The Dark Knight Rises

2012
Screenplay by Jonathan Nolan and Christopher Nolan
Story by Christopher Nolan and David S. Goyer
Directed by Christopher Nolan

Halle Berry slashed my tires last night!

Our The Dark Knight Rises review will be in a slightly different format, list form! And not the “Top 6 Bane Pick up Lines that Will Explode and Blow Your Mind” type of lists, just a list of thoughts in semi-sequential format as we go through the film. Thus, SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS below the fold!

Neither rain, nor sleet, nor the Dark Knight…

• Arriving early to get an aisle seat.
• This theater has Oogieloves posters all over it!
• I will be upset if there isn’t a bare minimum of 5 rises in TDKR!
• Why are two very fat guys in nerd shirts complaining about the nerds in the theater? And now I am complaining about them on the internet!

Too cool for earmuffs

• The new Superman trailer documents his time on Deadliest Catch (and how much better Joe Manganiello would have been in the role!)
• I also drank less tea before the film so I wouldn’t have to go to the bathroom that much (Did I succeed? See below!)
• And now the opening sequence that was released on the internet months ago!
• Remember: Spoilers below the fold!

The Last Days of the XFL…

This is what happens when you repair bridges with legos!

• The CIA agent uses the shooting people/throwing them out of airplanes trick that I vaguely remember from something, but I can’t remember what it was.
• That voice.
• And we’re meant to know Bane’s men are so loyal they’ll willingly sacrifice themselves.
• Memorial anniversary services are great plot exposition!
• Gordon is now divorced and soon to be jobless.
• Matthew Modine’s Foley character is the most useless character in this film.
• Bruce Wayne now a crippled recluse, a common vision of his future from the comics.

I have confirmation Batman is…Cobra Commander!

• Anne Hathaway is awesome.
• Selena Kyle’s quick-changes from charming to deadly show she’s always in control.
• The kicking of the cane is the best part.
• It takes a thief to get Batman detecting again.
• The creepy guy buying prints from Selena Kyle is played by Burn Gorman. That’s an awesome actor name.
• Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Blake replacing all the dead/in jail cops from the prior flick.
• And he cares about orphans and dead orphans, so we know he’s good.
• Once again, if the other guy is 8 steps ahead, Kyle is 22 steps.

Have you seen how they draw my character after the New 52?

• The action sequence escalates quickly when the swat team comes and the sniper (who is never referred to) guns down cops.
• Obviously what’s going on in the sewer is the Ninja Turtles!
• Bane’s bad because he kills his own men, though we already saw that happening in the prologue.
• I’m sure all those evil Bane construction crews will not be important later…
• That voice.
• Marion Cotillard as Miranda Tate, another seemingly useless character for now…
• Batman’s been retired too long, and Kyle’s once again dozens of steps ahead.
• Hope she likes the car.

A special all-chalk episode of Batman: The Animated Series was begun but never completed.

• Good story about how Blake knows who Batman is, believable and we all know Batman can’t be anonymous forever.
• Thomas Lennon!!!
• You know, terrorizing stock market guys isn’t really that big of a deal in my book…
• The captive stock market guys on motorbikes screaming reminds me of GTA games when I’d steal a car/bike with passengers who would then scream nonstop.
• I’m not even going to get into the computer program that lost all of Wayne’s money and how that’s supposed to work without regulators stepping in because of the armed takeover that wasn’t even needed flagging alarms everywhere.
• Why didn’t they just have the shoeshine guy steal a stock market keycard???
• That voice.

BaneRulez.Tumblr.com

• Batman is back, and useless cop character decides he’s going to look like an idiot for the next few minutes.
• Batman saves Catwoman, it’s nice to see first dates.
• Bruce is now broke, Alfred is gone, Miranda Tate’s character now has a purpose, and we get introduced to the fusion machine.
• It’s like the plot decided to jump forward rather quickly.
• Speaking of jumping forward, suddenly Bruce is boning Tate?
• Miranda Tate’s mysterious scar never explained, though I though she was implanted with the bomb detonator for the longest time.

Night Court – After the Armageddon

• Batman and Catwoman work together well, too bad he’s being trapped.
• The Bane fight is nice and brutal. Bane’s so casual about destroying him.
• And now they got all the wonderful toys…
• Bruce now trapped in hope prison.
• Oh, explosive concrete! That’s how they got explosives everywhere, all this concrete. I guess they must have poured the detonators into the concrete as well…
• And had no construction accidents at all that caused giant explosions…
• Why does Blake keep driving his car through explosions, just brake for 30 seconds then you can drive through explosion-free!

Hey, I’m the Dark Knight, of course I’m badly lit!

• Good thing there was no smoke for the giant football stadium explosions, otherwise the video message would be obscured.
• That’s seriously his voice.
• Pretty much the same reason for the lack of any federal government response. That and it would ruin the story.
• So Qui-gon only appears to Yoda and Batman….
• Bruce healing and training, and learning that No Fear shirts teach the wrong message for his prison escape.
• This bomb has the longest countdown I’ve ever seen in a film.
• THAT VOICE!
• Breaking everyone out of prison and slurring Harvey Dent is cool, but half of your speech won’t get recorded by the reporters because they’re running from the guns.
• Bane needs to brush up on social media techniques. Standing around rambling to no one is more homeless than dictatorial despot.

A new Batusi for a new generation

• Cillian Murphy out of nowhere!
• Gordon and the resistance is just cops. I guess no actual civilians want to do anything at all, but then again these are psycho murderers with tanks.
• Despite ganking the No Man’s Land premise, almost nothing is done with it. Probably good, as the film is long enough already!
• Despite the city being in chaos for months, Kyle still saves a kid who somehow got a ripe apple.
• Batman is back in flaming symbol form.
• Cop army and decoy trucks.
• I like the Bat, except for the name. Why not the Flying Mouse?
• Saw her being evil, but missed that Bane wasn’t the kid born. Should have saw it coming….
• Some of my favorite movie moments are villains giving long speeches before pressing buttons that don’t work.

Karate Kat!

• Bruce finally gets ahead of Catwoman by knowing she still had good in her.
• On the bright side, no more of that voice!
• Still no autopilot?
• Batman is dead! NOOOOooooOOOOOOO!!! (No way he is dead)
• Hey, I was right, he showed up at the heavily telegraphed restaurant scene, we get a potential new Batman, and an ugly statue. Bruce isn’t dead because he fakes his death to blank slate over with Selena Kyle, while Batman isn’t dead because he’ll be back under a new identity.

And now two Bat vehicles will begin their beautiful mating ritual..

• Half of this film is straight from Fight Club, from the villains disguised as working class people to the giant flaming symbol.
• The prison has the escape hole/daylight that’s supposed to give the prisoners hope even though there isn’t hope, making it cruel hope. Sort of a twisted version of the Shawshank message.
• The same “hope is bad” message is used by Bane when he uses it as a weapon during the takeover to make the destruction hurt more. But Batman uses hope as a weapon, and Blake is also totally pro-hope.
• Bane’s speech about taking back the city is a mishmash of all sorts of different philosophies, made to sound specifically muddled to curtail the accusations of specific political leanings that will happen anyway.
• Nolan’s attempts to make things more generic both stifles potential arguments on what things mean, but also assist all the arguments because the lack of definition allows you to project whatever you want onto it. He even has the president avoid doing anything to keep from starting a bigger argument.
• Bane’s voice sounds like it isn’t in the same audio track as all the other dialogue, combine it with the weird accent and it becomes distracting.
• Not only is Bane’s voice weird as fuck, but many other characters mumble and I can’t understand some lines.
• Seriously, Bane’s voice was the worst thing about the film.
• Anne Hathaway’s Catwoman is seductive, smart, and dangerous. My favorite incarnation (sorry, Eartha Kitt!) A search for redemption that isn’t about trying to make good on past misdeeds but trying to escape past mistakes. Her blank slate obsession also parallels nicely with the blank political messages.
• Joseph Gordon-Levitt was great as Blake, too bad the disillusionment aspect of his character seemed to come out of nowhere during the final act. Even though he was around the useless Matthew Modine character that should have just made him disillusioned about Matthew Modine.

Stop getting boners when we slow dance!

• Final conclusion: A good but bloated film, not a masterpiece but a great story in its own right.
• Can’t wait for the reboot announcement with Justin Bieber as Batman in two years…

Steampunk Luchador!

• Bathroom report – two sprints!

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