Panda with issues...
Well-Known Member
So, having seen the 3 Batman films in the cinema virtually back to back (Begins and the Dark Knight on thursday, Rises on sunday) I figured I'd open the debate on what people think about this modern trilogy.
I'll start with a review of Rises, for which I'm sure to be flamed for.
I thought this was a decent film, verging on good, but had some significant problems.
The problems:
The main problem is that there is too much fucking mumbling. The first half of the film is made significantly less tolerable due to the fact that for a lot of it, you're actually straining to understand parts of the dialogue. Bane is the main culprit, but others don't exactly ring out loud and clear. The second half really seems to sort this out, despite all the explosions and ridiculousness, and it's no coincidence that the second half is the better part of the film. I can't remember ever struggling to understand and follow dialogue in a film to this extent. It's a big problem.
The film is basically ponderously long and bloated, with an awful lot of contrived plot points which could, in my opinion, have been cut, particularly in the first half.
The opening scene is a great example. It tries to go for something similar to the opening of The Dark Knight, but falls really flat on every level, apart from the stunning rock scenery. Why are people mounting an aerial assault on another plane? It's all so over the top and pointless, and doesn't fit at all with Bane's characterisation as someone who just gets things done. The whole Russian scientist blood transfusion thing is silly, isn't explained until very late in the film to the point where you've just ignored it and forgotten about it, and doesn't even remotely make a difference to the plot. He's the only guy that can defuse the bomb? Except, well, he's not, because later on Morgan Freeman say's it's not an issue as long as he can get the ball back to it's cradle.
The whole scene at the stock exchange feels rammed in to try to make a crude point about financial markets and risk and so on, when basically the whole film is a conservative wet dream about 'shit, what if people realise we have loads more money than them, but they can use guns to take it from us, except then the mob look like the bad guys, and only a moral billionaire playboy can save the soul of the american people and put down these dirty, poor revolutionaries'. This scene doesn't even matter one IOTA. So, they're trying to get control of Wayne Enterprises via stock market trades so they can what, A) bankrupt Bruce? B) Get all of the tech. Well, A) Has no bearing in the slightest, as the Batman has stockpiled shit all over the city, and then they beat him up and shove him in a hole in the ground. B) Doesn't matter at all, since they've dug a hole under all the batmobiles and steal them anyway, and on top of that have a mole in Wayne Enterprises anyway in the form of Marion Cotillard (SP).
Bane just isn't a particularly intriguing villain. He occasionally gets a good line or two (if you can hear them) but generally just doesn't do anything interesting. The best part of him in fact is his backstory, which then actually turns out to have been someone else's.
What should be a very pivotal scene in the film was ruined by the trailers. Instead of thinking 'oh shit, what's going to happen now to all these people at the football game' all you're thinking is 'well, this is the bit where they blow up Heinz Field'.
This film suffers again from the ridiculous Ras'Alghoul conspiracy nonsense that I personally thought was ludicrous in the first film.
Interviewer: 'So why are you blowing up Gotham Ras?'
Ras'Alghoul: 'Erm, well, er, hmm, it's really hard to articulate our reasons (especially when we mumble all the time, but something about bringing balance to the force, wait, no, wrong trilogy. Can I start again?'
I'm not really sure why Joseph Gordon Levitt was in this film, despite him giving a decent performance. Some of the worst of the bloat is him faffing around along with Gary Oldman and some pointless cardboard cutout career driven dicktective. Cutting all these guys out and just giving Gary Oldman more screen time would have been a much stronger move. JGL's main purpose seemed to be to try and snap Bruce Wayne out of his malaise, except, well, you also had Morgan Freeman, Marion Cotillard and sort of Michael Caine doing that too.
Why did they want Bruce Wayne's fingerprints? I STILL don't know...
The bomb is a massively overused trope. At least in the first film you actually had something novel going on with the Halucinogen and so on. You know a nuke will never, ever go off in the city.
I feel this film suffered from a desperate urge to show off more of Batman's toys, when it would have been better off focusing on character interaction, which was by far the strength of the second and first films.
Disappointed that there was no mention of thanks to DMZ by Brian Wood, of which a significant proportion of the plot was ripped off/reused from.
The good:
Bale probably gives the best performance out of his efforts in all three films. He's really excellent here, particularly as the ailing, morose Wayne, rather than as the Batman, which is by definition a fairly one-dimensional role across all three films.
Anne Hathaway: Fantastic performance. Makes the most of her screen time, and particularly controls the best parts of the first half of the film. Gets the vast majority of the good lines. Was particularly excellent in the early scene at Wayne manor, where she goes from meek waitress to unrepentant criminal in the blink of an eye. Genuinely deep performance, despite the crowded cast. - Bonus, whoever decided to put her arse in a catsuit, THEN on the batbike deserves a medal for finally making the batbike worth its screentime.
Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman give solid efforts as expected, again, despite the crowded cast.
Keeping Bale as Bruce Wayne, rather than the Batman for the majority of the film felt like the right decision, either as a recluse, or as a prisoner. The Dark Knight was well served by giving the best character and performer (Ledger as the Joker) the most screen time, and so it is here, except the best character in this case was Wayne himself. It also leads to a greater feeling of impact when he finally mixes it up in costume.
I really, really liked the idea of the prison, and thought it was generally executed quite well. I would actually have preferred more time spent there in some ways, and less faffing with Joseph Gordon Levitt.
I think I was about the only one in the cinema who noticed that the scarecrow was in charge of the Kangaroo court, and despite only getting about 2 minutes of play, Cilian Murphy was just as good as he was in the first film, and in his cameo in the second. Full of menace, and still more interesting than Bane. These parts of the film seemed to draw heavily from the french revolution, and were nice and resonant.
The footage of New York/Gotham being destroyed was impressive, and handled with decent subtlety and understatement, considering the kiddie gloves way most American Cinema treats terrorist attacks on the homeland. The musical score was understated, and fitted with the tone of the Dark Knight, which really led to Ledger's performance coming through so strongly. It was nice to see this consistency repeated for the third film.
At least they did SOMETHING interesting with the bomb, by moving it around and posing a novel challenge to the resistance movement.
I felt that they tied the trilogy up decently with the ending, even though I really don't want to see a Robin film. I doubt Nolan is interested in making any other Batman films (particularly considering the resultant problems including Ledger's death and the Aurora shooting spree), and I suspect Bale isn't either.
Overall, I still think the first of the 3 is the weakest film, due to the overemphasis on the Ras'Alghoul ninja training faff. The second film towers over the other two due to the incredible performance of Ledger, great script, and tight plotting. On top of this, it gains great supporting performances from Aaron Eckhart and Maggie Gyllenhaal, and despite being a very long film (2 1/2 hours) feels well paced and complete. It also feels a more serious film, due to less of the superhero tomfoolery, and dealing well with themes such as extraordinary rendition and so on, and for that I think really really shines.
The third film feels overly long, overly convoluted and cluttered, despite having some solid performances, and overall being enjoyable. - I did enjoy it, despite the discussion above.
Another comment: There's been serious discussion about whether this film was overly violent, after the Aurora shootings. - Having seen it, there's really no graphic violence in this film. I don't think I saw a drop of blood anywhere, to the extent that the whole thing felt overly sanitised in order to achieve a palatable rating for the most box office receipts, something that didn't really bother me for some reason in the second one. I think the difference here is that the second is a very crisp film, with only brief bouts of violence performed by an extreme maniac, whereas the second half of the 3rd film is supposed to be all out war between good and evil in Gotham.
Perhaps the fact that I actually have seen some legitimately horrifyingly violent films recently (Killer Joe, The Raid) has made me keenly aware of the sanitised nature of mainstream releases.
I thought this was a decent film, verging on good, but had some significant problems.
The problems:
The main problem is that there is too much fucking mumbling. The first half of the film is made significantly less tolerable due to the fact that for a lot of it, you're actually straining to understand parts of the dialogue. Bane is the main culprit, but others don't exactly ring out loud and clear. The second half really seems to sort this out, despite all the explosions and ridiculousness, and it's no coincidence that the second half is the better part of the film. I can't remember ever struggling to understand and follow dialogue in a film to this extent. It's a big problem.
The film is basically ponderously long and bloated, with an awful lot of contrived plot points which could, in my opinion, have been cut, particularly in the first half.
The opening scene is a great example. It tries to go for something similar to the opening of The Dark Knight, but falls really flat on every level, apart from the stunning rock scenery. Why are people mounting an aerial assault on another plane? It's all so over the top and pointless, and doesn't fit at all with Bane's characterisation as someone who just gets things done. The whole Russian scientist blood transfusion thing is silly, isn't explained until very late in the film to the point where you've just ignored it and forgotten about it, and doesn't even remotely make a difference to the plot. He's the only guy that can defuse the bomb? Except, well, he's not, because later on Morgan Freeman say's it's not an issue as long as he can get the ball back to it's cradle.
The whole scene at the stock exchange feels rammed in to try to make a crude point about financial markets and risk and so on, when basically the whole film is a conservative wet dream about 'shit, what if people realise we have loads more money than them, but they can use guns to take it from us, except then the mob look like the bad guys, and only a moral billionaire playboy can save the soul of the american people and put down these dirty, poor revolutionaries'. This scene doesn't even matter one IOTA. So, they're trying to get control of Wayne Enterprises via stock market trades so they can what, A) bankrupt Bruce? B) Get all of the tech. Well, A) Has no bearing in the slightest, as the Batman has stockpiled shit all over the city, and then they beat him up and shove him in a hole in the ground. B) Doesn't matter at all, since they've dug a hole under all the batmobiles and steal them anyway, and on top of that have a mole in Wayne Enterprises anyway in the form of Marion Cotillard (SP).
Bane just isn't a particularly intriguing villain. He occasionally gets a good line or two (if you can hear them) but generally just doesn't do anything interesting. The best part of him in fact is his backstory, which then actually turns out to have been someone else's.
What should be a very pivotal scene in the film was ruined by the trailers. Instead of thinking 'oh shit, what's going to happen now to all these people at the football game' all you're thinking is 'well, this is the bit where they blow up Heinz Field'.
This film suffers again from the ridiculous Ras'Alghoul conspiracy nonsense that I personally thought was ludicrous in the first film.
Interviewer: 'So why are you blowing up Gotham Ras?'
Ras'Alghoul: 'Erm, well, er, hmm, it's really hard to articulate our reasons (especially when we mumble all the time, but something about bringing balance to the force, wait, no, wrong trilogy. Can I start again?'
I'm not really sure why Joseph Gordon Levitt was in this film, despite him giving a decent performance. Some of the worst of the bloat is him faffing around along with Gary Oldman and some pointless cardboard cutout career driven dicktective. Cutting all these guys out and just giving Gary Oldman more screen time would have been a much stronger move. JGL's main purpose seemed to be to try and snap Bruce Wayne out of his malaise, except, well, you also had Morgan Freeman, Marion Cotillard and sort of Michael Caine doing that too.
Why did they want Bruce Wayne's fingerprints? I STILL don't know...
The bomb is a massively overused trope. At least in the first film you actually had something novel going on with the Halucinogen and so on. You know a nuke will never, ever go off in the city.
I feel this film suffered from a desperate urge to show off more of Batman's toys, when it would have been better off focusing on character interaction, which was by far the strength of the second and first films.
Disappointed that there was no mention of thanks to DMZ by Brian Wood, of which a significant proportion of the plot was ripped off/reused from.
The good:
Bale probably gives the best performance out of his efforts in all three films. He's really excellent here, particularly as the ailing, morose Wayne, rather than as the Batman, which is by definition a fairly one-dimensional role across all three films.
Anne Hathaway: Fantastic performance. Makes the most of her screen time, and particularly controls the best parts of the first half of the film. Gets the vast majority of the good lines. Was particularly excellent in the early scene at Wayne manor, where she goes from meek waitress to unrepentant criminal in the blink of an eye. Genuinely deep performance, despite the crowded cast. - Bonus, whoever decided to put her arse in a catsuit, THEN on the batbike deserves a medal for finally making the batbike worth its screentime.
Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman give solid efforts as expected, again, despite the crowded cast.
Keeping Bale as Bruce Wayne, rather than the Batman for the majority of the film felt like the right decision, either as a recluse, or as a prisoner. The Dark Knight was well served by giving the best character and performer (Ledger as the Joker) the most screen time, and so it is here, except the best character in this case was Wayne himself. It also leads to a greater feeling of impact when he finally mixes it up in costume.
I really, really liked the idea of the prison, and thought it was generally executed quite well. I would actually have preferred more time spent there in some ways, and less faffing with Joseph Gordon Levitt.
I think I was about the only one in the cinema who noticed that the scarecrow was in charge of the Kangaroo court, and despite only getting about 2 minutes of play, Cilian Murphy was just as good as he was in the first film, and in his cameo in the second. Full of menace, and still more interesting than Bane. These parts of the film seemed to draw heavily from the french revolution, and were nice and resonant.
The footage of New York/Gotham being destroyed was impressive, and handled with decent subtlety and understatement, considering the kiddie gloves way most American Cinema treats terrorist attacks on the homeland. The musical score was understated, and fitted with the tone of the Dark Knight, which really led to Ledger's performance coming through so strongly. It was nice to see this consistency repeated for the third film.
At least they did SOMETHING interesting with the bomb, by moving it around and posing a novel challenge to the resistance movement.
I felt that they tied the trilogy up decently with the ending, even though I really don't want to see a Robin film. I doubt Nolan is interested in making any other Batman films (particularly considering the resultant problems including Ledger's death and the Aurora shooting spree), and I suspect Bale isn't either.
Overall, I still think the first of the 3 is the weakest film, due to the overemphasis on the Ras'Alghoul ninja training faff. The second film towers over the other two due to the incredible performance of Ledger, great script, and tight plotting. On top of this, it gains great supporting performances from Aaron Eckhart and Maggie Gyllenhaal, and despite being a very long film (2 1/2 hours) feels well paced and complete. It also feels a more serious film, due to less of the superhero tomfoolery, and dealing well with themes such as extraordinary rendition and so on, and for that I think really really shines.
The third film feels overly long, overly convoluted and cluttered, despite having some solid performances, and overall being enjoyable. - I did enjoy it, despite the discussion above.
Another comment: There's been serious discussion about whether this film was overly violent, after the Aurora shootings. - Having seen it, there's really no graphic violence in this film. I don't think I saw a drop of blood anywhere, to the extent that the whole thing felt overly sanitised in order to achieve a palatable rating for the most box office receipts, something that didn't really bother me for some reason in the second one. I think the difference here is that the second is a very crisp film, with only brief bouts of violence performed by an extreme maniac, whereas the second half of the 3rd film is supposed to be all out war between good and evil in Gotham.
Perhaps the fact that I actually have seen some legitimately horrifyingly violent films recently (Killer Joe, The Raid) has made me keenly aware of the sanitised nature of mainstream releases.
