Things we liked about
The Dark Knight Rises:—
1. The plane.
2. Anne Hathaway's Catwoman, particularly her stylish exits (out of window twice, over the ledge, on the bike etc)
3. The first half an hour: the confidence with which the balls are tossed into the air.
4. The shots of New York under siege in long-shot.
5. Bane's mad-dog-Mike-Tyson routine on Batman against the pillar. (Should have been earlier in the film)
6. The scarcity of cgi.
7. The scarcity of Batman.
8. The multi-tier climax.
9. The Ken Adam-style set design.
10. The large cast (always so crucial in establishing Batman's singularity) but Gary Oldman especially. The only one who actually looks like he solves crimes for a living.
Things we didn't like so much:—
1. How much punching there was. Preferred the Scarlet Pimpernellish now-you-see-him-now-you-don't routines of the first film.
2. The bat costume. Too armor-plated, in the fashion preferred by teenagers, but bespeaking fear that Batman doesn't look tough enough. Would have preferred pure, light-devouring black (cf when it got wet).
3. The two Bane speeches, back-to-back, one on the football field, the other in front of the prison, both unintelligible.
4. The line "That whole 'no guns' thing. I don't think I take it as seriously as you." Should have been "It's not really working for me."
5. In addition to his usual bass-unintelligibility, Bale sounded like he had a cold (was the mask squeezing his nasal passages?)
B+
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Good review Tom. This is a very brave piece of work here given by Christopher Nolan and he shows that he can pull-off a near-perfect trilogy, even if a lot of people don’t want to see him go. Hopefully, this means he’s off to doing more original pieces of work like Inception or The Prestige.
ReplyDeleteTom, when you say "We", are you a team of people, or perhaps part symboite like a certain Spider-Man character? "We are Venom!"
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