I just saw it tonight. Although I felt the movie was very good...it also felt as though some of the key points of the story were rushed through (if you could believe a movie that's almost 3 hours is rushed through).
I also think this wasn't really a Batman movie, it was more of a movie with batman in it. kind of hard to explain but it was definitely one of the best super hero movies...but probably not as excellent as the dark knight.
8.5/10
Chimney
Just like the other two: pretentious, overrated piece of crap. The characters are so twisted from the original series, that it's unbelievable. Catwoman has always been portrayed as a passionate, sensual killer, whereas in this movie she looks like an insecure teenager during her period. That has always been her place in the series - to own Batman. Besides, Anne Hathaway? Seriously? She's as charming as my left nut. And don't let me even get started on the Bruce Wayne character.
Besides, what the was up with Bane's voice? He sounded like a homosexual Russian on crack cocaine.
And the end felt as if Nolan had some random ideas on the ter that he threw up in the movie to make it more interesting.
Really couldn't think he could fail more than with "Inception", which was another action movie, but with enough (simplistic) plot to make the view feel as if he/she understood the grander scheme of things.
AY STAR
quote:
Originally posted by Vivid Boy
that chick did the worst job of dying ever!
and the first thing batman does after escaping a jail in jersualem is cover a bridge in gasoline so it looks like a bat when lit???? WHAT ABT THE BOMB BATMAN!!! WHAT ABOUT THE BOMB!!! how the hell did he find an hour to do such great craftsmanship when the bomb was going to blow in 5 hrs!!!!
yea the last 45 min or so was just too much bull
he escapes jail with no money,being beaten and brused up,no sense of direction etc etc then he ends up in gotham a few days later looking fine? YEA OK
and the way bane died was soooooo corney oh man
batman went thru all that training to beat bane and he wassent even the one who killed him ha ha ha what a waste
it would have been alot better if batman continued to knock off bane's breathing mask until the point he couldnt breathe no more. atleast make it somewhat believeable. catwoman comes back at the right moment and in the right spot and kills him? such bull
other than how the ending unfolded i thought it was a really good movie
i honestly felt bane was a pretty badass villan. he was both terrifying physically and smart at the same time
plus he acted like a true leader villan by having a whole city cause chaos under his wing.
WittyHandle
quote:
Originally posted by Halcyon+On+On
Throwback to The Dark Knight, but holy crap, Heath was just playing a Tom Waits villain!
Wow!
SYSTEM-J
quote:
Originally posted by Lews
Damn your housemate, I would have liked to read your whole thoughts, since I agree with your short version.
Well, I can't be bothered to construct a full essay on the subject, because it could run for pages, but here are my key complaints focalised through a couple of scenes:
1. Trapping all the police in the sewers. Just read that sentence back again. Hopefully the absurdity of this plot point should be self-evident. It's so multi-faceted in its stupidity only a master jeweller of bad storywriting could envisage it. Sending 3,000 police officers, the entire force, into the sewers to try and find a secret lair. Come on. The little montage we get of this event is so ludicrous it's practically slapstick, like a Python sketch: we literally see about 200 officers crammed wall to wall down one corridor. These people are trying to find the hidden underground lair of a noted mercenary who's already demonstrated he has a militia of gun-toting zealots, so they pack themselves wall to wall and march down the same corridor. A spectacularly efficient and well-thought-out piece of police procedure, I'm sure you'll agree.
Just in case you didn't roll your eyes so hard they fell clean out of your skull at this point, let's examine it further. For a police chief to order such a crazy move is madness in itself. But the script treats it not only as reasonable, but as outright predictable, because Bane's entire plan hinges on the police doing exactly that, so he can detonate the entrances to the sewers and trap them in. More than that, it hinges on this happening at exactly the right moment on exactly the right day. Think about it - his plan is even synchronised with a football match. He has managed to predict the very hour the police will execute Operation Catastrophic wittery. And while we're on the subject, what exactly is stopping the trapped police from simply exiting the sewers via the thousands of manholes in the city? I'm pretty sure those same manholes actually featured as a plot point earlier in the film.
Finally, it's presented to us as simple fact that Bane and his minions can infiltrate construction companies all across the city and lay tons of explosives without anyone noticing or encountering any difficulties. There is never any attempt to show how exactly they could pull off such a grand plan. It's simply there in the script, in all its gigantic implausibility, as something bad guys can just do. This is a long-running problem I have with Nolan's Batman films and again with the superhero genre as a whole: they operate in a reality where extremely complex plans can be pulled off without a hitch, and in the more grounded and gritty universe of the Dark Knight trilogy, it becomes even harder to accept. These films are supposed to be realistic portrayals of how super heroes and villains might exist, and yet the plots are just cartoonish. I personally struggle to invest myself in these grand, conceited plots and diabolical schemes because I just cannot come close to taking them seriously. They are pure fantasy.
2. The prison, and the symbolic jump. Once again, this prison is a ridiculous creation for innumerable reasons. For a start, it's quite clearly not a hell on Earth. It's just a normal prison, in a pit. A man can even expect to recover from serious spinal injuries (and apparently regrow missing cartilage in his knee) and train up to full fitness in this environment, which suggests a highly nutritious, protein rich prison diet and some very tolerant guards. Not that we ever seem to see any guards - with his ability to pull off mind-blowingly audacious plans, you would think Bane would have put in a failsafe and left a guy with a gun ready to kneecap Bruce Wayne should he actually look like escaping, rather than leaving him in the company of two profundity-spewing wizened old men.
This prison is also laughably easy to escape from. Anyone who's ever read prison break stories will know the incredible lengths criminals will go to to break out of even maximum security prisons. Even I, as a prison-escaping layman, could figure out an easy way to get out of this place. How about turning some of those unguarded metal railings into makeshift climbing gear? Or just, y'know, climbing up the rope all the way to the top? It would take a lobotomy for me to buy into the suggestion that this prison is inescapable.
Finally, and most importantly, the leap. This moment is pregnant with subtextual significance, or rather with textual significance because Nolan will never leave thematic content implied if he can't have a wizened old man vomit it out on screen to hammer the point home. And once again, it Makes. No. Sense. Hundreds of prisoners over many years have failed to make this jump, even with the knowledge that freedom awaits them and a slow, dull death at the bottom of a pit is the price of failure. So this jump must logically be simply too far for any human to make, right? But nope, not only can Bruce Wayne do it when he was recently paralysed, but a pre-pubescent child can as well. All you need to do is take the rope off and jump with fear of death. What the , Nolan? What the ?
This is not how you make a deep, thoughtful film. In a genuinely smart film, something that makes narrative sense is imbued with a subtextual meaning that elevates aspects of the plot to the level of thematic significance. In a ty, beat-you-round-the-head Nolan film, he creates a situation that is absolute nonsense (in the process insulting the audience's intelligence by presenting it as matter-of-fact) and exists entirely to be symbolic. That's not smart and that's not thought-provoking. It is the work of a man who has no conception of discourse layers or deconstruction. The Batman films make a huge point of presenting the superheroes/villains as allegorical figures, always representing some ideal or concept, and yet Nolan is a man who narratively cannot execute allegory. His films are textually flat, one dimensional. If they didn't outright tell you what stood for, you would never figure it out.
3. The lack of reference to the Joker. This is more a case of Nolan violating his own carefully constructed universe than anything else. TDKR makes a huge point that the story of Harvey Dent is a lie, and that so much of the city's subsequent moral framework is (rather vaguely, it must be said) built on this lie of Harvey Dent. The trouble is, the story of Harvey Dent is inextricably entwined with that of the Joker. There's no point in Jim Gordon tearfully admitting his conscience on the subject if he doesn't at least mention that Harvey Dent was a good guy who was twisted into madness by an evil terrorist. Most of Gotham City should remember the Joker - it was only eight years ago he was broadcasting on TV and hijacking ferries, and that kind of behaviour isn't quickly forgotten. There is some vague idea of "respect" for Heath Ledger behind this decision, but I'm not really sure how it is respectful. You don't even need to feature any scenes or flashbacks with the Joker - we only see a few extraneous frames of Dent to jog the memory - but surely it would be more respectful to the brilliant character Ledger brought to life by having him leave a significant legacy on the fictional universe you created? Without the Joker, the whole moral quandry the film presents about hiding the truth is rendered hollow.
I could go on and on about smaller plot holes and grievances, but those are the main issues I have with the film.
Sushipunk
^^ And this, Jack, I why we love you.
PHENOMENAL review.
You brought up quite a few issues with the story that irritated me... I still liked the film though :p
pkcRAISTLIN
hahaha, awesome work system-j. unfortunately for the film i found those complaints to be the minor ones.
and ing sushipunk has liked all the big budget scifi/fantasy turds this year. for shame.
Meat187
:stongue: :stongue:
I watched Redlettermedia's Half in the Bag review yesterday and I love how they specifically talk about the very same bitching SYSTEM-J brings up.
Without having seen the movie, it seems they have a lot more clue what they're talking about.
Looney4Clooney
quote:
Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
stuff
.
Lews
quote:
Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
Well, I can't be bothered to construct a full essay on the subject, because it could run for pages, but here are my key complaints focalised through a couple of scenes:
... Awesomeness ...
I could go on and on about smaller plot holes and grievances, but those are the main issues I have with the film.
Like Stu said: Jack, this is why we love you. For the record, I would definitely read a full essay on the subject, if you ever do get bored enough or angry enough to do it :p
I agree completely with all you said and have actually brought up all those points with people, but it's fantastic to read it so eloquently and hilariously from you. You really should write more film reviews.
infinity HiGH
quote:
Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
2. The prison, and the symbolic jump. Once again, this prison is a ridiculous creation for innumerable reasons. For a start, it's quite clearly not a hell on Earth. It's just a normal prison, in a pit. A man can even expect to recover from serious spinal injuries (and apparently regrow missing cartilage in his knee) and train up to full fitness in this environment, which suggests a highly nutritious, protein rich prison diet and some very tolerant guards. Not that we ever seem to see any guards - with his ability to pull off mind-blowingly audacious plans, you would think Bane would have put in a failsafe and left a guy with a gun ready to kneecap Bruce Wayne should he actually look like escaping, rather than leaving him in the company of two profundity-spewing wizened old men.
This prison is also laughably easy to escape from. Anyone who's ever read prison break stories will know the incredible lengths criminals will go to to break out of even maximum security prisons. Even I, as a prison-escaping layman, could figure out an easy way to get out of this place. How about turning some of those unguarded metal railings into makeshift climbing gear? Or just, y'know, climbing up the rope all the way to the top? It would take a lobotomy for me to buy into the suggestion that this prison is inescapable.
Finally, and most importantly, the leap. This moment is pregnant with subtextual significance, or rather with textual significance because Nolan will never leave thematic content implied if he can't have a wizened old man vomit it out on screen to hammer the point home. And once again, it Makes. No. Sense. Hundreds of prisoners over many years have failed to make this jump, even with the knowledge that freedom awaits them and a slow, dull death at the bottom of a pit is the price of failure. So this jump must logically be simply too far for any human to make, right? But nope, not only can Bruce Wayne do it when he was recently paralysed, but a pre-pubescent child can as well. All you need to do is take the rope off and jump with fear of death. What the , Nolan? What the ?
To add to this: How does a man who just "recovered" from a spinal fracture manage to fall some distance with a rope tied around his waist and not break his back again? Or simply die?
Regardless of that I actually liked this movie more than Dark Knight.
SYSTEM-J
quote:
Originally posted by Lews
Like Stu said: Jack, this is why we love you. For the record, I would definitely read a full essay on the subject, if you ever do get bored enough or angry enough to do it :p
I agree completely with all you said and have actually brought up all those points with people, but it's fantastic to read it so eloquently and hilariously from you. You really should write more film reviews.
I am much better qualified to review films than music, but I don't watch enough films or keep up with them enough to know all my references and classics. Otherwise I might have tried writing regularly about it.
