Sunday, August 5, 2012

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES (SPOILERS!)

Well, I finally saw it. Enjoyable but not awe-inspiring. Great but not epic. "Dark Knight" is definitely the best of the three of the Nolan trilogy... it's tough to call at this point which is the better between "Begins" and "Rises."

THINGS I LIKED:
* Anne Hathaway was great as Selina Kyle ("The Cat" - you know who).
* Michael Caine was, no surprise, great as Alfred.
* Morgan Freeman... ditto.
* Gary Oldman was awesome again as Commissioner Gordon. After the Dark Knight, I commented that I would totally watch a film that was just Commissioner Gordon and GCPD battling the forces of crime, which is what you basically got in this film. However, that leads me to:

THINGS I DIDN'T LIKE SO MUCH
* For a Batman movie, this did not have a lot of Batman in it. It's almost like Nolan crammed too much into it and Bruce got put a bit to the side.
* At the end, when Selina Kyle blasted Bane, it felt cheap. Bane broke Batman... and then Batman's ultimate redemption against Bane was being saved by Selina and a big gun? Even though it gave Ms. Hathaway a good one-liner, it seemed a bit anticlimactic.

THINGS I'M... WELL... IN THE MIDDLE ON
* Tom Hardy as Bane. Still trying to decide if his vocals were brilliant or too over the top.
* Connections with previous two films. I enjoyed the cameo of Dr. Jonathan Crane (Scarecrow). However, if you're going to do that... and bring back the ghost of Ra's Al Ghul, then one would think that the major villain of the second film (Dark Knight) would at least get a mention. I understand with the death of Heath Ledger that it's a sensitive area, and I'm not saying you needed to recast someone for a cameo of the Joker, but it was kind of bizarre that everything from the first two films got a mention except for, you know, the major foe Batman faced before Bane showed up.
* The ending. Bruce gets to live in Italy with The Cat and make kittens? (Thank you brother Kent for that amusing line. :) ) And John Blake becomes the new Batman? I did enjoy the brief line: "You should use your full name... Robin..." but again, not sure if I'm totally on board with how this ended.

Overall, the acting of all involved was top notch and Nolan knows how to direct action, that's for sure. As far as the superhero movies I've seen this summer, Avengers remains the best and most enjoyable. I would rank them as follows:
* Avengers
* Dark Knight Rises
* Amazing Spider-Man

That's it for now... it will be interesting to see who will play Batman in the future because after Avengers made over a BILLION dollars, you can bet your sweet bippy that Warner/DC is going to get a Justice League movie together STAT.

GRADE: A-

Cheers, BGA