My main concern is pacing and mood.
BB and Prestige have a tendency to just drift by before your eyes without ever giving you a proper chance to feel drawn into the world or it's characters. There isn't enough variation between the scenes and you never really 'hooked' or immersed into the movie. There's no downtime in these movies, no quiet reflective moments which offer the audience a lull to appreciate what's happened and what's going on in the characters heads. Things just keep happening, at the same pace, with the same cuts and transitions and the same overbearing music weighing down on the atmosphere. Dialogue becomes background noise, it's not distinct or endearing and it almost becomes tedious to keep up with what the characters are saying.
It looks like TDK is shaping into a fairly crowded movie so I'm expecting this weakness in Nolan style will be present again.
Good points here, and I agree although I might have framed them differently. I think Nolan is growing as a filmmaker. The Prestige was a better-made film than Batman Begins, and I like to think the points made in Prestige about the need for 'showmanship' were not lost on him! Nolan had a tendency to let 'realism' downplay what should have been iconic/dramatic high points in Begins. Batman dropping down the Arkham staircase, unfurling his 'wings', should have been allowed to linger longer. His final confrontation with the ninjas, some of whom he trained with for years, should have been riveting. Instead, it was tossed off. Batman regaining control of his 'batline' and swinging in to the monorail car was also too fragmented to watch. We needed to be shown how that struggle progressed, but instead we were forced to fill in the movie's gaps. Even Batman's exit from the train was too rushed - there would have been good reason for that to take a few more seconds, while Batman's sails filled with wind. A great, iconic moment that again was ill-paced. Geez, these are the moments we plunk down our money for!
Contrast these rushed scenes with, for example, Wayne conversing with Alfred when they are reunited and flying home. We get a good look at every nuance of a completely static scene. But we cannot see the fights! Nolan tells us that this is because fighting is a blur. Well, he can portray fights that way sometimes, to good effect. But it's also true that Ted Williams said when he was in the groove, he could count the stitches on a spinning baseball. For a great fighter like Batman, time slows down, and THAT is what we want to see, dammit.
Yet, Nolan recognizes these dramatic high points when he sees them. He knew what Wayne's trip down the elevator, to unveil his Batman outfit, was such a moment. At such times, then, Nolan needs to learn to let his inner Wachowski Brothers come out. (And then lock them right back up in the closet, of course.)
Nolan does some things so very right. He is right to keep Batman firmly in the shadows, which no one before him really did. He knows how to make Batman melt into the shadows better than anyone. And as far as character development, he is virtually without peer. The overall tone of Begins was spot-on. The focus on police and political corruption is well-placed. It is precisely because Nolan does SO MUCH so right that we concern ourselves so passionately about the things he does wrong.
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