The Movie/Film Thread

[deadgrandma]

Saw The Dark Knight Rises and it left me with mixed feelings. It suffered from trying too hard to tie up the story while at the same time having a new one. As a Batman movie it was weird, his story got about 30% of screen time. Bane is a pretty big step down from the Joker as a villain and he sinks into "lame" a lot of the time. Goofy Nolan action cuts abound. However, props to Anne Hathaways Catwoman, the most interesting part of the movie. That said I don't hate it either, just don't expect to be blown away.

[Tokyo Jihad]

Even though the fiance and I began poking holes in it the second we got into the car, I really liked it. A lot. Bane was engaging (even if he was a beefier Joker), Anne Hathaway and her character were good, the Nolan-crew were...who they were, and Bale was utterly believable. The action scenes were tense, even if less chaotic than The Dark Knight, and was a gripping end for the trilogy.

[deadgrandma]

Yeah... but:

SPOILERS- Do not read the white text if you haven't seen it

I'm not usually one to question action movies (particularly superhero movies) on their logic, but because this one takes itself so seriously, its a must-do.

-The main plot device- the bomb. WTF was it actually meant to be? It was referred to as a nuclear fusion machine, neutron bomb and atomic bomb, then when it was taken from its power core it was referred to as a time bomb. Now if you were to take said core from power source, its instability would be just that- there would be no way to determine when the bomb would explode, or even if it indeed would explode...

Batmans punchline when he faces Bane in the finale "NO, I came back to stop you". Good one, Batman.

Catwomans magic USB.

Lame, lame, lame patriotism.

Lines like "We're getting high readings of radiation, its DEFINITELY nuclear". The audience isn't that dumb, right?

Why Batman's enemies seem to know his identity but his allies don't. Though this can refer to all of the Nolan movies I guess.

The scene where Alfred dramatically leaves serves no purpose in the end

Bruce Waynes limp magically disappears after his imprisonment

All things that wouldn't mean a thing to me if this wasn't the follow up to THE DARK KNIGHT.

[Tokyo Jihad]

SPOILERS FOR THE DARK KNIGHT RISES, PLEASE NO BODY BOTHER TO READ. EVEN IF YOU HAVE SEEN THE MOVIE, NO NEED TO READ THESE SPOILERS!

The bomb was my fiance's main gripe about the movie. Her being a physicist, she complained that making a reactor and then only one scientist on earth knows how to turn it into a bomb, when in reality, thats totally backwards. Ie: its much easier to make things explode than it is to control them. This is true, but me and her like to make different pokes at movies: she complains about shaky science (because she's a scientist) and I complain about weird cuts and editing (because I, at least know about, film making.) As for the time bomb aspect -- whatever. They made this fictional reactor, it it so hard to further believe they built a warning system in case of failure?

Since we're on the subject of the bomb though, let me say my angle on nit from a storytelling point of view. So in storytelling you sometimes/often/always want a "ticking bomb", some dramatic event the film is inevitably leading up to one way or another. TDKR isn't the first to take it literally and put an actual ticking bomb in the movie, and even the "self-sacrifice"-take-it-in-the-air-and-explode-it-from-afar has been done countless times in action movies. The fact that these specific choices were made tell me one thing: Nolan does not want you to think the bomb is the point. The point is the Batman blowing himself up for Gotham (wink), Bane's mechanism for chaos, and of course the transformation of all the characters: Wayne, Selena Kyle, Blake. The vehicle is "just a car", but the journey is what counts.

Some little petty things: Bruce's limp disappeared after he got that knee brace. You're going to point that out but not that he wasn't permanently paralyzed? Yeah what about the magic usb? It ultimately allowed for the happy ending. Once again, it was a movie that featured a flying car. A program that can erase a person from every traceable database (that you can apparently run from any computer) seems to be pretty plausible in comparison, no? You point out two lines that, I find, pretty innocuous, but the two most over-dramatic pieces of acting: Joseph Gordon Levitt's overdone "Jee I shouldn't have shot and killed that guy. I'mma throw my gun down! Raahh" shot, or Marion Cotillard's "lights on, lights off" sudden death. I thought those two bits were unintentionally hilarious. Alfred's exit didn't tug at you a little bit?? Come now. Yes he came back at the end -- at Bruce Wayne's funeral though! I don't know what part you didn't like about it. Even when Bruce ended with "goodbye, Alfred," the very next thing he was calling for him. He didn't really mean (or hope) for Alfred's dismissal.

What part did you find overly "patriotic"? This wasn't Spiderman 3 or anything. The series (that is, Nolan's series) has always glorified police. At least since, and including, The Dark Knight the series has always been a kind of allegory for, shall we say, "American Justice." TDK at least a little about the Patriot Act -- Batman using every cell phone in Gotham to catch the Joker, to Morgan Freeman's dismay -- and then Batman's destruction of it once the threat was gone. Batman is order's paragon, its okay to take extreme measures as long as...wait for it...you don't "live long enough to see yourself become the bad guy." (Whether or not you agree with that sentiment, but that's the movie's thesis.) TDKR comments similarly on today's social unrest: have-not's vitriol towards the have's excess, social upheaval happens and people loot and steal from the wealthy. The movie seems to say: don't rob the rich, but then what does Bruce Wayne do? He sacrifices his life (wink) for his people and gives everything to the needy (and Alfred.) So the thesis is: you shouldn't strip the wealthy, but the wealthy should sacrifice as the poor. Is that patriotic? You tell me.
(Or maybe you meant that because they sang "Star-Spangled Banner" it was lamely patriotic.

END OF SPOILERS, I SURE HOPE NO ONE READ THAT.

So was it a perfect film? No. But was The Dark Knight? No. Are both excellent? Absolutely. The problem TDKR will forever face is that people have practically fetishised its predecessor so much, it will never stack up. I haven't watched TDK in a long time (and Begins, I only ever saw once. Oops,) but I left the theatre thinking TDKR was at least as good as it. Yeah I would have liked to have seen some things play out differently, or some tings slightly changed, but thats not to say I disliked what was there. I thought it was stellar.

[TurtleFu]

I haven't seen TDKR YET, but apparently people are saying how, thematically, the films really ARE a perfect trilogy and all this about themes, and symbols, and lines in the first one making sense in the third one, and how you basically get a perfect hero's arc in three films.

Even though I don't venerate them as much as other people, the idea that they were all planned together intrigues me.

[Scribble R]

I found all the action scenes in TDK and Inception a complete drag, so that's the one thing that's making me not particularly excited about TDKR.

[Maou]

I'm not going to be able to see TDKR until later next week or so (might try a matinee on Wed). I have a stupid cosmetic question about Catwoman: does her hair stay long for the whole film? I saw Anne Hathaway cut her hair rather short for another film and wondered if it showed up here too. It's silly, but short hair is what I expect in a good Catwoman looks-wise. Catwoman based on Audrey Hepburn is best Catwoman. Imagine my horror when I saw Catwoman with long blonde hair in Batman: The Animated Series. Yeesh.

[Tokyo Jihad]

I guess it was long (?) It was about shoulder-length, according to my sources. I can't say I was looking too intently at her hair.

[TurtleFu]

I'm really bothered by the fact that Catwoman has heels, just because I think that Nolan has set up a really plausibly realistic Batman universe, and then it seems like a woman who does parkour would *realistically* not wear heels, but RULE OF SEXY trumps all.

However, when I say this my friends think I am insane. "Catwoman *must* have heels, she is CATWOMAN".

Fact: The best Catwoman did not have heels.

[Maou]

Aside from the silly hair thing, I'm most concerned about Anne Hathaway herself in the movie. I haven't liked her in anything I've seen in and I'm not looking forward to seeing her in this. I've hated the casting since it was announced.