The Dark Knight RISES
The Dark Knight Rises just came out and here's my reaction, review. I've tried to hide/be ambiguous to avoid posting spoilers, but sometimes it's unavoidable. Read at your own risk:
The Dark Knight Rises just came out and here's my reaction, review. I've tried to hide/be ambiguous to avoid posting spoilers, but sometimes it's unavoidable. Read at your own risk:
The Legend Ends...
There are films that are "sons of their time" and are conditioned by the expectations that you have placed in them. The Dark Knight Rises belongs to this group thanks to the cult generated by its director, Christopher Nolan, since made ??himself a name with the amazingly clever "Memento" and his remarkable approach to the Batman film franchise, which made him win praise, fans and of course, detractors.
Of course, TDKR will be attacked/defended by both the groups alike, I personally find it to be a remarkable experience in this masterful trilogy in which the darkness and realistic approach to the original source come together to make a memorable show. It is, however, not the best of its bunch.
While with the first (Batman Begins) he provided a solid base with an amazing adventure, in the second (the brilliant, anarchic The Dark Knight) made easy the hard part, to translate a Superhero theme into a real world context. In this third installment Nolan seeks a balance between both and while the show is outstanding it falters at points where it should not.
This doesn't mean that it failed at a narrative level, don't get me wrong. The themes and the atmosphere are as powerful as ever, if the suspension of disbelief is ON from the start (=knowing that you are attending a comic book in motion), but of course always much more attached to reality than in previous works based on Batman or other Superhero films in general.
When I finished watching the film, I had no doubt it was more similar to Begins than TDK, Apart from the nods we'll discuss later, Nolan gives this film a similar atmosphere to the first N-Batman debut. Particularly interesting are the ideas Nolan conveys with his script. We (once again) analyze if heroes are needed or not. Eight years after the events of TDK, we're presented to a destroyed Bruce Wayne, whose dangers go beyond the obvious (the film's villains) and also center around personal losses and self-inflicted doubts. As I said, Nolan goes back to Begins and gives the icon of Gotham his own philosophical importance back, which in TDK was overshadowed by the Joker's and Harvey Dent's. Incredible job by Christian Bale translating such complex personal thematic into the screen.
Equally surprising is the presence of Anne as Selina Kyle/Catwoman, whose fabulous (both physical and psychological) embodiment of the character makes her a powerful asset for the film. While the script sometimes looked out-of-place with Catwoman, it's specially powerful with Alfred, who shows much more depth now (his scenes with Bruce are gold, you really feel a connection between them, particulary in the funeral and the 'travels' conclusion). Both appear in one of belongs to both one of the best moments of the film, a revelation that hurts our hero much more seriously that the beatings of the villain.
If the previous film benefited from the presence of Heath Ledger playing the Joker with clown makeup, here we have a remarkable Tom Hardy playing the competent villain Bane, a formidable enemy who is threatening, powerful and not afraid to cause total chaos, and who also makes the trilogy come to full circle by resurrecting a plot started and (so far) inconclusive (Whatever Happened to the League of Shadows). He's, however, not as interesting as he could be. Bane changes position too quickly in the film, going (as I read somewhere) from 'Emperor' to 'Darth Vader' in about few minutes (sometimes I thought this literally, because of the Bane-voice ).
His motivations and general character, in the end, feel undeveloped. A bit contrived was his relationship with Talia (who also looked like a better villain, although not as menacing - I'm a huge Marion Cotillard fanboy so this statement may be a bit more subjective) and his death felt insulting. Good if you want to characterize him as ridiculous, but anti-climatic for someone who spends the entire film being a competent villain.
The film gradually gets better until it reaches the climax. Some action sequences looks remarkably solid (Catwoman/Batman on the roof) and the Nolan seems to be more comfortable when shooting, allowing the sequences to breathe, but, as I said, they'll feel weird in a film with a generally realistic approach, unless you start with the CBM-Brain from the start. He keeps, however, his epic tone, the mark of a filmmaker with his own style, the best creative of today's blockbusters. The three hours are not problematic even when it seems some parts do not address the climax. Hans Zimmer(genious as always)'s score sometimes feels like it's conductiong the film instead of complement it, which is very remarkable (Apart from TDKR, I've only seen one scene this year with such a level of complementation between Music-Scene).
The Best - Almost Everything.
The Worst - Not really "that bad", but the unappealing villains. They being 'the worse' means that almost everything else is great.
My Verdict: 9,2. The second best Batman interpretation of all time (surpassed only by its predecessor).
Un lladre es un artista. Fa servir la imaginació per lluirse cuan roba el seu trofeu. Els detectius només analitzen el delicte i ens denuncien. Els detectius son uns simples critics.