Jeeze. I am going off track here. Back to THIS movie, The
Dark Knight Rises.
Yeah, it’s dark. Yeah, Batman’s in it. Yeah, Catwoman/Selena
and Batman have a “thing”. Yeah, there
are lots of crazy gadgets. Yeah, there
are lots of twists and an assumption that you remember absolutely everything
from the previous movies.
But there is no heart in this movie at all.
My biggest disappointment is probably what so many younger
people liked about it. It is relentless, a hugely dark, heavy-handed myopic
tour de force that is so extremely focused on its very thin story thread that
everything else fades into the background as unimportant. The world is black
and white, except that while the black is truly black, the white is varying
shades of dark grey. Heroes are conflicted and with few exceptions, horribly flawed
and often simply unlikable. The villains are mere caricatures of Pure Evil,
without even the slightest bit of humanity to make them interesting or
compelling.
And then there are the Plot Holes. Seriously HUGE plot holes.
(WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS COMING) A
couple of these leap to mind: WHY did they continue to feed the trapped cops?
HOW did they feed a city the size of Gotham for MONTHS while it was under
siege? If anarchy was the rule of the land, WHERE were the mobs, the oppressed
masses begging for said food? And WHERE were the piles of garbage and wrecked
cars/broken store fronts you know would appear all over the city?? How did
Commissioner Gordon go from being flat on his back and so weak he can hardly
get out of bed, turn into a leaping, running, jumping onto trucks, all better
now WITHOUT a hospital/doctors? How
about Bruce, who “shouldn’t go para-skiing” even BEFORE getting beaten down so
thoroughly, manage to heal up so very nicely and perfectly while in the avowed
“worst prison in the world” with some push-ups and a rope? And just HOW did
Bruce make his way across the world to land in front of Selena in Gotham when
he was flat broke and Alfred-less? Oh, and in WHAT insane universe is Alfred
going to leave Bruce??? No way. I do not
believe it.
In addition, the use of foreshadowing was so blatantly
obvious that the movie should have been named The Dark Cliché Rises. Alfred’s little fantasy. The introduction of
the young, fresh-faced, and very smart cop with mad skills (I guessed that one
not even a third of the way through the movie).
A declaration that someone was not going to march down the street in his
dress uniform. Talk of the autopilot not working. The gathering of all the
serious bat-gadgets into one place…
The assumed villain LOOKED bad enough, especially in the
beginning (bad guys always seem to kill off their henchmen to make a point),
but over-exposure and uninteresting camera angles deadened his presence to simply
a guy in a mask. A really big guy in a weird cross between a scuba regulator
and a spider leg mask, but still, just a guy.
And that voice… where is James Earl Jones when you need him?? He was mostly unintelligible and eventually
started to sound really whiney. He
started out big, and ended small. Weird
choice.
Character holes:
1.
Way too little with Morgan Freeman (Fox)… he was
barely in the movie at all, usually alone, and he seemed to be constantly
getting caught with his pants down. He
was portrayed in earlier films as much smarter than that.
2.
Scarecrow as Judge. Pretty cool – that actor has
serious stage PRESENCE, but shouldn’t the film have been LITTERED with such
nods to previously locked up villains? If not, then why him? It felt like there
should have been a little bit more back story; maybe his scenes ended up on the
cutting room floor.
3.
Foley (Modine). He was totally unlikable; I
didn’t care about him at all. His defection/hiding was probably meant to seem
like a cowardly betrayal of his badge and oath, so that his return to “march
down the street in his dress uniform” would feel like redemption of character…
but it didn’t. It just felt contrived.
And the bus full of orphaned kids. *rolls eyes* Really?
Sticking this in was an obvious attempt as garnering sympathy and a sense of urgency,
but instead came off as, well, an obvious attempt at garnering sympathy. It
might have been better if they had actually made it off the bridge, but leaving
them there while the cops on the other side shot at Blake was simply heartless.
The Terrorists won, and individual ethics or heroism were effectively and
completely squelched. Yay team.
I will not go into the other obvious political themes of
Capitalism=BAD, Rich=GREEDY, when without the capitalistic infrastructure, the
city was supposedly reduced to an extreme of anarchistic mob rule, with only the
bad guys prevailing. Giving the city back to the people, indeed.
Having the villain “tell” the story of why all this was
happening at the very end was simply lazy filmmaking/storytelling. Another cliché:
bad guys always take time before putting the final piece of their evil plot to
Destroy the City into action to sit down with the good guys and explain their
motivations, giving the hero more time to stop it. You’d think the bad guys
would read the comic books or watch their own movies and would therefore know
better. Just push the button already.
The real villain reveal was the only surprise for me in the
movie. In as much as I thought the kid in the hole did not really fit the
presumed profile, I did not make that leap.Things I liked:
I really liked Anne Hathaway’s Selena/The Cat. She was
completely believable and a wonderfully sympathetic character, full of layers,
pathos, fear and confidence. And I Loved THE night vision glasses that flipped
up on her head and looked like cat ears. That was very clever and believably
done, no Halloween costume for the Cat, but something that was based on
“reality”. Well done. Although, looking at her sloppily applied and bleeding
lipstick was disconcerting. Hey Make-Up Artist, they sell lip liner at
Walgreens for less than five bucks.
Gary Oldman’s Commissioner Gordon was, as ever, very
likeable and believable. I do not blame the ridiculous things his character had
to do on him; that is all on the script and direction.
Joseph Gordon-Levit’s fresh-faced and eager Blake was nicely
done, a voice of bewildered dissention in a world gone mad, and from his very first
scene in a background full of cops, an obvious player in the movie.
Michael Cain (Alfred) dominated his every scene in a way
that only an exceptionally seasoned and skilled actor can, and managed to evoke
very nearly the only real emotion in the entire film. Too bad he was dropped
out of the movie halfway through. Still didn’t like that at all.
There were some very cool scenes (trapped in an alley…
HAH!!), and the effects were excellent, although the movie in general felt
empty and over-produced. Am I the only
one who longs for the classic sleek and elegant SIMPLICITY of Batman’s “cool
toys”?
The Dark Knight Rises could have used a lot more humanity
and humor to break up the near unrelenting break-neck pace. I just ended up with a bit of a headache and
a desire to leave the theater the instant the credits began to roll, which if
you know me at all, I NEVER do. Everyone else in the half filled theater seemed
to be of the same mind, because there was no applause, no exciting chattering,
no waiting to see if there were any little surprises buried in the credits; everyone
in the theater just got up and left.
My rating: 5 out of 10
Just Musing,
Susan
