're just like... the rest of us!
Movie trailers don't exactly just tease anymore, they reveal - and most times, too much!
I thoroughly enjoyed it. While I picked up on most of the final plot twists early due to foreshadowing I was cool with it because it felt like there was a reason for most of the things that happened in the movie.
I felt it was the best end to a trilogy in a long, long time. I'm glad they ended and I hope they don't try to reboot for at least 5 years. I think this trilogy is how you tell a hero's story.
I also love that Nolan stuck with everyone are normal people approach. No silly "super" human engineering accidents. I though they handled the ending well. I love that it tied in with the new Batman Rising. The fact that the bat signal got fixed is a sure sign of no robin, just batman number 2. And while I don't read the comics and am unfamiliar having an orphanage over the cave set the future well for a new batman every generation.
I loved catwoman's portrayal in this. Anne Hathaway did a great job. Gordon Levitt (or whatever) was also really solid. Overall, enjoyed the hell out of it. Nolan knows how to tell a story.
Oh, and as for the batman vs. bruce as the main character I felt that the series portrayed it well. The first movie was about the birth of batman from bruce and so featured bruce heavily. The second movie was batman in his prime and so featured him heavily. The last was batman aging and moving forward and so featured bruce heavily as he was transitioning away from that life. I think as a whole it's one of the best trilogies out there.
Loved it. I found TDKR to be a fitting end to the Nolan trilogy. The cast, both costumed and non-costumed, were excellent.
However, I found the conclusion of the film to be ultimately cheap, the 'plot-twist' not very 'twisty' at all and not one that left anything to be desired. The premise of the film, as far as I have interpreted the trilogy, was to be 'pain'. Batman Begins revolved around fear, The Dark Knight around Chaos. Where we have the character of Bane, we have pain. It took the best part of an hour for the Batman to appear. Boy, when he did, it felt good. Nolan really knows how to apply the suspense; the dimming of the lights in the underpass was a wonderful touch. The sewer-fight scene between Batman and Bane was something I had been looking forward to for a long, long time. Here, we have Batman, the Bat-fuckin'-man, having his back broken over the knee of a giant of a man. It's been written into comic-lore for a long time, finally it was on the big screen.
Bruce's return was well wrought, Bane's take-over of Gotham wonderful. I could really feel the 'warlord' in Bane, presiding over a terrified populace. When the time came for the Batman and Bane to come to blows again, I was fully expecting a brawl of such epic proportions it would put every Rocky, Rambo and Arnie film to shame. The Batman has a debt to repay, vengeance to reap. Unfortunately, it never came. We are given something relatively weak, a few punches traded, the Batman breaks open part of Bane's mask. It was here that I was expecting Tom Hardy to unleash pain and really go ape-gak on everything. Bruce Wayne would have to fight for his life, use the fear of death to his advantage [instead of simply being unafraid of death], he has everything to lose, make every punch, parry and kick count. Yet it doesn't arrive... the Cat woman dispatches Bane with a well-placed gunshot. Really? Did that really just happen? The final end-scene between Batman and Bane, of the whole trilogy, ends with a cheesy one-liner quip from the Cat woman. I felt really cheated out of the climax of TDKR.
I think most fans knew that Ra's al Ghul and his daughter would make an appearance again. I didn't however expect Talia to be so weak in character and motive. Her origin in TDKR is weak-sauce all over. For the best part of the film, I was loving Bane. The idea of him being the only one to ever escape the prison [if only that was a Lazarus Pit?] was turned into a pithy excuse for Talia and flipped totally. Weak. Whilst I admire and welcome any introduction of human emotion to Bane [Hardy is a stellar actor capable of pulling it off], I found this plot-twist to be predictable from the moment the knife was plunged.
BAH!
This film has really torn me. I love, love, love the characters and the cast. All of them have solidified themselves in my heart as the representation of the characters. However, I was really quite disappointed with the over-ruling plot. TDKR doesn't touch upon the TDK at all, for me. I feel that time will be less forgiving on TDKR as it was upon TDK.
Conclusion: Not enough Batman. Not enough Bane. Too much flash.
---
And for a quick summary of a few other things....
- Cillian Murphy appearing as the judge in the kangaroo court? Loved it! The Scarecrow has long been a favourite of mine, I only wish he perhaps had a larger part to play. The annexation of Gotham through Bane's actions would be the perfect playground for the Scarecrow to come bounding out in full glory. Given the number of convicts released, why did we not see more scenes similar to those found in Batman Begins?
- Joseph Gordon-Levitt, awesome. The small name-revelation at the end was a lovely little twist. Robin! A Robin who isn't dressed like a small child gimp. Bale has previously expressed dislike at the introduction of 'Robin', fair enough - the sidekick idea is pretty twee and outdated. However, I could really see J G-L doing something brilliant with the character.
- The Cat Woman. You know what? I actually enjoyed Hathaway's performance. It really took me by surprise.
I think there is way to much emphasis being put on the 'twist', which I don't think is supposed to be that much of a twist to begin with.
I've also seen other posts criticizing Bane's ending, but I don't really get it. It doesn't really come out of nowhere, and follows an epic brawl between the cops and the criminals, and Batman and Bane, where Batman defeated the physically superior Bane. I'm not sure having another drawn out confrontation at that point would have served much purpose. It also showed that Bane wasn't subservient to Talia, as the moment she walked out he was going to shoot Batman in the face.
Which goes to another odd point I have seen raised where people complain that they were disappointed that Bane was just a bodyguard, but all evidence seems to show that there was more to their relationship than him being a puppet to Talia. She insinuated herself into Gotham City on the outside while Bane lead all those men for 8 years, he was the face on the TV, and he was the one that defeated Batman. Having a partner doesn't diminish his accomplishments anymore than Darth Vader being the Emperor's apprentice suddenly made him a lesser villain.
The one thing that really bothered me was that the LoS seemed intent on dieing in the bomb. The (possible) answer struck me when I remembered something I mentioned earlier that Bane was Bruce if he had killed that criminal at the end of his training in Batman Begins. Until he rises out of the [Lazarus] Pit with a sense of purpose and wanting to live, he was suicidal, as Alfred had pointed out and was trying to get him to understand. The organization was broken and left shattered, so the remnants of the LoS executing this plan are akin to Bruce going into the arena with Bane: they wanted to go out in figurative, and literal, bang. A lot of people I talked to didn't seem to pick up on the suicide-by-Batman angle that was presented in the film. Remember, Bruce's first words when he wakes up in the Pit are "Why didn't you just let me die?" He never got over Rachael and Harvey's deaths, or his parents, and as a consequence was reckless and overconfident. It isn't a coincidence that the only pictures he had in his house were all of dead people.
Ahtman wrote:Having a partner doesn't diminish his accomplishments anymore than Darth Vader being the Emperor's apprentice suddenly made him a lesser villain.
Wait what? That's exactly what introducing the Emperor was supposed to do and did do. Once there was an Emperor, Vader could be Luke's dad, and Luke could perceive good in Vader so that the story could be resolved. What happened in DKR is that Bane is completely overshadowed by Talia. The moment Bruce looks at her knife in his kidney, Bane becomes Talia's favorite childhood teddy bear. He loses all threat at that moment. He even seems to loose control, which he has been built to represent from the first frame. His mistress tells him to stay put and he disobeys her out of pride -- and immediately, literally in seconds, is completely demolished by Selena on the Bat Bike. Over two hours of setting this dude up as the mastermind comes to a ridiculously abrupt yet casual halt before he can even finish another of his pompous, nonsensical sentences. In the wake: a joke about murder from Catwoman.
Manchu wrote:Wait what? That's exactly what introducing the Emperor was supposed to do and did do.
So it turns out because their is an Emperor that Darth Vader suddenly didn't kill all those kids, rebels, or Jedi? Phew, I guess he really was just a sweetie after all, and everyone that feared him didn't understand that he really wasn't a threat to anyone, or that he had never really accomplished anything.
I find your 'teddy bear' analysis and interpretation of his reason for ignoring her request less than compelling.
Ahtman wrote:Having a partner doesn't diminish his accomplishments anymore than Darth Vader being the Emperor's apprentice suddenly made him a lesser villain.
Wait what? That's exactly what introducing the Emperor was supposed to do and did do. Once there was an Emperor, Vader could be Luke's dad, and Luke could perceive good in Vader so that the story could be resolved. What happened in DKR is that Bane is completely overshadowed by Talia. The moment Bruce looks at her knife in his kidney, Bane becomes Talia's favorite childhood teddy bear. He loses all threat at that moment. He even seems to loose control, which he has been built to represent from the first frame. His mistress tells him to stay put and he disobeys her out of pride -- and immediately, literally in seconds, is completely demolished by Selena on the Bat Bike. Over two hours of setting this dude up as the mastermind comes to a ridiculously abrupt yet casual halt before he can even finish another of his pompous, nonsensical sentences. In the wake: a joke about murder from Catwoman.
This.
I can see your point Ahtman, I understand where you're coming from. Personally; I felt that the film was dedicating two hours of plot and drama towards a final clash between Batman and Bane - something biblical. This was the last Batman film directed by Nolan, it ended like a wet firework on a rainy Bonfires Eve.
I've also seen other posts criticizing Bane's ending, but I don't really get it. It doesn't really come out of nowhere, and follows an epic brawl between the cops and the criminals, and Batman and Bane, where Batman defeated the physically superior Bane. I'm not sure having another drawn out confrontation at that point would have served much purpose. It also showed that Bane wasn't subservient to Talia, as the moment she walked out he was going to shoot Batman in the face.
If there was to be no smack down at the end, to what purpose was the previous 90 minutes worth of film? Bane breaks Batman. Batman is interred. Bane is jolly. Batman wants revenge. Bane is jolly. Batman returns. Bane is gaking himself in wonder. Alfred gives Bruce a wonderful little speech prior to the back-breaking regarding Bane's speed, prowess and his desire to have it all. Unfortunately, Bruce doesn't have much of this and sees himself broken. As far as I could tell, the following hour was setting up Bruce for a glorious return against Bane - to wreak his vengeance upon him, to become that which Bane mocked him, to become, in effect, Bane.
I'll reiterate again; Tom Hardy was fuckin' brutal as Bane. I just wished Nolan dedicated more to him and the Batman than to anything else. What should have been the last film in the trilogy went, as I said, with a relatively meek pop instead of the bang. Coincidently, I did enjoy the very last couple of scenes with Bruce, Alfred and Selina Kyle, as well as the revelation of Robin.
Ahtman wrote:So it turns out because their is an Emperor that Darth Vader suddenly didn't kill all those kids, rebels, or Jedi?
Actually, it turns out that killing nameless rebels isn't as important to the story as being the slave to the real mastermind. Even the whole thing about torturing Leia is out of the window by the brother-sister scene on Endor in RotJ.
Ahtman wrote:I find your 'teddy bear' analysis and interpretation of his reason for ignoring her request less than compelling.
And I find your misunderstanding of Star Wars shocking. I mean, I can understand that you haven't had a lot of time to think about DKR -- but Star Wars??
Manchu wrote:And I find your misunderstanding of Star Wars shocking.
Darth Vader actually did turn against the Jedi and kill a bunch of people as well as lead troops into battle; he was a formidable opponent for the Republic and the rebellion; one not need to be alone to be a threat, or competent. Bane actually lead men in daring raids, coordinated a shadow infiltration of Gotham's underworld, was on camera to the world leading the takeover of a major US city, and personally broke the Batman. The fact that he had a partner in crime doesn't mean he wasn't a threat or that he accomplished nothing.
I think the issue here we are talking about two different things here. You are talking about storytelling elements and infrastructure, whereas I am referring to events within the diegesis of the film. Within the story Bane still had many accomplishments and wasn't just some random thug.
Ahtman wrote:Within the story Bane still had many accomplishments and wasn't just some random thug.
I absolutely agree. That's exactly what makes the Talia "twist" (literal and figurative) and Bane's final scenes so silly. The film does a good job of establishing Bane as something comepletely different from the thug he ends up being.
JohnnoM wrote:I thought it was an alright movie overall however, the ending really, REALLY made me crack the feths. Thats all im gonna say.
You're probably going to have to same more, because I have no idea what you're talking about.
Anyway - I like the movie, and I liked the ending too.
Though I think that
Spoiler:
when there's another Batman movie, it is probably going to be a total reboot ala The Amazing Spider-Man.
The ending is completely ridiculous:
Spoiler:
Reason 1: The Bomb. I actually thought it was a really great, and touching moment for Batman to go and sacrifice his life to save the city. But then we find out that he survived. That made me rage.
Reason 2: Robin. The last bit is the most blatant attempt at setting up a sequel that I have ever seen, and I'm sick of hollywood movies doing this over and over again.
Reason 3: The Lady being the child. I thought that was just bloody ridiculous, as my friend put it: " They had a even more ridiculous answer for every ridiculous question."
However, this is just my two cents.
My brother still maintains that your first point is wrong because the bomb exploded
AegisGrimm wrote:Overall, My buddies and I liked the movie.
Spoiler:
I still think they should have introduced the name of "Robin" at the end by having the lady with his bags go, "Don't forget your bag, Mr Grayson." Having his name be literally "Robin" is just another issue of movies being written for the absolute dumbest guy in the audience to understand.
I think a continuation with him becoming "Nightwing" would be awesome. Or even better, mix Dick Grayson and Terry McGuiness together, and have the next movie be about Bruce Wayne behind the scenes directing the new Batman in protecting Gotham.
Spoiler:
I think it would be good to see him jump straight to Nightwing or Batman #2 and not robin
My one critism is the way Blake's first name is revealed. Seemed a bit hamfisted to me, although my brother who doesn't know anything outside of the films thought it worked.
Here's hoping Nightwing rather than Batman #2 although either would be fantastic. Just a shame Nolan won't do anymore.
I thought the reveal of Robin worked even though it was obvious from the movie. I don't really know anything about the Batman mythos apart from Justice League, the previous movies, Adam West, and what TVTropes has to say
Manchu wrote:That's a great contrasting example. And it could apply to Batman, too. Not every incarnation of Batman focuses so heavily on the death of his parents. The 40s serial and the 60s TV show never even mentioned them. And yet we still had a resourceful, costumed detective in both cases. Since the mid-70s, Batman has been trending dark. The current touchstones are Batman Year One and The Dark Knight Returns, both written by unabashed fascist libertarian Frank Miller. And those were the key texts for Nolan.
Sorry to throw a correction your way, but if by 60's Batman you mean the Adam West version, yes he does mention his parents being murdered. It was in one of the first six episodes, forget which exactly-I just started watching again and he got kind of sad and distant when he mentioned it. Don't know if it was ever addressed after that, but it did happen once. Know your bat!!
I liked a whole lot about this movie. The idea of Bruce Wayne as a fallen character, not because of his time as Batman but because of his failure as a billionaire to develop a new technology was terrific. Bane, Catwoman and pre-Robin were all well written, and well executed by their stars, and the supporting cast of high quality actors were as exceptional as they’ve been throughout the series. Having Cillian Murphy back for another little cameo was just great. ‘Death by exile’ indeed.
It also ended rather nicely, I thought, both in terms of ending this film, and ending the trilogy as a whole.
But despite all the good points, there was a really big structural problem at the heart of the script, that just made me realize how good The Dark Knight was. See, from the very beginning of The Dark Knight you had Batman and the Joker working towards their individual aims. They were active, characters in motion, either building their plans or doing what they can to figure out what’s going on.
That’s what a great action screenplay has, and while The Dark Knight Rises had excellent flourishes, the characters were largely passive. Bane started strongly, and continued to execute his plan right up until the moment he seized the city… and then what? He just screwed around, driving some trucks around the city until the timer ran out. There was some idea that he wanted the people of the city to scramble over each other to flee the city, but they never did he seemed unwilling to do anything about that. Basically he reaches that part of his plan then becomes inert. So passive, in fact, that I’m not even sure what the League of Shadows was hoping to do between capturing the city and finally trying to blow it up.
Batman ‘s passivity is a little more understandable, given he starts in retirement. Unfortunately his return to active duty isn’t well handled, he is robbed and then a police rookie turns up and begs him to become Batman again. From there he does very little as Batman, a police chase, beating up some hoodlums alongside Catwoman, a fight with Bane, another fight with Bane, and a chase to get the bomb. He is completely oblivious of Bane’s plan until he is tricked, and then completely outside of the main story until the very end of the film.
The result is that this film lacks the cat and mouse dynamic of Batman and the Joker that made that film so engrossing.
The other basic problem with this movie was the lack of effective action scenes. While robbery that opened The Dark Knight was matched, more or less, by the inventiveness of the plane scene that opens The Dark Knight Rises, after that the third film fell away. The Dark Knight had the Joker’s attack on Harvey Dent’s police escort at its core, and built brilliantly to this moment, had an audacious execution, and even managed to use it as a springboard to take the story to a whole other level. But The Dark Knight Rises had nothing to match that scene, as Batman and Bane’s fight was unremarkable, and then all we had was skirmishes involving minor characters until the final police/League of Shadows battle at the end, and that scene was, unfortunately, incredibly poorly handled (we finally had a superhero trilogy that acknowledged guns worked properly, and they end it with a contrived melee).
It’s a real shame because the attention to detail in the action scenes is exceptional, the sound of gunfire is perfectly, precisely captured, and I really wanted to these action scenes to be as relevant as they were perfectly executed.
All in all I enjoyed it, but ultimately it didn’t hold up to the standard set by the second movie.
Crablezworth wrote:My thoughts:
Spoiler:
What's missing for me (IE what makes it hard to suspend disbelief) is how does the league of shadows/bane recruit so many damn loyal people. The opening scene displays how loyal banes followers are, but not necessarily why. They refer to them often as mercenaries but that's problematic because mercenaries aren't exactly willing to lay down theier lives for a cause, they just want money. Look at the scene at the cement plant they were using to make explosives, you've got these two blue collar guys who are apparently just.. evil?
In the plane at the beginning of the movie Bane tells one of his henchmen he has to die with the plane, and the henchman willingly accepts it. So right from the opening they showed there's a commitment to the cause beyond money or anything like that.
As you said, they ran with the same trick in The Dark Knight, though at least in that case you had the residual effect of the Scarecrow's gas to justify the crazies.
I think basically they need some way to justify all these people following supervillains, and 'he's charismatic' is a reason that needs little on-screen explanation. It isn't great, but given the general implausibility of overtly evil, downright anarchic and self-destructive supervillains gathering small armies, it isn't too unreasonable a justification.
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Ahtman wrote:When they are referred to as mercs it is either from people who don't know what the LoS is, or Batman under the assumption that the LoS dispersed after he defeated Ra's. It actually is explicitly stated at one point if I recall. Alfred shows Batman footage of Bane attacking security gaurds and says "I see obsession, I see training, I see the the League of Shadows" and Wayne responds the the LoS is gone. Of course we know it is the LoS and later when Batman confronts Bane he finds out that it is the LoS and Bane claims leadership. These men aren't just mercs, and like the members of the LoS in Batman Begins, they are most certainly zealots for the cause.
They establish this in the opening scene of the movie. Bane tells one of his fellow 'captives' that in order for the plane crash to be believed they have to find one of their bodies, and the guy willingly stays behind to die.
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Manchu wrote:I liked a lot about the movie but I didn't like the movie itself. Sloppy, long-winded narrative with no real justification plus overwhelming everything action plus frenetic editing ... ugh, I just walked out of the theater feeling beaten up. The villains' plans are either nonsensical or absurd -- I mean, either what they're doing just doesn't make any sense or it's just such a narrow, vindictive matter that I'm left wondering why I should care about these small-minded antagonists. Nolan's Bat-films are widely thought to be topical but this film lacked any kind of moral compass. It's treatment of real-world themes lacked reflection and responsibility. My review can be summed up as : this was the film we deserved but not the one we needed.
Yeah, I liked a lot of how they touched on various parts of modern society, like the two brokers on Wall Street (paraphrasing) 'is batman good or bad news, I flipped a coin'. And actually I like that, like the previous film, it touches on topical issues without coming down definitively one way or the other - when the rich are so well off are the poor justified in taking illegal actions?
Unfortunately this film didn't just fail to come down on one side or the other, it pretty much forgot to address the issue once Bane took over the city. Exactly how people survived wasn't addressed, and outside of some brief looting all we saw was the people's court, which was the loonies passing judgement, and had nothing to do with the actual oppressed.
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Corpsesarefun wrote:Batman begins was the same.
I'd argue that The Dark Knight was so good because Batman was the main character rather than Bruce Wayne.
This thing about Batman and Bruce Wayne is a red herring. They're the same person, acting towards the same aims. When circumstance dictates that he wears a suit or a suit of armour, it's still the same guy.
The issue really is about Batman/Wayne having no real impetus in this movie. In The Dark Knight he begins with a goal - shut down the mob. He is an active force, planning to track the mob through the laundered money, laying a trap for Lau in Gotham, and eventually following him back to Shanghai to capture him. When the Joker begins to attack the police to disrupt the trial Batman then turns his attention to the Joker.
In comparison, in this film Batman spends the opening of the film being sad and being unwilling to do anything to change that. It's only when a policeman comes to him to directly beg him to be Batman again that he changes, and then all he manages to do is lurch right into Bane's trap.
He then spends most of the movie in a prison, being drip fed exposition before climbing out of the pit, to return at the very end.
It isn't about whether he's Batman or Wayne, it's about whether he's written as an active character with his own plans and ideas, or as a passive/reactive character that merely fits into a plot driven by someone else.
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Doctadeth wrote:What the *bleep*, I actually CORRECTLY predicted what the plot of Dark Knight rises would be, just off the trailer and from my limited knowledge of Batman.
Meh, the idea that movie should be completely unpredictable and full of twists is mistaken.
Knowing how a thing will play out and then seeing it happen isn't such a bad thing.
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Ahtman wrote:I think there is way to much emphasis being put on the 'twist', which I don't think is supposed to be that much of a twist to begin with.
I'm really puzzled that so many people kept thinking it was a twist. First time we saw Coutillard on screen I figured it was a chance she was the real villain, as what point was there in the film otherwise. Then when she mentioned her family wasn't always wealthy, and then it showed she had scars it was obvious she was a villain. What point did any of that have, unless she was?
Now, whether it was her or Bane who was the real top level villain is much of a muchness, but her being revealed as a villain wasn't really very surprising.
What was more of a shock was Wayne climbing out of the pit, and it showing him just outside of Jodhpur. I was like 'dammit, I went to that city and no-one told me Batman's jail was just outside of the city. That would have been awesome to see.'
The Villain twist was foreshadowed through the entire movie. IT did seem like Bane instead of staying in the city to ensure his plan goes through was n ow just staying in the city because he was told to. They way she was in command over bane took away from his character somewhat.
carlos13th wrote:The Villain twist was foreshadowed through the entire movie. IT did seem like Bane instead of staying in the city to ensure his plan goes through was n ow just staying in the city because he was told to. They way she was in command over bane took away from his character somewhat.
I think people are feeling that Bane seemed kind of neutered in the last part, and seem to focussing in on the revelation that Thalia, and not Bane was the real top dog. I think the real problem is that after siezing the bomb and cutting off the city, they just kind of fethed about for a month while Batman got better and climbed out of the pit.
If they just wanted to blow up the city, well then they could have done that at any time. If they wanted to make Gotham turn on itself, then maybe the movie should have showed them actually doing that.
The problem is more that appeared to be a big step missing in Bane/Thalia's plan Everyone is going to seem a bit weaker when they've been directionless like that for about a third of the movie.
I thought the point of not blowing up the city right away was to make the people think that things were going to get better over time, and force Bruce to watch it knowing that it was all a sham, then just laugh and blow it up anyway. They didn't blow up the city right away for the same reason that the Sheriff of Nottingham uses a spoon to cut out a man's heart, and not a knife. I'm not saying that they pulled it off perfectly, but I believe that was the intent.
I didn't get the impression Bane wanted people to try and flee the city, since they went to trouble to ensure that people wouldn't.
Exactly how people survived wasn't addressed
The movie did show them receiving aid shipments from the US. and in fact a special forces team was smuggled in with one.
I think Bane was somewhat inert after capturing the city because there was no longer any real threat for him, and a villain without a threat tends to be boring. The should have had more for Gordon/Blake's resistance to keep him active while Bruce was finding his happy place.
The funniest part of the movie was the part when the Police got released from 90 days in a hole, and rather than go see the kids, run into a barrage of gunfire.
Considering policemen cite health and safety do get out of doing anything even remotely dangerous, refuse to do pretty much anything unless they are getting overtime, and have the union the rattle its sabre every chance they get..
Well, I vote for Gotham's public sector to get a well deserved raise!
Manchu wrote:That seems to have been Nolan's take home for us, notwithstanding over two hours of development.
Maybe. But I took it as an excellent example for why Bane was kicked out of the Secret Society of Whisperers. At the end of the day, Bane was still a thug and Talia was still refusing to see that he was the thug that her father said he was.
Was it ever mentioned in the film why he was thrown out? I mean, besides what Alfred heard (which I cannot even remember). Was that confirmed as the real reason or was there another reason or was he never actually in the LoS or was he never actually kicked out?
Manchu wrote:Was it ever mentioned in the film why he was thrown out? I mean, besides what Alfred heard (which I cannot even remember). Was that confirmed as the real reason or was there another reason or was he never actually in the LoS or was he never actually kicked out?
He was kicked out by Ra's because he was a constant reminder of the hell hole he left his wife and unborn child in.
Manchu wrote:Was it ever mentioned in the film why he was thrown out? I mean, besides what Alfred heard (which I cannot even remember). Was that confirmed as the real reason or was there another reason or was he never actually in the LoS or was he never actually kicked out?
Talia said it quite explicitly, Bane reminded Ra's of the hell he left his lover and daughter in.
Manchu wrote:I liked a lot about the movie but I didn't like the movie itself. Sloppy, long-winded narrative with no real justification plus overwhelming everything action plus frenetic editing ... ugh, I just walked out of the theater feeling beaten up. The villains' plans are either nonsensical or absurd -- I mean, either what they're doing just doesn't make any sense or it's just such a narrow, vindictive matter that I'm left wondering why I should care about these small-minded antagonists. Nolan's Bat-films are widely thought to be topical but this film lacked any kind of moral compass. It's treatment of real-world themes lacked reflection and responsibility. My review can be summed up as : this was the film we deserved but not the one we needed.
I wouldn't say the villains are completely nonsensical I mean the League of Shadows was portrayed as an extremist organization in both the 1st and 3rd film, so it would make sense for them to have a ridiculous plot scheme like a lot of real world extremist groups have.
Corpsesarefun wrote:Alfreds research was kind of invalidated by the new information we got with the plot twit.
I do wonder where Alfred went after he left Wayne Manor,
Yeah, I spent the rest of the film after he left saying "he's gonna turn up now" and he didn't turn up till the funeral. I'm assuming that he left Gotham before it fell, and so couldn't get back in after it had.
Manchu wrote:Was it ever mentioned in the film why he was thrown out? I mean, besides what Alfred heard (which I cannot even remember). Was that confirmed as the real reason or was there another reason or was he never actually in the LoS or was he never actually kicked out?
He was kicked out by Ra's because he was a constant reminder of the hell hole he left his wife and unborn child in.
That is what Talia said the reason was, Alfred said he was kicked out by Ra's for being to extreme, or something to that effect.
Ahtman wrote:That is what Talia said the reason was, Alfred said he was kicked out by Ra's for being to extreme, or something to that effect.
In other words, we have two explanations and no other information to back either up -- except that neither Talia nor Bane were present during Bruce's training (despite Bruce's training clearly taking place after Talia's rescue) ... which doesn't really mean anything. As for her being an unreliable narrator -- we don't have any reason to believe anything that she says. Can you guys remind me what else we have besides her word?
Manchu wrote:Was it ever mentioned in the film why he was thrown out? I mean, besides what Alfred heard (which I cannot even remember). Was that confirmed as the real reason or was there another reason or was he never actually in the LoS or was he never actually kicked out?
He was kicked out by Ra's because he was a constant reminder of the hell hole he left his wife and unborn child in.
That is what Talia said the reason was, Alfred said he was kicked out by Ra's for being to extreme, or something to that effect.
I'd say that Talia is more informed on the matter than Alfred, he simply found out that Bane was excommunicated and then suggested that he could have been excommunicated for being too extreme.
Corpsesarefun wrote:She has no reason to lie to a man she presumes is as good as dead...
Yeah, the villain always reveals the details of her plan to the hero when the hero has absolutely no chance of survival. (apart from that one way that he could get out alive, but that's never going to happen is it?)
Corpsesarefun wrote:She has no reason to lie to a man she presumes is as good as dead...
She also expressed that she hated her father as well in the same speech. A person can be wrong without lying; she might not really understand why he booted Bane out and just assumed the reason. How many daughters would be angry at their father for not liking their boyfriend and saying she can't see him? How many fathers do it just to spite their daughter? I don't see an honest woman in that scene, but a petulant and angry child, upset with her father, and also upset at the man who took him away before she could act on her anger. I believe her words were "I could never forgive him... until you murdered him".
Ahtman wrote:I thought the point of not blowing up the city right away was to make the people think that things were going to get better over time, and force Bruce to watch it knowing that it was all a sham, then just laugh and blow it up anyway. They didn't blow up the city right away for the same reason that the Sheriff of Nottingham uses a spoon to cut out a man's heart, and not a knife. I'm not saying that they pulled it off perfectly, but I believe that was the intent.
Maybe. I think the idea was to let anarchy reign, and when people acted terribly, use that as moral justification to blow up the city. It's a lot like the Joker's boat trick at the end of The Dark Knight, except that was properly concieved and communicated to the audience, and came with a
The movie did show them receiving aid shipments from the US. and in fact a special forces team was smuggled in with one.
Sorry, I probably wasn't that clear. I don't mean logistically, we saw food get trucked in, and even distributed down to the police. I think that's how the spec ops guys were able to sneak in, but that scene moved very fast and I might have just assumed that.
What I mean is that we were given no real feell for how people acted in the chaos. Did the city devolve into complete anarchy, like the League of Shadows wanted? Or did most people shut up shop, like Matthew Modine did when he gave up on being a policeman? We just don't know, and given that's a major reason the League of Shadows was doing what it was doing, it seems a strange oversight.
I think Bane was somewhat inert after capturing the city because there was no longer any real threat for him, and a villain without a threat tends to be boring. The should have had more for Gordon/Blake's resistance to keep him active while Bruce was finding his happy place.
That's the point. Bane did everything he was going to do, and then just sat there for the next hour or so being aimless until Batman re-appeared just as the bomb was going to go off. It's bad structure.
I think they could have cleaned the whole thing up, by having more interaction between Bane and Batman early on, pushing the final execution of Bane's bomb plot back at least half an hour, and ripping the 'city held hostage' part of the movie to about a third of the running time they gave it.
Hey, they could have put Batman's prison in the tunnels under Gotham, instead of being in India, and thereby allowed for Bane to come down and continue to taunt him. Bane could then be showing Wayne what the city is collapsing into, trying to force Wayne to admit the city deserves destruction. Instead of introducing yet another character in the Doctor to drip feed Wayne the backstory, we could have had Bane himself reveal it in little snippets. I think then you'd get the conflict between the two brought front and square in the movie.
It was pretty good, better than going to work in the morning anyway.
Speaking of going, it was first film I have ever had to walk out of and go to the bathroom (talky bit where Alfred was telling Bruce about the letter from his Ex).
Seriously though fellers you're over analysis it....whoops wrong forum.
Cheesecat wrote:I wouldn't say the villains are completely nonsensical I mean the League of Shadows was portrayed as an extremist organization in both the 1st and 3rd film, so it would make sense for them to have a ridiculous plot scheme like a lot of real world extremist groups have.
But no real world extremist group has a plot of get a bomb, hold a city to ransom, wait around for a month or maybe two, then blow up the city. What the hell were they trying to do between trapping the cops underground and siezing the bomb, and when Batman turned up at the end and stopped them?
The microwave gun in the first movie that evaporated the river but didn't hurt people made more sense.
Cheesecat wrote:I wouldn't say the villains are completely nonsensical I mean the League of Shadows was portrayed as an extremist organization in both the 1st and 3rd film, so it would make sense for them to have a ridiculous plot scheme like a lot of real world extremist groups have.
But no real world extremist group has a plot of get a bomb, hold a city to ransom, wait around for a month or maybe two, then blow up the city. What the hell were they trying to do between trapping the cops underground and siezing the bomb, and when Batman turned up at the end and stopped them?
The microwave gun in the first movie that evaporated the river but didn't hurt people made more sense.
Yeah, at the very least they should have dropped some mustard gas down in with the cops. What part of their plan was serviced by keeping them alive?
Bromsy wrote:Yeah, at the very least they should have dropped some mustard gas down in with the cops. What part of their plan was serviced by keeping them alive?
I have no clue, because I have no clue what the plan was.
Beat up Batman, and lock him away so he can't prevent plan. Achieved.
Trap cops underground. Achieved.
Capture weapons from Batman, to equip private army and with the above thereby control city. Achieved.
Get bomb. Achieved.
Tell USA it can't retake city because you've got bomb. Achieved.
feth about doing nothing for a month or more. Achieved.
I think the plan was 'torment survivors, force them to act in horrible fashion towards one another, then destroy city' - though I admit, I'm not sure on the 'why' and what the ultimate point of the many month delay was either so...
Alpharius wrote:I think the plan was 'torment survivors, force them to act in horrible fashion towards one another, then destroy city' - though I admit, I'm not sure on the 'why' and what the ultimate point of the many month delay was either so...
Make Gotham suffer as much as you can before it's 'inevitable' demise
Cheesecat wrote:I wouldn't say the villains are completely nonsensical I mean the League of Shadows was portrayed as an extremist organization in both the 1st and 3rd film, so it would make sense for them to have a ridiculous plot scheme like a lot of real world extremist groups have.
But no real world extremist group has a plot of get a bomb, hold a city to ransom, wait around for a month or maybe two, then blow up the city. What the hell were they trying to do between trapping the cops underground and siezing the bomb, and when Batman turned up at the end and stopped them?
The microwave gun in the first movie that evaporated the river but didn't hurt people made more sense.
I think the movie was trying to show a parallel between life in Gotham and Batman's imprisonment, it wasn't meant to be logical. There's many other scene's like that in The Dark Knight Rises where in reality they
don't make much sense but on a poetic or symbolic level they do. Like at the ending, when it seems like a highly unlikely coincidence that Alfred sees Bruce with his wife at the exact same restaurant that Alfred
envisioned in his dream, but the point of scene wasn't to be realistic but to show that Alfred's wish was fulfilled.
I mean, I get the idea of making the city devolve into barbarism or whatever razzamatazz they were trying for, but the cops in the tunnels - no purpose. Gas the helpless bastards, no one had any official contact with em anyways. Or, just put like 5 more bombs in, and collapse the tunnels on top of them instead of the whole convoluted trapping nonsense in the first place.
Alpharius wrote:I think the plan was 'torment survivors, force them to act in horrible fashion towards one another, then destroy city' - though I admit, I'm not sure on the 'why' and what the ultimate point of the many month delay was either so...
But the point is they talked about that... and then when we reached that point in the movie they just ignored it completely. It was just forgotten about the whole time Batman was in prison and Gordon & Robin running about.
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Cheesecat wrote:I think the movie was trying to show a parallel between life in Gotham and Batman's imprisonment, it wasn't meant to be logical. There's many other scene's like that in The Dark Knight Rises where in reality they
don't make much sense but on a poetic or symbolic level they do. Like at the ending, when it seems like a highly unlikely coincidence that Alfred sees Bruce with his wife at the exact same restaurant that Alfred
envisioned in his dream, but the point of scene wasn't to be realistic but to show that Alfred's wish was fulfilled.
I don't think that particular parallel was planned for at all, to be honest. Nor can you explain away 30 or more days of time with 'its thematic'.
Really, it was just that Bane took out Batman on the eve of executing his big plan... and they then needed to pad out time in order for Batman to have all that League of Shadow's exposition explained to him, and to get fit enough to get back out of the prison.
They padded out this time in the most unconvincing of all possible ways... by having the villains just feth about for a month.
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Bromsy wrote:I mean, I get the idea of making the city devolve into barbarism or whatever razzamatazz they were trying for, but the cops in the tunnels - no purpose. Gas the helpless bastards, no one had any official contact with em anyways. Or, just put like 5 more bombs in, and collapse the tunnels on top of them instead of the whole convoluted trapping nonsense in the first place.
If you're going to just take out the cops to make sure your plan doesn't go to gak in a month's time... might as well just set the bomb off today to make sure your plan doesn't go to gak.
Bromsy wrote:I mean, I get the idea of making the city devolve into barbarism or whatever razzamatazz they were trying for, but the cops in the tunnels - no purpose. Gas the helpless bastards, no one had any official contact with em anyways. Or, just put like 5 more bombs in, and collapse the tunnels on top of them instead of the whole convoluted trapping nonsense in the first place.
If you're going to just take out the cops to make sure your plan doesn't go to gak in a month's time... might as well just set the bomb off today to make sure your plan doesn't go to gak.
Right, and that is what I or most logic driven people would do, ignoring the fact that it would probably be easier to just steal some nukes from the Russians, given a group like the LoS. The difference being I can at least understand why a group would get some sort of moral satisfaction out of making a city fall apart in a specific way. The cops thing still makes no sense at all in that scenario, given that they are supposed to just sit in the pit until the bomb kills them anyway.
Bromsy wrote:Right, and that is what I or most logic driven people would do, ignoring the fact that it would probably be easier to just steal some nukes from the Russians, given a group like the LoS. The difference being I can at least understand why a group would get some sort of moral satisfaction out of making a city fall apart in a specific way. The cops thing still makes no sense at all in that scenario, given that they are supposed to just sit in the pit until the bomb kills them anyway.
But they didn't make them fall apart. They just let them be, and apart from brief looting early on they seemed to get by just fine, and no-one among Bane or the rest of the League of Shadows seemed particularly concerned about any of that.
I mean, the city was dependant on food being trucked in... make people fight for that food. Show how basic those people would get when they're hungry.
Or you know, like in The Dark Knight, show that the villains are wrong about humanity. The Joker gave the two boatloads of people their moral predicament and they refused to do whatever it took to protect themselves. This film set up much the same debate, but then forgot to actually show anything to address this. The moral debate between Batman and Bane was, basically, not really addressed at all.
I don't think leaving the cops trapped was out of character. Bane is all about leaving 'hope' around to increase the despair. The cops being trapped gave the populace false hope, which made the despair worse. Plus it had the same effect on the cops.
As for the month inactivity. It wasn't 'inactivity', but rather they won and were enjoying the results.
The league isn't about the quickest, logical path to power, but rather about how to perpetuate an idea. Their plan worked towards that.
skyth wrote:I don't think leaving the cops trapped was out of character. Bane is all about leaving 'hope' around to increase the despair. The cops being trapped gave the populace false hope, which made the despair worse. Plus it had the same effect on the cops.
As for the month inactivity. It wasn't 'inactivity', but rather they won and were enjoying the results.
The league isn't about the quickest, logical path to power, but rather about how to perpetuate an idea. Their plan worked towards that.
having not seen the movie and leaning more and more against seeing it (or maybe just renting) maybe this is answered but, where is the Army? That sounds completely unbelievable.
Corpsesarefun wrote:Bane has a nuke that can be set off at any time and hundreds of people on watch, if anyone from outside of the city interferes the bomb goes off.
Thats still sounds stupid. You'd have the military on your ass so fast it would make your head spin.
Corpsesarefun wrote:There were there, they surrounded the city entirely.
Thats not the same. If you have terrorists or armed forces taking over a US city, that city would be overrun within 24 hours, if nothing else by local units of the national guard. Plus you couldn't do that in a real US city. The local citizenry would blow you to heck.
EDIT: I'll move off my point as its distracting from the thread.
Corpsesarefun wrote:There were there, they surrounded the city entirely.
Thats not the same. If you have terrorists or armed forces taking over a US city, that city would be overrun within 24 hours, if nothing else by local units of the national guard.
Plus you couldn't do that in a real US city. The local citizenry would blow you to heck.
EDIT: I'll move off my point as its distracting from the thread.
Bane over threw Gotham by using the majority of the populace using the Rich as a target, and released the people that used to inhabit Arkham onto the streets,and the only soldiers that went into Gotham to scout it were killed and theirs bodies out on display,
Frazzled wrote:Sounds like time to put down your average Latin American insurrection...
The first tank crosses a bridge and a nuclear bomb goes off killing everyone killing the entire city and surrounding military. Any military intervention of any kind and they would have turned the city and all 6 million or so inhabitants to ash, including the military personnel sent in.
Frazzled wrote:Sounds like time to put down your average Latin American insurrection...
The first tank crosses a bridge and a nuclear bomb goes off killing everyone killing the entire city and surrounding military. Any military intervention of any kind and they would have turned the city and all 6 million or so inhabitants to ash, including the military personnel sent in.
or at least thats what the guy in the mask says. Meanwhile a Marine sniper has already smeared his cerebellum against the wall.
Frazz, unless you are watching the movie just stop arguing for the sake of arguing. Unless you want everybody to spoiler the whole movie there is no point to it.
Just watch the movie or let it be. If you don't plan on watching it then why even complain about a plot you don't know care about.
Frazzled wrote:Sounds like time to put down your average Latin American insurrection...
The first tank crosses a bridge and a nuclear bomb goes off killing everyone killing the entire city and surrounding military. Any military intervention of any kind and they would have turned the city and all 6 million or so inhabitants to ash, including the military personnel sent in.
or at least thats what the guy in the mask says. Meanwhile a Marine sniper has already smeared his cerebellum against the wall.
I'm guessing you weren't really paying attention to the film at all, which begs the question: why go to a movie just to take a nap?
d-usa wrote:Frazz, unless you are watching the movie just stop arguing for the sake of arguing. Unless you want everybody to spoiler the whole movie there is no point to it.
Just watch the movie or let it be. If you don't plan on watching it then why even complain about a plot you don't know care about.
Frazzled wrote:Sounds like time to put down your average Latin American insurrection...
The first tank crosses a bridge and a nuclear bomb goes off killing everyone killing the entire city and surrounding military. Any military intervention of any kind and they would have turned the city and all 6 million or so inhabitants to ash, including the military personnel sent in.
or at least thats what the guy in the mask says. Meanwhile a Marine sniper has already smeared his cerebellum against the wall.
I'm guessing you weren't really paying attention to the film at all, which begs the question: why go to a movie just to take a nap?
Even worse - he hasn't seen the movie at all!
And is leaning towards not seeing it until he can rent it!
I'm a little late to this but I liked it but thought it was the weakest of the trilogy. Wish there had been a bit more of an "epic' finish to Bane. He gets killed by being shot by Catwoman. Lame death.
Frazzled wrote:Sounds like time to put down your average Latin American insurrection...
The first tank crosses a bridge and a nuclear bomb goes off killing everyone killing the entire city and surrounding military. Any military intervention of any kind and they would have turned the city and all 6 million or so inhabitants to ash, including the military personnel sent in.
or at least thats what the guy in the mask says. Meanwhile a Marine sniper has already smeared his cerebellum against the wall.
I think you're overestimating the skills of any sniper, if you think that they can make a shot that will definitely kill a man, who doesn't make himself very obvious (apart from a few key moments involving large speeches) from outside a city represented as being more densely packed than central new york.
I for one was unaware that snipers are now capable of both seeing and shooting through walls.
KamikazeCanuck wrote:I'm a little late to this but I liked it but thought it was the weakest of the trilogy. Wish there had been a bit more of an "epic' finish to Bane. He gets killed by being shot by Catwoman. Lame death.
People overrate TDK because Heath Ledger went unconsciousness and channeled the Joker perfectly. All the scenes without him were unexceptional.
I think each film is roughly equal, what matters it that a whole the entire trilogy was excellent, but in terms of enjoyment, not film criticism, the Avengers was superior to all of them.
Corpsesarefun wrote:There were there, they surrounded the city entirely.
Thats not the same. If you have terrorists or armed forces taking over a US city, that city would be overrun within 24 hours, if nothing else by local units of the national guard.
Plus you couldn't do that in a real US city. The local citizenry would blow you to heck.
Basically it's a Batman thing. There's always a reason to explain why no-one but Batman can solve this problem. Sometimes you just accept it as the kind of contrivance needed to have one single lunatic in a bat suit saving the city, and other times it's pretty stupid.
Honestly I didn't mind this one so much, but I can see how it'd be really annoying for some people.
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Goliath wrote:I think you're overestimating the skills of any sniper, if you think that they can make a shot that will definitely kill a man, who doesn't make himself very obvious (apart from a few key moments involving large speeches) from outside a city represented as being more densely packed than central new york.
Wasn't Gotham meant to just be New York this time? All the aerial shots looked a lot like New York, and there was that big central park in there.
Which something else that was kind of weird, because wasn't Gotham in The Dark Knight meant to be Chicago?
sebster wrote:[Wasn't Gotham meant to just be New York this time? All the aerial shots looked a lot like New York, and there was that big central park in there.
Which something else that was kind of weird, because wasn't Gotham in The Dark Knight meant to be Chicago?
Gotham in TDKR was/is an amalgam of several large US cities: New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Newark. Chicago was the primary filming location for Gotham in TDK.
"Metropolis is New York during the day, Gotham is New York at night", is probably one of the better known characterizations of the city. I have heard it attributed to both Frank Miller and John Byrne, so I don't know who actually said it, but it seems about right.
d-usa wrote:Gotham is a combination of the worst of all the major cities.
Ahtman wrote:Gotham in TDKR was/is an amalgam of several large US cities: New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Newark. Chicago was the primary filming location for Gotham in TDK.
"Metropolis is New York during the day, Gotham is New York at night", is probably one of the better known characterizations of the city. I have heard it attributed to both Frank Miller and John Byrne, so I don't know who actually said it, but it seems about right.
I know how Gotham is thought of, across the whole franchise. But with TDK they took what I thought was a pretty clever idea and put it into a real city, and used Chicago for that. But this time the distinctive landmarks were New York. I was wondering if anyone had read any production discussion about that?
It is interesting to me that different people seem to focus on different scenes. Others have told me they thought it focused on Philly. I haven't read it but I wouldn't mind the big production diary and art book that was put out.
I got the impression he wanted Gotham to represent American cities in general, and thus made it a hodge-podge of different ones, instead of one distinct city. Perhaps it was becuase it was the last film, or maybe he felt the nature of the story was more well suited to it being a bit of a jigsaw puzzle city instead of a homogenous one. I admit to being a bit surprised when it was said they weren't going back to Chicago, as I imagine the Chicago Film commission was as well.
d-usa wrote:Gotham is a combination of the worst of all the major cities.
Impossible. It has like no chemical plant leaks or refinery fires.
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sebster wrote:
d-usa wrote:Gotham is a combination of the worst of all the major cities.
Ahtman wrote:Gotham in TDKR was/is an amalgam of several large US cities: New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Newark. Chicago was the primary filming location for Gotham in TDK.
"Metropolis is New York during the day, Gotham is New York at night", is probably one of the better known characterizations of the city. I have heard it attributed to both Frank Miller and John Byrne, so I don't know who actually said it, but it seems about right.
I know how Gotham is thought of, across the whole franchise. But with TDK they took what I thought was a pretty clever idea and put it into a real city, and used Chicago for that. But this time the distinctive landmarks were New York. I was wondering if anyone had read any production discussion about that?
Wasn't the Batman Returns much more fantastical though with the super elevated train, and almost hive like quality. Indeed, are there any scenes in the city in actual daylight where it doesn't look like it just rained or some pipes are steaming nearby? DK looked like Chicago both in the day and night. I actually thought DK was much more "realistic" than the first film. The Joker wasn't part of some BS 2,000 year old cult but instead a visualization of a brilliant and charismatic Charles Manson.
In the comic books, I always felt that Metropolis mirrored New York and Gotham mirrored Chicago, with a hodge-podge of other cities mixed in to fit the canvas of the current storyline. But I could be wrong.
KamikazeCanuck wrote:I'm a little late to this but I liked it but thought it was the weakest of the trilogy. Wish there had been a bit more of an "epic' finish to Bane. He gets killed by being shot by Catwoman. Lame death.
He got exactly what was coming to him. Dare I say, he got what he deserved?
Anything "Epic" actually would have been "Clichéd".
This last page is ridiculous, you fethers put far too much effort into coming up with reasons why a comic book wouldn't work in real life.. of course it wouldn't work in real life! Like I said, I thought the fact that the eternally lazy police officers actually went to war and ran at a line of criminals instead of going home was less realistic than the fact the government didn't do much about the whole city on lock-down thing!
Lets have it right, the first fether with an AK47 would end Batman, its supposed to be entertainment not a documentary. The bit where he takes down 6 guys armed with sub machine guns in the first movie would have been the end of Batman, let alone the other 7 hours of celluloid!
At least Nolan attempted to make it remotely plausible.
Overall I liked the film, but I can agree with the people wondering what the hell Bane was doing in between capturing the city and detonating the bomb. I mean, we explicitly see him actually twiddling his thumbs at the court scenes more than once.
The film was extremely longwinded. To me, it seemed it was trying to do too much. It seemed to have several comics that it was drawing on as inspiration:
Dark Knight Returns: Aged and jaded batman pulled back into action by crisis.
Vengeance of Bane: Bane's backstory.
KnightFall: The breaking of Batman by Bane.
KnightsEnd: Batman's recovery and resurgence.
Cataclysm: Gotham is hit by a large disaster and descends into anarachy.
No Man's Land: Gotham, cut off from the rest of the United States and minus Batman, descends into tribalism and gang violence until Batman returns to restore order.
You could bundle the robin plotline into variously, the robin miniseries and nightwing graphic novels of the late nineties, but really it was it's own, separate story, along with Catwoman.
Any one of those comics could have made an amazing film. With all of them being used, you've got something slightly less coherent, overly long, and I suppose a bit stretched.
While as a long time batman fan, I was happy with all the little nods and the execution of the various bits, I felt that as film, it didn't hang together as well as Dark Knight. It was just a bit too ambitious to do everything it wanted to do as well as it could.
Highlights:
The cast. Bale does a brilliant and subtle job as a burned out batman. Caine continues to be awesome as Alfred. The younger fella they had playing Blake (yer man from Brick) was superb, and really drew me in. Hathaway did a great job as Catwoman. Hardy was superb as Bane, and the switch from good to evil for Talia was awesome. As usual, Gordon was bloody awesome as well because everything Gary Oldman does is amazing.
The last 3 minutes: The build up to revealing that Batman faked his own death, and that Blake/Robin is going to take over now (with the awesome "rising" end shot) sent me out of the film on a massive high.
Problems:
The two best protagonists (Gordon and Wayne) were sort of "out of it" for a lot of the movie.
The movie is too long. It has too many parts, and they feel pretty disconnected from each other.
The motivations of the antagonists are not clear, or not compelling. Similarly, the actions of the feds are not believable, to me.
Low Points:
The cops charging the army of goons at the end. I know it was all symbolology, but I didn't like it at all. It took what has primarily been a gritty and "real" franchise and made it silly. It's not WW1 any more, and those cops would not have done that. Anyway, after 3 months in the dark, I'd have said they'd have been suffering uncoupled circadian rhythms as well as probably some nasty infections brought on by gakking in close quarters for that long. And then Bane and Batman have another fist fight instead of someone just nailing bane with a rifle or something. Beh. Didn't work, but I guess they didn't have time for anything better.
Batman's recovery. Totally unbelievable, to be honest. But hey. I guess rage is the best medicine.
The cheesy love scene with Wayne and Talia. WTF. "Oh, we got rained on, and we're in a film. I guess we gotta shag now. And now that we've shagged, you are obsessively in love with me." I dunno, maybe Talia is a weasel in the sack or something.
KamikazeCanuck wrote:I'm a little late to this but I liked it but thought it was the weakest of the trilogy. Wish there had been a bit more of an "epic' finish to Bane. He gets killed by being shot by Catwoman. Lame death.
People overrate TDK because Heath Ledger went unconsciousness and channeled the Joker perfectly. All the scenes without him were unexceptional.
I think each film is roughly equal, what matters it that a whole the entire trilogy was excellent, but in terms of enjoyment, not film criticism, the Avengers was superior to all of them.
Seems I need to watch a movie twice too get a true sense of it. First time I saw The Dark Knight i thought it was good but I liked it a lot better the second time I saw it. I think TDKR and Avengers were good but not super-awesome like I now think TDK is but maybe i need to see them again. Right now I'd rank them TDK; Batman Begins; TDKR. Avengers only reachs TDKR levels of coolness for me.
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Alpharius wrote:
KamikazeCanuck wrote:I'm a little late to this but I liked it but thought it was the weakest of the trilogy. Wish there had been a bit more of an "epic' finish to Bane. He gets killed by being shot by Catwoman. Lame death.
He got exactly what was coming to him. Dare I say, he got what he deserved?
Anything "Epic" actually would have been "Clichéd".
I know but I'm ok with cliched, epic showdowns with bad guys in comic movies. Especially over whatever that was and especially since Bane seemed to be channeling a cliched bad-guy-voice from saturday morning cartoons. And they certainly didn't avoid the mega-cliche of the ticking timebomb being dealt with at the last second even with a 5 month countdown did they?
Batman already beat him once in a fight (that is how they got into the room afterall), what would the purpose of a third fight right after that one be, other then to add to the already bloated running time?
They don't need another fight just some kind better resolution to the one they have. Their whole "relationship" was based on one of who's better in single combat. For him to go down by getting shot in the back by Catwomen...idunno seems like cheating by Batman.
Da Boss wrote: The cheesy love scene with Wayne and Talia. WTF. "Oh, we got rained on, and we're in a film. I guess we gotta shag now. And now that we've shagged, you are obsessively in love with me." I dunno, maybe Talia is a weasel in the sack or something.
Weasle? She was trained by the Society of Secret Whisperers. She's their new goddam leader. I bet she's more than most men could handle in the sack. Not me, obviously.
While we're on that topic, did it aggravate no one else that the goddamned Batman did not do a background check on "Miss Tate" even when she handed his company a bajillion to make fusion a reality? I am referencing the post-shag cuddle scene where Batman is completely unaware of Tate's past. This is not a question of nitpicking the trilogy's supposed realism; this is a question of the trilogy making a huge, extremely problematic concession to the writer against the grain of a well-established character.
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Ahtman wrote:Batman already beat him once in a fight (that is how they got into the room afterall), what would the purpose of a third fight right after that one be, other then to add to the already bloated running time?
Yeah, it's almost as if that whole scene was yet another terrible mistake in a movie filled with too many other mistakes ...
I agree. In the end, the film looks like it should be good. It sounds like it should be good. It feels like it should be good. But it is just really, really bad. I don't mean it is an absolute shambles, like the worst possible thing that could happen to any movie. It's watchable. It's got a lot of entertaining pieces. But the heart of any superhero movie is a moral compass and this movie lacks that. It is, in effect, heartless -- which ends up being a pretty good summary of a lot of what's wrong plot-wise and character-wise and ... well, just morally speaking.
Overall, I liked it. I was wondering what they were going to do with Bane, since IIRC in the comics he's basically a Luchadore on super-ultra-steroids and not really the kind of "Big Picture" villain as in previous movies.
The Robin thing was pretty telegraphed but not handled badly, IMO... I think it was hamfisted to have his real name actually be Robin instead of one of the Robins from the comics, but I guess the problem with doing that would be 1.)There's like four Robins
2.) Most movie goers wouldn't get it.
The only thing that surprised me was Talia al-Ghul.
I haven't seen Batman Begins in a while so I cannot for the life of me remember Ras al-Ghul's motivations, and therefore I don't really know why Bane wanted to destroy Gotham other than "CUZ I'M EVIL MUWAHAHAHAHA (and I'm doing what Ras al-Ghul wanted)." I also don't know why he sounded like Deckard Cain.
Overall it was pretty good and I'll definitely buy it on DVD, and make sure to watch Batman Begins before I see it again in an attempt to better understand why Bane does what he does.
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insane. Nicholson, on the other hand, nailed both sides of it perfectly.
