Batman 3 "The Dark Knight Rises"

[George P Global Moderator]

Just back from seeing this on IMAX this evening, finally, after what seemed like an eternal wait and a mission to avoid spoilers and so forth over the last week.

Where to begin.. I think I can safely say that this has been my movie of the year, no doubt about it. I liked the characters, I liked the story, I liked the score, I liked the way it was shot.. I mean visually not much comes close to these films and this is probably the best of the trilogy for look and feel. A lot of reviews have moaned about the long, long lull in the middle of the film but I found there were enough action scenes to help with that, and I also felt the lull helped build up the enthusiasm for the final scenes.. when it gets going, it really get's going. There are some solid performances - really felt Christian Bale did his character proud and also thought Michael Caine was really, really strong as you'd expect for a veteran of his stature!

My only beefs I guess were some muffled speech, not just from Bane, making it hard to follow what was going on at some points. A few plot contrivances here and there and very light layer of cheese from time to time. I was also a touch disappointed with the

whole Robin set-up at the end, knowing that Nolan is done with the franchise now... whoever follows in his shoes simply will never come close to the level he set on this film and I'm slightly disappointed he even allowed the setup for further films to happen.. I also felt that the way Bane was killed was quite poor and that he deserved a more theatrical ending!

.

Those small points can't detract from a film that literally had me on the edge of my seat right up to the end - the three Nolan Batman films have to go down in movie making history as some of the best films ever made, and I will be right at the front of the queue to pick this up when it hits bluray!

9/10.

I think Nolan might be done as far as directing batman but he could be in an executive producer role and have someone else he believes in do it, look at Superman, Nolan isn't directing it but he does Ok the direction of the film. I think a future 4th and thus setup for an even later JLA movie or superman and batman crossover is something WB is looking at. They can't be blind to what happened with The Avengers, not in the least.

I personally expect 2 superman movies, if not a trilogy, and then maybe a WW or Flash as well. They might try to do another GL, make that one more serious and dark like batman and superman and it should work. If WB can pull it off with a film from them every year like with the marvel ones, then in 4-5 years we should see batman again.

[Dashel]

I dunno, I kinda liked the quick clean kill on Bane. For as comic clich? as the ending went, I thought that was actually a nice bow on the usual 'end-game' showdown. A good highlight of the Cat vs Bats 'moral' sense too. I chuckled.

[sava700]

Loved everything about the movie, beginning and ending - my only beef was with the sound effects/music that was playing during some scenes that made it hard to hear what they were saying at times aside from that it was very well done but only even with Avengers.

[Lamp0]

Those small points can't detract from a film that literally had me on the edge of my seat right up to the end - the three Nolan Batman films have to go down in movie making history as some of the best films ever made, and I will be right at the front of the queue to pick this up when it hits bluray!

9/10.

I really disagree. I don't see how Nolan's Batman films could be considered as some of the best ever made. They're fun films and all, but there is a myriad of problems with each of them. For one I feel Nolan never seemed to find a comfortable pacing for the any of the films. TDK & TDKR seem to me like they are built around a couple of great scenes, alot of other stuff filters by as rushed, poorly written & uninteresting.

I mean visually not much comes close to these films and this is probably the best of the trilogy for look and feel.

Begins was the most visually interesting; Gotham felt like it's own place. TDK & TDKR ditched that for a horrid "modern" look, with a really bland colour pallatte for a Batman movie. Rises was particularly flat I thought, bordering on ugly at times.

Also, I have a question

How did Batman beat Bane the second time around? I don't get how he just came back and beat him.

[S00N3R FR3AK]

I really disagree. I don't see how Nolan's Batman films could be considered as some of the best ever made. They're fun films and all, but there is a myriad of problems with each of them. For one I feel Nolan never seemed to find a comfortable pacing for the any of the films. TDK & TDKR seem to me like they are built around a couple of great scenes, alot of other stuff filters by as rushed, poorly written & uninteresting.

Begins was the most visually interesting; Gotham felt like it's own place. TDK & TDKR ditched that for a horrid "modern" look, with a really bland colour pallatte for a Batman movie. Rises was particularly flat I thought, bordering on ugly at times.

Also, I have a question

How did Batman beat Bane the second time around? I don't get how he just came back and beat him.

He seemed to focus on the mask the 2nd time which gave him the upper hand.

[George P Global Moderator]

He seemed to focus on the mask the 2nd time which gave him the upper hand.

Exactly, he kept hitting him in the face till a part of the mask cracked. The mask kept the pain in check or w/e so when it wasn't working right Bane couldn't fight back normally. This is also partly out of the comics though the device is different. In the comic version he goes after the cables that pump Bane full of roids to beef him up. Without that he's pretty weak.

[Syanide]

Loved it. A few really 'questionable' choices when it comes to plot devices, and some other flaws, but once the movie picked up I really didn't care. As the Half in the Bag guys pointed out, It works much better on an emotional level, than an intelligent one, and I was really glad we got a superhero movie where the superhero wasn't in the shadow of his villains, which is what happens in 90% of these movies. Bane was menacing and a pretty good villain, but I really cared about Bruce/Batman in this one, and his arc was the most interesting to follow. A second first is that we finally got a comic book trilogy, with a clear beginning and end, something we'll probably never see again, EVER, in a Hollywood adaptation of a popular comic book series.

[Konstanov]

I've met people on meth that made more sense than this movie. Absolutely ****ing terrible....

You don't recover from a broken back and other broken bones in a matter of three months. You can't magically jump farther with no cartilage in your knees either just because you're not using rope this time.

You don't string along a city for months when you are going to completely destroy it with a nuclear device.

What was Catwoman's original motivation to become a thief? (Why was this completely avoided?)

How does Bane eat with a mask on 24/7? Also how does he maintain that amount of muscle mass without working out constantly?

How does someone become as powerful as Talia and people not realize she didn't exist before she was an adult?

How does Batman manage to fly the Bat over the bay in less than a minute? In fact, that entire end of the movie was completely impossible.

The second one was decent, but this third movie was completely incoherent.

[Shiranui]

Overall, I thought the movie was awful -- easily the worst of the trilogy.

Hopefully Nolan sticks to original projects from now on.

[DClark]

After watching a second time, I enjoyed the film even more as I was able to catch parts that I didn't quite notice upon my first viewing. I am unable to pick a favourite in this trilogy, as each had a different genre and theme, unlike other trilogies that rehash the same stuff to guarantee some level success (but ironically fail). As for future films, hopefully Nolan will do another original like Inception. And then...Bond!

[Razorwing]

"The Autopilot doesn't work", "The Autopilot doesn't work" "The Autopilot doesn't work". Then.. at the end.. the Autopilot works

:laugh:

[mattmatik]

After watching a second time, I enjoyed the film even more as I was able to catch parts that I didn't quite notice upon my first viewing. I am unable to pick a favourite in this trilogy, as each had a different genre and theme, unlike other trilogies that rehash the same stuff to guarantee some level success (but ironically fail). As for future films, hopefully Nolan will do another original like Inception. And then...Bond!

Went earlier today to see it for my 2nd viewing, this time with my wife. She enjoyed it a lot. For me, I actually enjoyed it more the 2nd time around. My ear was more in-tune with Bane's voice so some dialog I missed the first time around really clicked (particularly the opening sequence). As a big Tom Hardy fan I cannot say enough of the job he did, really. I think its under-appreciated, personally.

Yes, the way he goes out is kind of questionable but he was and always has been a mercenary, a pawn for a bigger villain. 

So, I was ok with it. Also, really didn't get to appreciate the score on the first viewing...outstanding.

Again, I think the ending could have been improved but its a quibble. I thought the scene with Alfred in Florence seeing Bruce should have been it...show Robin entering the Bat Cave THEN show the Florence scene. Oh well. I want to see it again!

[Lamp0]

I've met people on meth that made more sense than this movie. Absolutely ****ing terrible....

How does Bane eat with a mask on 24/7? Also how does he maintain that amount of muscle mass without working out constantly?

Perhaps he gets nitrition through an drip, intravenously. As for working out, well he doesn't need to work out constantly, just an hour or so a day. I agree with all your other points though.

[+Nik Louch Subscriber²]

Feel free to hate me, but I felt incredibly let down by this film. Everything felt rushed and "oh hey that was lucky". If I could also change a few things:

1) The whole

"you should use your first name"

scene.

2) The ending should have been when

Alfred smiles, NOT showing the couple at the table

.

[Konstanov]

Perhaps he gets nitrition through an drip, intravenously. As for working out, well he doesn't need to work out constantly, just an hour or so a day. I agree with all your other points though.

You've obviously never been that big. It requires insane amounts of dedication and perfect nutrition to maintain. It's not something you just do half-heartedly. Without Bane eating the perfect meals and doing insane amounts of weight lifting, it just wouldn't happen.

[benthebear]

2) The ending should have been when

Alfred smiles, NOT showing the couple at the table

.

That's what I thought they were building up to at first. Just a smash cut to black, and I would have been thrilled by it, but it would have been too much like the ending to Inception.

[WelshBluebird]

I thought it was really good. I wouldn't say better or worse than The Dark Knight, just different. You didn't have such a big character as the Joker (Bane just wasn't up there to that level IMO), but I think I enjoyed the storyline a bit more.

I've met people on meth that made more sense than this movie. Absolutely ****ing terrible....

You don't recover from a broken back and other broken bones in a matter of three months. You can't magically jump farther with no cartilage in your knees either just because you're not using rope this time.

You don't string along a city for months when you are going to completely destroy it with a nuclear device.

What was Catwoman's original motivation to become a thief? (Why was this completely avoided?)

How does Bane eat with a mask on 24/7? Also how does he maintain that amount of muscle mass without working out constantly?

How does someone become as powerful as Talia and people not realize she didn't exist before she was an adult?

How does Batman manage to fly the Bat over the bay in less than a minute? In fact, that entire end of the movie was completely impossible.

The second one was decent, but this third movie was completely incoherent.

I think a couple of the things you mentioned were explain, or at least it seemed as if to me:

For catwoman, it seemed to me that it was hinted that she had to become a thief to survive when she was young. And she just never stopped.

In terms of the rope there seemed to be two reasons. When they were showing the jumps with the rope, it looked to me like the rope was actually holding them back. Specifically that the length of the rope was not enough to allow the jump, so if you had it around you as you jumped, the rope would literally pull you back. I don't know if that was what they were going for, but that is what it looked like to me. And then the bit they were clearly going after is the fear aspect. If you know you are safe (because the rope will catch you) then you are not afraid of failing. But without the rope, you have no safety net. The fear of failing / dying is so much that you make the jump. Probably not realistic, but it makes sense (if someone is likely to kill you if you fail then you have more motivation to succeed).

In terms of the bat flying out to the bay, IIRC they said the blast radius was 6 miles? So say it needed to be out around 10 miles just to be safe. If you give it a minute, thats an average speed of 600 miles per hour. Now, yes that sounds stupidly fast and you have to then take into account things like the speed was much lower as he was moving through the city towards the bay, but when you considering military jets can do over 2000mph, I don't think its a massive leap of faith / technology to assume that such technology could help the bat achieve such speeds.

But I do agree with a few other things you said.

Specifically the whole broken back bit

[threetonesun]

The part where

Batman comes back and has time to pour a giant gasoline bat-shape on the bridge while a nuclear bomb is about to go off was completely ridiculous. Not to mention, he's standing there in a full suit, and he tells Gordon to light a flare on ice that we know is thin.

If you read the comics or knew any recent Bat-stories,

Talia was not a surprise. You don't introduce a new leading female character out of nowhere. "Robin" should have been Dick Grayson, and we shouldn't have seen Batman at the end. It's completely out of character for Batman to go off gallivanting in Italy. This is besides the fact that it was mentioned, repeatedly, that you could flood the chamber that the reactor was stored in to stop it, and yet when given an entire bay to drop it in, he apparently elected to just let it detonate. Thanks for all the radiation, Batman!

So... I dunno, it was entertaining. There seemed to be a lot of "plot for plot's sake" in there. I liked Bane, although I still think they could have written a better story around him.

[the better twin]

I think some people are over thinking the film a little bit. if you want to go into fact ANALysis, the cape would never work, the sonar in the last film wouldnt either, Batman kidnapping someone from China would cause a major international incident, being tied by a rope to a plane would tear them in two; I could go on.....

Its not like its a documentary. Some people need to get a grip, its entertainment and for entertainment purposes I thought the film delivered beyond expectations.

This image sums up this thread lol (someone needs to learn how to spell uninhibited though):

[Konstanov]

I thought it was really good. I wouldn't say better or worse than The Dark Knight, just different. You didn't have such a big character as the Joker (Bane just wasn't up there to that level IMO), but I think I enjoyed the storyline a bit more.

I think a couple of the things you mentioned were explain, or at least it seemed as if to me:

For catwoman, it seemed to me that it was hinted that she had to become a thief to survive when she was young. And she just never stopped.

In terms of the rope there seemed to be two reasons. When they were showing the jumps with the rope, it looked to me like the rope was actually holding them back. Specifically that the length of the rope was not enough to allow the jump, so if you had it around you as you jumped, the rope would literally pull you back. I don't know if that was what they were going for, but that is what it looked like to me. And then the bit they were clearly going after is the fear aspect. If you know you are safe (because the rope will catch you) then you are not afraid of failing. But without the rope, you have no safety net. The fear of failing / dying is so much that you make the jump. Probably not realistic, but it makes sense (if someone is likely to kill you if you fail then you have more motivation to succeed).

In terms of the bat flying out to the bay, IIRC they said the blast radius was 6 miles? So say it needed to be out around 10 miles just to be safe. If you give it a minute, thats an average speed of 600 miles per hour. Now, yes that sounds stupidly fast and you have to then take into account things like the speed was much lower as he was moving through the city towards the bay, but when you considering military jets can do over 2000mph, I don't think its a massive leap of faith / technology to assume that such technology could help the bat achieve such speeds.

But I do agree with a few other things you said.

Specifically the whole broken back bit

Jets can't reach those speeds when maneuvering sky scrapers or flying at such a low altitude. They require the low pressure of high altitude to function properly at speed. And it takes more than a minute for a jet to accelerate fast enough to break the sound barrier. Not that the bat could break the sound barrier with that awful design. It was designed for maneuvering cities, not for speed.

Also Bruce Wayne was still crippled. He required the use of a brace just to be able to walk. He had no cartilage in his knees whatsoever. He wouldn't be able to jump period, not to mention perform an olympic long jump after having his back broken just a month prior.

[matt4pack]

What's up with everyone over analyzing every little plot hole? Some people act like it's supposed to be a documentary. The Avengers had a flying battleship for crying out loud.

I've enjoyed it more and more each time I've watched it after catching things I had missed before and it's definitely better then TDK in my opinion.

[threetonesun]

I think some people are over thinking the film a little bit. if you want to go into fact ANALysis, the cape would never work, the sonar in the last film wouldnt either, Batman kidnapping someone from China would cause a major international incident, being tied by a rope to a plane would tear them in two; I could go on.....

I think there's a level of unrealistic "Bat-cool" that people can accept, and another level of, "yeah, but WHY did he even do that..." that the third film suffered from. Then little things like

the police captain living in a nice little house with his wife while the city is falling apart, and the trucks never noticing that they were being tracked

started getting really distracting.

[Lamp0]

You've obviously never been that big. It requires insane amounts of dedication and perfect nutrition to maintain. It's not something you just do half-heartedly. Without Bane eating the perfect meals and doing insane amounts of weight lifting, it just wouldn't happen.

I'd question your knowledge on the subject. I mean, of couse it requires dedication and perfect nutrition, but you do not do insane amounts of weight lifting, it doesn't work like that; it's not the lifting that makes you stonger it's the rest and nitrition post workout.

What's up with everyone over analyzing every little plot hole? Some people act like it's supposed to be a documentary.

I've enjoyed it more and more each time I've watched it after catching things I had missed before and it's definitely better then TDK in my opinion.

Because Nolan's Bat films act like they are very powerful and clever, but they just aren't imo.

[Innervisions33]

You've obviously never been that big. It requires insane amounts of dedication and perfect nutrition to maintain. It's not something you just do half-heartedly. Without Bane eating the perfect meals and doing insane amounts of weight lifting, it just wouldn't happen.

Maybe it's just me, but I really didn't want to spend 2 hours and 45 minutes watching Bane work out and eat healthy. This movie didn't cover every second of the 6-7 month period of time that elapsed over the course of this film, so, one could presume that maybe, JUST MAYBE, Bane did workout 2-3 or more hours a day. And yes, he had a mask, but he could have been fed in different ways. Why you feel the absolute NEED for these things to be explained is beyond me. It actually makes me wonder why you would watch a comic book movie in the first place.

[DClark]

Christopher Nolan's use of character realism provides an opening for people to question the technological realism of the film, even though the entire trilogy was not grounded on technological realism (see: microwave emitter from Batman Begins and cell phone sonar from The Dark Kinght). It is easier to suspend the reality of technology with consideration of the pace that technology evolves, whereas introducing characters that form ice and are part penguin is simply not believable.

Another criticism that bothers me is that some viewers demand that everything should be exposed in the narrative of the story, such as Bruce Wayne's reentry into Gotham. Sure, perhaps an entertaining subplot could have been added for the sole purpose of wowing viewers, but it would have been unnecessary as we know that Bruce Wayne has an extensive set of skills that he had learned from the League of Shadows and his stint as Batman (not to mention, film duration limit for IMAX is 2 hours and 45 minutes). In fact, I would argue that there was too much plot exposition in this film, but Nolan knows that he is presenting to a general audience, not cinema experts with university degrees in film study.