Jul 22, 2012

REVIEW: The Dark Knight Rises (d. Nolan)

 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+ 

2 comments:

  1. 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.

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  2. Tom, 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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