The Dark Knight Rises The Official Rate/Review Thread for TDKR (TAG SPOILERS!!!) - Part 1

[MAKAVELI25]

As someone who is not a fan of Christian Bale, I LOVED him in this movie. He was fantastic and I've never liked or cared for a character in the superhero genre as much as I did for him in this movie

Michael Caine was great, Freeman was good,

Hathaway totally made me eat my words, she was fantastic, I wish she had been in the movie more. Everything about her character, from physicality, to acting ability was well done. As a guy who only thought she was pretty and not SEXY enough to play Catwoman, she totally wowed me. She was VERY sexy

The fighting was very well done, there are points in TDK (Hong Kong scene) where I am totally taking out of the movie by how bad the choreography is. Not the same here.

Cool action sequences

Tom Hardy- Fricking fantastic. I love the voice and he was menacing as hell. In my opinion, he's just as good as, if not better than, the Joker. People need to realize they are different kind of villains, Hardy is definitely my favorite villain of this trilogy and I loved Heath in his role

THE NEGATIVE

John Blake. This is not a reflection on JGL, he was good in the performance, but I HATE this character.

Spoiler

Not only do I hate the fact that he might potentially take over for Batman (without any sort of training btw)

, I REALLY hate the fact that he took time away from Bale, Hathaway, and Bane. Nolan should not have included the character at all, all the time spent following this kid around should have been spent:

1. Developing the Batman/Catwoman relationship
2. Showing more of the effects of Bane's siege on Gotham. We really didn't get too much of how the takeover affected the regular people
3. More Bane period. I loved this guy

Like I said, I don't blame JGL, I totally blame Nolan. Open ending be damned, I hope the kid slipped off the platform and broke his neck as he was it was "RISING".

- Miranda Tate's reveal-Why? Why do that to such a great character as Bane?

- 8 year exile. Honestly....Batman was Batman for less than 2 years total. Really?

As much as I love this trilogy, TDKR will forever keep it from being the greatest. Good movie, 7.2/10, but should've been a lot better

 

[Optimus_Prime_]

Does anyone else think ordinary Gotham citizens should have been there at the end fighting with the police?

Their absence was very palpable. I also felt like showing more getting round up, or violating Bane's strict patrols, or showing them harassing citizens would be better. Sometimes I even wondered whether the occupation was still ongoing, and I wouldn't know until I saw a Tumbler or something.

 

[jmc]

Their absence was very palpable. I also felt like showing more getting round up, or violating Bane's strict patrols, or showing them harassing citizens would be better. Sometimes I even wondered whether the occupation was still ongoing, and I wouldn't know until I saw a Tumbler or something.

Could you imagine a scene with husbands and sons saying goodbye to their families, grabbing baseball bats and crowbars or whatever weapon they may have and joining the police?

 

[spideyboy_1111]

That's only because they spent so much time in the Narrows, Arkham Asylum and underground/seedy areas of the city in "Batman Begins".

Up until TDK, they never really explored the rest of the city the way they did the next two movies.

Well Wayne tower wasn't a part of the narrows.... And that part of town still looked pretty rough...

I also loved the aspect that begins had where the lower you go in the city (essentially closer you are to the ground, the seedier the city gets. Almost like a visual contrast of the social pyramid from skyscrapers to bottom feeders. I really hate that nolan pitched the gotham he created in begins

 

[spideyboy_1111]

Could you imagine a scene with husbands and sons saying goodbye to their families, grabbing baseball bats and crowbars or whatever weapon they may have and joining the police?

As much of a movie powerful scene that'd be, i also think this movie focused far too much on regular gothamites as is...

 

[Figs]

Well Wayne tower wasn't a part of the narrows.... And that part of town still looked pretty rough...

I also loved the aspect that begins had where the lower you go in the city (essentially closer you are to the ground, the seedier the city gets. Almost like a visual contrast of the social pyramid from skyscrapers to bottom feeders. I really hate that nolan pitched the gotham he created in begins

I take it you mean ditched?

I agree with you on that. That's the only reason why my score for the overall trilogy is down a point or so is because each film felt and looked different from the previous ones. If he had kept the look and feel of BB throughout, or used TDK's look for BB and TDKR, the movies would feel a bit more like a solid one world trilogy.

 

[Travesty]

I actually really liked the way Gotham looked in both BB and TDKR. Sure, they weren't the exact same, but they had a good amount of atmosphere in them, which I though was always missing from TDK.

 

[jmc]

Bane says for Gotham to take back their city, I would have love to have seen them do it. Plus it would have been far more powerful had regular people been the ones supplimenting the police. I actually think the cops who got buried should have died.

 

[Mister H.]

So just because it's a movie it can't be a more faithful representation? Am I supposed to accept a character and name change to a very important character in Batman's mythology just because a successful director says so? I really don't understand the concept.

Wow, you're really getting worked up over one little wink-wink line that was meant as a kind of nod to the fans. It really had no impact on the narratvie in any capacity whatsoever...get over it man. He wasn't Robin, wasn't mean to be Robin, therefore there was no way he could ever be the Robin you so desperately wanted to see.

 

[Mister H.]

I actually really liked the way Gotham looked in both BB and TDKR. Sure, they weren't the exact same, but they had a good amount of atmosphere in them, which I though was always missing from TDK.

Agreed. The Dark Knight just doesn't have that atmosphere that seems like a Gotham from the comics come to life. Of course, its subjective and depends on the comic, but the rustier and more muted color pallette along with more night time scenes and precipitation (rain in BB, snow in TDKR) just sits better with me than the cold daylight tone of TDK.

 

[parkerpete]

And who exactly did the people of Gotham have to turn to? The film even makes a point to show Gordon wanting to get in front of a camera, but Blake won't let him since he knows Bane would have him killed first chance he got.

They would have turned towards ANYONE but Bane. Give me a break. It was just another poorly-written part of a terribly-written movie; a half-assed attempt to be 'topical' that just came off as naive and absurd.

And your post just reminds me of one of the many times we're forced to endure thinly-written subplots with characters we barely know, rather than get into the meat of the story. Nolan's 'Heat' formula for TDK went way off the rails in this movie. What made all the ancillary characters in TDK interesting was they all served very clear PLOT and THEME functions. Here, all the extra characters were just boring clutter.

I loved the first two movies in Nolan's franchise, but this movie was so bad that it makes me look askance at the first two. It actually amplifies the little flaws in the other movies to a degree that makes me distrust whether they were as good as I thought they were. It is the worst kind of sequel.

 

[spideyboy_1111]

I take it you mean ditched?

I agree with you on that. That's the only reason why my score for the overall trilogy is down a point or so is because each film felt and looked different from the previous ones. If he had kept the look and feel of BB throughout, or used TDK's look for BB and TDKR, the movies would feel a bit more like a solid one world trilogy.

Agrees. Continuity is very important imo. And yeah, my pc is down and my phones auto correct sucks

 

[Optimus_Prime_]

Bane says for Gotham to take back their city, I would have love to have seen them do it. Plus it would have been far more powerful had regular people been the ones supplimenting the police. I actually think the cops who got buried should have died.

Remember the town trying to kill Mr Reese? Why didn't that happen again?

 

[chrisguyver]

Wow, you're really getting worked up over one little wink-wink line that was meant as a kind of nod to the fans. It really had no impact on the narratvie in any capacity whatsoever...get over it man. He wasn't Robin, wasn't mean to be Robin, therefore there was no way he could ever be the Robin you so desperately wanted to see.

But he was. He was Nolan's take on the character a hybrid of sorts. I'm very pleased on how they portrade him in this movie and the mention of his name in the ending was cake for us robin fans. Thank you Nolan.

 

[samsnee]

Remember the town trying to kill Mr Reese? Why didn't that happen again?

I'm guessing he's in jail for not revealing Batman's identity since everyone thought he was a killer.

I thought for sure I saw the monorail at the bottom of the screen in the first shot of the Wayne office building.

It did bother me that Wayne manor in BB was in the middle of nowhere, where in TDKR you can see a the George Washington Bridge close by.

 

[spideyboy_1111]

I'm guessing he's in jail for not revealing Batman's identity since everyone thought he was a killer.

I thought for sure I saw the monorail at the bottom of the screen in the first shot of the Wayne office building.

It did bother me that Wayne manor in BB was in the middle of nowhere, where in TDKR you can see a the George Washington Bridge close by.

I hated seeing famous landmarks of new York all over the movie.... Gotham and metropolis are fictional cities.... Keep them that way. Don't slap the name gotham on new York city... Its like seeing the statue of liberty in metropolis... Its jaring and takes you out of the film a little bit

 

[BatLobster]

They would have turned towards ANYONE but Bane. Give me a break. It was just another poorly-written part of a terribly-written movie; a half-assed attempt to be 'topical' that just came off as naive and absurd.

And your post just reminds me of one of the many times we're forced to endure thinly-written subplots with characters we barely know, rather than get into the meat of the story. Nolan's 'Heat' formula for TDK went way off the rails in this movie. What made all the ancillary characters in TDK interesting was they all served very clear PLOT and THEME functions. Here, all the extra characters were just boring clutter.

I loved the first two movies in Nolan's franchise, but this movie was so bad that it makes me look askance at the first two. It actually amplifies the little flaws in the other movies to a degree that makes me distrust whether they were as good as I thought they were. It is the worst kind of sequel.

It's funny. I almost see where you're coming from, only I love the movie and feel and the things it did right paid off things from the last two movies in huge ways. I felt it amplified what was good about the last two movies WAY more than what was bad. That's just how I ended up feeling about it. But I do understand what you're saying...I just feel that this movie's plotting kinda was like TDK 2.0, only the movie was longer so there's more story. Maybe to some people it was tedious, but I ate it all up.

Bane's takeover of Gotham was about as believable as an omnipresent clown who managed to take the mob hostage and use widespread corruption in the police force to execute a half plan/half improvisation in which things seem to fall more and more easily into his lap the more the story progresses. Yet, I buy it. Cause it's The Joker. He's more or less Satan in this story.

Foley's character arc showed that a lot of Gotham, especially those that were in power, probably just ran with their tail between their legs. And 5 months pass. When a filmmaker makes time pass that fast in a film, it's to leave things to the imagination. And there's a LOT to be imagined when you have a major city under terrorist occupation. There could have been mini-uprisings that Bane's men were able to squash. I think most of Gotham was living in utter fear of him. Think of it like Scar's Pride Rock in The Lion King.

And no, I'm not making excuses for the film. I enjoy when things are left to the imagination. It infuses the film that sense of wonder, and while a movie about terrorist occupation and revolution would be amazing...that's not what this movie was about. Those were elements speaking to a larger theme, and are there to compliment Bruce's journey which is of course the heart of the story. It was topical, but not overtly political despite what all those bloggers out there will have us think. Bane tells Bruce there's no true despair without hope, and he gives Gotham that same sense of false hope.

If you want to break down the movies plot point by plot point, you could make a serious dent in all 3 films. Thematically, they work perfectly.

Perfectly.

 

[The Guard]

-No one knew it existed outside of Bruce and Lucius.

-It had a "fail safe" with the flood.

It wouldn't have needed a fail safe if he'd just disassembled the damn thing.

-Considering the Dr. Pavel was the only one who knew how to convert and disable the reactor, its reasonable to assume only a handful of people in the WORLD would even know how to modify it into a nuclear weapon.

And Bruce knew that Dr. Pavel was the only one who could do this based on the paper Pavel wrote, and was still paranoid about this possibility. He abanoned the project based on Dr Pavel's paper. But he kept the potential weapon active?

-Again, it had another fail safe in that it couldn't be activated without the fingerprints of specific people i.e. board members.

And Bruce, who was paranoid it could be used as a weapon, didn't consider this possibility?

-As mentioned in the film, the device only goes nuclear when extracted from its core.

And Bruce, who was paranoid it could be used as a weapon, didn't consider this possibility?

In terms of why keep it? Simple. They are on the cusp of discovering the key to free energy, they're not going to scrap it because of the potential flaw. They're going to try and figure out a solution.

Except that they were going to scrap it. Bruce already had. There was no talk of finding a solution. He abandoned the project because he deemed it too dangerous.

Does anyone else think ordinary Gotham citizens should have been there at the end fighting with the police?

Yes. At least some of them. Maybe that horrible balding guy from the end of TDK.

 

[jmc]

Remember the town trying to kill Mr Reese? Why didn't that happen again?

Exactly, the people of Gotham are almost a shadow in Rises, man I so wanted them to stand up for themselves, my biggest hope was for the city to stand up and take charge.

 

[Hammer!]

Exactly, the people of Gotham are almost a shadow in Rises, man I so wanted them to stand up for themselves, my biggest hope was for the city to stand up and take charge.

It is crazy how similar my opinion of this movie has been to yours lol

 

[FreeRadical]

Loved the film, but

Spoiler

Batman killing the truck driver and Talia, and giving Bane permission to die. After Batman was not willing to kill the Joker, it seemed kind of contradictory. But seeing how the bomb was about to go off, he had no choice. That's the problem with Nolan's Batman, Bruce destroyed the LoS hideout and killed the members there and at the end of BB, he let Ras die, but does an about turn in TDK and saves the Joker.

The end of TDKR was great, but can the Bat really travel that fast with the bomb? What about the resulting nuclear fallout with the wind blowing radioactive dust over to the Gothamities? Wouldn't Gordon stand trial for lying about Dent? Wouldn't Fox stand trial for knowingly creating a device that could be turned into a nuclear bomb?

Nolan really needed to sort out his sound editing. After Saito's mumbling about carpets in Inception, and Gordon's voice trailing off while in the D.A's office at the start of TDK, he still hasn't improved. Bane's voice was all over the place, and what was Gordon mumbling about to Drake after Bane's Blackgate speech?

 

[J.Howlett]

Why would Gothamites rise when it's being occupied by a foreign army with a bomb and their only resistance is trapped beneath the city?

In that moment, as shown by Foley, everyone takes care of theirs before anything else. That's just human nature to take care of your own. Especially in this country.

Not even a plot hole.

 

[BuddhaWasABat]

Exactly, the people of Gotham are almost a shadow in Rises, man I so wanted them to stand up for themselves, my biggest hope was for the city to stand up and take charge.

Aren't Fox, Gordon, Blake, Foley and everyone else all Gothamites?

 

[J.Howlett]

Aren't Fox, Gordon, Blake, Foley and everyone else all Gothamites?

Exactly.

 

[jmc]

Why would Gothamites rise when it's being occupied by a foreign army with a bomb and their only resistance is trapped beneath the city?

In that moment, as shown by Foley, everyone takes care of theirs before anything else. That's just human nature to take care of your own. Especially in this country.

Not even a plot hole.

Dude, seriously, you don't think the emotional level would be far higher if regular people were willing to sacrifice themselves? Look at that scene in Two Towers where ordinary people took up arms, it's heartbreaking. Not only that, it would turn Bane's words against him.