After a 2 month hiatus, the monkeys are back! As you may have seen on Mad Mike's blog, he's spending the month of September reviewing threequels. So today, DonnyFTW has decided to join Mad Mike and talk about one of the most polarizing movies ever made, The Dark Knight Rises.
With Batman movies, opinions are generally universal: The Tim Burton movies are good, The animated movies are good, Batman Begins and The Dark Knight are amazing, Batman Forever and the Adam West movie are meh, and Batman & Robin is terrible. But with Christopher Nolan's final installment of the Dark Knoght trilogy, The Dark Knight Rises, opinions are split down the middle. This is a classic to some, and a piece of shit to others. The Dark Knight Rises is the most polarizing superhero movie ever made.
So why are opinions so divided? Are the people who like this movie wrong? Are they just "blind Nolanites" who would jump off a cliff if Nolan told them to? Do people hate this movie because it was legitimately bad? Or were they just expecting too much?
Well, either way, Donny FTW and Mad Mike of Metal are going to dive into this movie... You have our permission to read.
Synopsis: The movie opens in the seconds after the end of The Dark Knight... Then seconds later fast forwards 8 years in the future. Batman hasn't been seen or heard since Harvey Dent's death and Bruce Wayne has become a recluse. We learn about a fusion reactor project that has all but bankrupted Wayne Enterprises as Bruce refuses to let it see the light of day due to it's dangerous nuclear reactor. Big bad Bane then comes to town and stirs up his own brand of chaos and readers of Knightfall will see a familiar scene as Bruce is sent away while Bane takes over Gotham. Jim Gordon and new friends Selina Kyle, a hardened thief with something more to prove, Detective John Blake, former cop now Gordon's right hand man and Miranda Tate, co-financer of the nuclear reactor project and now CEO of Wayne Enterprises after Bruce's exhile, are left to pick up the pieces and formulate a plan before Gotham, shut out from the outside world over a nuclear bomb threat, goes boom. Meanwhile Bruce must learn to embrace his fears if he hopes to get back to Gotham and save his city.
So Donny, are you in the "love it" or "hate it" crowd for this one? Be thorough because I have to pee.
I do love it. I mean it unfairly gets comparisons to The Dark Knight, which was by all accounts a cinematic masterpiece, The Dark Knight Rises picks up with The Dark Knight leaves off and has it's own twists and turns around every corner that make it an equally exciting adventure to watch, although a much different one. Where as The Dark Knight we marvelled at Ledger's iconic portrayal of The Joker and his plan, which wasn't so much a "plan" as it was a series of random events. In The Dark Knight Rises we see the fruits and labour of a long thought out plan come to fruition with each and every step carefully planned for with all possible problems having a solution already in place. It was this meticulous planning that had me enthralled and anxious to see what the next part of Bane's plan would be.
Yeah, Bane is a schemer, that's what all the people who worked for him were, they were schemers. Trying to control their little worlds. Batman just tried to show Bane and his people just how... pathetic... their attempts to control things really are. I mean Bane was a schemer, he had plans... and look where that got him!
Umm... Why so serious? Okay Mike, what crowd are you in?
Now that I'm done trying to hopelessly shoe-in a Joker reference, I will say that I'm part of the love it crowd as well. It does have some flaws that you could point out here and there, but I didn't find any of them that bad. I mean, other big 2012 movies like The Avengers and Skyfall had even bigger flaws and that doesn't stop those movies from being fucking awesome, so why should the flaws in this movie ruin it? I like how much from the comics this movie drew from (apart from Bane's appearance), it kind of felt like a live-action adaptation of The Dark Knight Returns meets Knightfall. Batman takes time off and comes back all washed up, Bane breaks Batman's back, Batman fights his foe again after getting his ass kicked the first time and this time defeats him, etc etc. I also like how the ending (SPOILERS AHEAD) was just a big reference to the Adam West movie... Because some days you just can't get rid of a bomb!
So Donny, favourite parts? Are their any problems you have? Do you have any explanation for why this movie is so polarizing?
I mean other than the whole Dark Knight thing, I have no idea. This is far from a bad movie, and although some of the twists are obvious now after multiple viewings, I can honestly say watching it for the first time in theatres I did not see any of it coming, well maybe the Miranda Tate thing but that was just because it was all over the Internetz even before the movie came out so it was hard to get it out of your mind. But yeah, I think most people expected some grandiose finale with death and destruction lying in it's path, but no main characters really die for sure that we're aware of, sure there was a villain and a protagonist that we assume are dead but we see no proof of that. As far as favourite parts, visually it has to be the football stadium scene. Otherwise I'm a big fan of heist flicks, especially when you are seeing the plan unfold before your eyes so the ending with Batman going toe-to-toe with Bane, meanwhile Gordon tries to get to the bomb to jam it in a mad dash to get the payload secured before the detonator is well detonated gives me tingles just thinking about it...
Yeah... Just like seeing a girl for the first time and knowing that there isn't anything you wouldn't do to bone her...
That's a special feeling Lloyd
Oh and you just liked the football stadium scene because all of the Pittsburgh Steelers get killed.
Anyways, the ending had to be my favourite part as well. It was an emotional roller coaster of a ride that ended (SPOILERS) with Batman supposedly getting blown to bits. The last shot of his face before the bomb went off was the most poignant for me. He has a look on his face as if he has come to acceptance that he's going to die (or so we thought), and that he's okay with it. I'm not going to lie, I remember tearing up a bit when it happened, and I remember tearing up even more when you saw My Cocaine balling his eyes out at Bruce's funeral.
Now, let me explain the "flaws" that certain people have with this film... One of them is how Bruce miraculously gets back to Gotham even though the entire city is blocked off. Well, if you recall a previous scene in which some big shot special forces guys came to the city to try and stop Bane, they got into the city by smuggling themselves into a supply truck. My guess is that Bruce, with his oh so good ninja and detective skills, got back in town the same way.
"What about when Bruce, who originally wanted to do this Batman thing after the death of his parents, gives up for 8 years because his cock-teasing lady friend died?"
Well, he didn't quit because of that, he quit because Batman wasn't needed anymore, organized crime had been wiped out of the city, and Gotham's last biggest threat, the Joker, was behind bars. Maybe he had enough of watching people so close to him die as well. Maybe he didn't want to put more loved ones in danger, who knows
"What about when you find out Bane was just Talia's bitch?"
They were partners, Bane was no bitch. I'm sure he was in it partly for himself as well.
"How about Talia's death scene, that was horrible acting."
Umm... yeah... I got nothing on that one.
I think they mistook Tom Hardy's Bane for the Bane in that other Batman movie we won't speak of. As far as Talia's death, Marion Cotillard has more Oscars then the whole cast combined not named Michael Caine or Morgan Freeman so yeah... Pretty much any actor over the age of 100 in this movie has more bragging rights but other than that she can pretty much do what she pleases... Anyways I suppose we should get to final thoughts...
Although I find it's the weakest of The Dark Knight trilogy in my view, yes Batman Begins has the awfullness that was Katie Holmes, but it also had Cillian Murphy in a leading role and Liam Neeson kicking all kinds of Ninja ass... But that's not to say it's a bad movie, quite the contrary. It's like hooking up with the ugliest model at a Victoria's Secret show... Sure there's better ones you can spend your time with but you aren't certainly going to complain about what you get. 5 cowls out of 5 for me.
What if that model is Rosie O'Donnell, dude?
Final thoughts? What is this, Jerry Springer?
All that shit aside, I though the direction the movie went in was good, all the actors nailed their parts as usual, and my jab at Talia's death was just a minor nitpick at best. I will agree with Donny that this is the weakest of the trilogy, but at least it didn't completely shit all over everything you loved about the first two movies... UNLIKE OTHER THREEQUELS I CAN TALK ABOUT!
This pic is totally NOT a hint at my next review, not at all...
The story, while complex, was great! The action was awesome, the Batwing design was cool, blah blah blah, you get it, I love this movie. While not the best Nolan-helmed Batman movie, it's still fantastic, and a terrifically satisfying conclusion to one of the greatest movie trilogies of all time. 98 broken backs out of 100 for moi.
Well that concludes our review of The Dark Knight Rises. Join us again next time as we'll be doing a list sometime in the near future. Feel free to check out our other blogs as well.
Mike's Personal Blog
Donny's Personal Blog
Bye Bye now!
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