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TDKR - reaction thread SPOILERS
Posted by Corporal_Hicks on Saturday, July 21, 2012
Just saw it.
I don't feel the need to share too many spoilers. I need time to process it, but you all have little to worry about. Except Mikey, who hates everything.
Bane is a cross between The Humungous from Road Warrior and Darth Vader, with a bit of Chairman Mao and Che Guevara thrown in for good measure. I'm afraid the clarity of his voice never really did get fully ironed-out, but on reflection, I think that adds something to the unnaturalness of his persona. I also would have liked more of an exploration of Bane's motivations or ideology, if any--beyond simply repeating the phrase, "Gotham is beyond saving and must be allowed to die." Some description of a movement to overthrow and replace the existing world order.
Hathaway's Selina Kyle is a pleasant surprise, albeit the least plausible from the standpoint of Nolan's more realistic approach. Offers genuine comic relief and steals many of the scenes she's in. I was really hoping for her to have a whip, but's just my own private hell.
I was also hoping to see Bats use a black Tumbler again. I was fully conviced that Bane's demolition of Gotham's bridges was the setup for the bridging vehicle function first described in BB. Could have made for a helluva tense scene.
I would say TDKR is more spectacle than the first two, but as this is a third movie--and they are usuallly meant to have a generous degree of payoff--I am willing to forgive that. I saw it alone, and will probably see it again with friends and family in an IMAX theatre soon enough. It deserves that treatment.
Oh, and the theatre was pretty empty, whether that's because it was a 12:00 pm showing, or because of the chilling effect of the shooting--don't know.
It has its warts, but it gets the big stuff right. It shares much more in common with Begins in its structure than it does TDK.
According to msunyata, it would be better for TDKR to be structurally more TDK-like than BB-like, because BB is a terribly awful, cliché-ridden movie that's also very enjoyable.
Here's where he says it:
http://coronacomingattractions.com/news/deconstructing-weakest-bat-film-batman-begins
Well, he doesn't exactly say it. He says something like it, though, and I say a whole lot of nothing in response.
I'll put it simply. The stuff that bugs me in all of Nolan's previous work is still present in TDKR (a few too many minor characters, subplots). The stuff I like about Nolan's previous work is still present in TDKR (when it's on, it's ON, and he can really dial up the intensity and sustain it).
I'm not going to click that link.
I have to say, there were times in this movie where my eyes were tearing, and other times where my heart was pounding.
This doesn't happen often.
Even though I had seen numerous trailers, tv spots, and read internet rumours about this movie, there were still plenty of surprises. I like these kinds of surprises.
Nolan's sense of humor is (and always has been) completely lost on me. I just don't get it, but at the same time I've come to accept it, and his awful bantering police officers are more of an annoyance and do not detract from the overall emotional impact of the film.
Saw it last night. Liked it.
Although I think that Bane was a compelling villain the way he was portrayed in the movie (mostly due to being completely different from the character in the comics and cartoons), I never felt that he evoked that level of fascination that the Joker did in TDK. I guess it was a little difficult for Tom Hardy's personality to shine through that mask. His voice also just sounded odd to me a lot of the time. It wasn't so much that it was unintelligible, but it reminded me of a deeper version of the voice of Ignignokt, the green Mooninite from Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
Now for the real spoilers.
[SPOILERS]
The big twist in the end that reveals Miranda Tate as Talia al Ghul was much less unpredictable for anybody familiar with the Batman universe outside of the Nolan films. As soon as a brunette with a vaguely Middle Eastern accent showed up, it raised my suspicion that she would turn out to be Talia. It never would have occurred to me, though, that she was the legendary child who escaped the prison, so it's not like everything about her was predictable.
Does Bane die when Catwoman shoots him with the motorcycle-mounted weapon? If so, why didn't anyone think of trying to shoot Bane before? It's not like he went into hiding after taking Gotham hostage - he was present to a cocky degree afterwards. I can't believe that nobody even tried to shoot him with a handgun or a sniper rifle during that time.
The general structure of the movie reminded me of Rocky III: Batman has gone soft and is more show than substance (as seen in the chase with the police). When presented with a real challenger to his title, Batman gets his ass handed to him properly. What he needs is to get away from his lavish lifestyle and return to his roots. Cue montage in which Bruce trains in the underground prison by doing push-ups, pull-ups, and climbing the wall - it's the equivalent of Rocky going back to train in the grimy old gym with Apollo. He then comes back hungrier than before and beats his opponent using his opponent's own strengths. I guess this structure is not specific to Rocky III, but that movie is the most prominent example of it sticking out in my mind.
Did you guys understand how Batman survived the blast in the end? I know it's revealed in the last five minutes that he was able to fix the autopilot in the Batwing, but if I'm not mistaken he's shown in the cockpit of the plane only seconds before the bomb goes off. Even if he was able to eject from it before the explosion, he still would have been caught in the blast radius (which was supposed to be six miles, if I remember correctly).
In addition, wouldn't Gotham be suffering from some kind of radiation poisoning following the nuclear explosion? Yeah sure, the city didn't get blown up, but now they'd have to deal with the consequences, such as irradiated water all around them. It's also strange that a blast of that size wouldn't have caused any tidal waves, which would have destroyed at least the parts of the city right by the waterfront. Ah well, I guess it's not all that important.
I think those were all my initial thoughts. Even though some of these things stood out to me while I was watching the movie, I have to say I felt kind of like Spacey did. The moment when Bruce tells Alfred to leave, for example, was heartbreaking and really moving. Nolan has a way of wrapping you up in the action, too, so that you're completely engaged with what's currently happening on the screen. This sounds like a no-brainer, but I find that a lot of action movies nowadays leave me feeling pretty detached from the action, either because the scenes drag on for too long or because it never feels like there's anything on the line. There are a lot of things this movie does right, but the things it does wrong - in my opinion, at least - stick out like a sore thumb.
[/SPOILERS]
The bomb stuff at the end was a tad sketchy. I was going to point out the Rocky III paralells, and I recall predicting something along those lines some time ago.
Spoilers--
I was willing to accept Bruce's death and would have been content to leave it at that--Florence cafe scene notwithstanding. I suppose this is as close to a happy ending as one could hope for.
Mal Shot First wrote:
I guess it was a little difficult for Tom Hardy's personality to shine through that mask. His voice also just sounded odd to me a lot of the time. It wasn't so much that it was unintelligible, but it reminded me of a deeper version of the voice of Ignignokt, the green Mooninite from Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
This probably requires a demonstration. Here's a clip from ATHF, for reference purposes:
I've extracted the audio from that clip, changed the pitch, and reduced the speed by 10%. It's not exactly like Bane's voice in the movie, but it's getting close to it. Like I said, it's not so much about the timbre of the voice as the ways the lines are delivered that prompted this comparison. There was a strange tone to everything that Bane said. Anyway, here's the edited audio, with some irrelevant dialog cut out:
I really had to concentrate to hear all Bane's lines. I still didn't catch all of them. There were times when the voice was so Liam Neeson-like that I half expected a big reveal to that effect at some point.
The movie needed more Alfred.
Still really good, really epic and a very good ending to a very good trilogy.
We got the Russell Crowe MoS teaser.
Reading Harry's review at AICN I wonder if the big guy has lost the final teeny bit of objectivity he had and is now incapable of reviewing any movie.
Harry's review was just your typical butthurt fanboy. It wasn't the Bane from the comic books. It wasn't the Robin from thhe comic books. It wasn't the Talia from the comic books. Harry couldn't get over it and it ruined the movie for him.
He did have some legit gripes about the 2nd half of the film (basically from the time of the football stadium attack to the big fight in the streets). There are A LOT of logic leaps during the time frame, and every scene in occupied Gotham came off as awkward to me. The enjoyed the prison scenes with Bruce, though.
Again, I think the overall power and intensity of the film overcomes those flaws for the most part. Who knows, maybe if I saw it again those things would bug me a lot more? maybe not? I do know that I could care less that they changed Bane's origin story.
It would be silly to pretend like the Bane of the comics is an amazingly awesome character with a fantastic backstory, and that meddling with it does the character a grand disservice. There's slightly more depth to the character than the Doomsday character, but it's pretty clear he was meant to be Batman's Doomsday.
Even back when Knightfall hit, people were pointing out that he was essentially a slightly more intelligent version of the Mutant Leader from Dark Knight Returns. The comics kept telling us how smart he was, but it felt forced. Lot of showing over telling. They were trying a little too hard to force that he was Batman's intellectual equal in order to try to sell as Batman's Doomsday to us.
Bane's superamazingbrilliant plot in Knightfall was to release all the prisoners in Arkham so that Batman would exhaust himself trying to reel them all in, then swoop in and break Batman's back when Batman was too tired and sleep-deprived to put up much of a fight. This isn't tactical brilliance. This is vaguely clever cowardice. Oh, he also figures out Bruce Wayne is Batman. Like, you know, hundreds of other people have.
Even as a kid, the whole thing didn't sit right with me. Releasing all of Arkham's prisoners at once is taking too huge a gamble. Any one of the heavy hitters (Joker, Riddler, Penguin, etc.) has nearly beaten Batman in the past. Sure, you could assume he's gonna beat 'em all again because
but it's still not the sort of move I would expect from a brilliant tactician.
I watched it this afternoon. We are good with spoilers right? Cause spoilers here.
I thought it was a nice ending, the kind of finish I'd love to see in comics but never will. It was too long, and the plotting didn't feel very tight, but it was a fun ride. My only major complaint is the notion that Batman has been retired for eight years. I think it could have saved some time, and fit the story better, had he simply been out of shape due to no real adversaries in those past years.
The twist at the end actually caught me. I think maybe because they kept enough wheels spinning and balls in the air for me to completely miss them stealing my watch. I even complained after that "Obviously Talia was there...cause...Talia." So kudos for that.
I liked this version of Bane, but not as much as Luchadore Bane from the animated series. Also he sounded really chipper in early scenes. Kind of hard to view him as imposing when he seems so happy to be in a plane crash. I do think enough of his character was changed that he didn't need to be 'Bane'; he could have been Black Mask and it wouldn't have mattered much. Still, fun character, I loved the scene where he made the guy cry simply by laying a hand on the man's shoulder.
I will miss Oldman as Gordon. Though I think he's a bit daft for not figuring out who Batman was til the end, since everyone else already knew.
For the 'rebooting' of Batman to better fit in with the Justice League my girlfriend wants them to use Joseph Gordon-Levitt as the new batman.
I agree about Bane's plan not being tactically brilliant, but I didn't really have a problem with it in the comics. I guess if someone else took out the Bat, then that would've been okay too. I haven't read the arc since it came out.
Also, I have some of the earthquake issues, but the ones after I didn't pick up. I was pissed that they killed Essen.
I don't read Harry's reviews very often and now I remember why. First of all, his writing style annoys the hell out of me, not just because of the rampant typos and grammatical errors but because of his utter disregard for proper sentence structure and his penchant for fragments. All that stuff makes it hard to read his reviews to begin with, but when he talks about TDKR with such rabid fanboyism shining through I can't take anything he says seriously. I swear, I couldn't read his text in one piece - I got so infuriated with it about halfway through that I had to get away from it for about an hour and finish reading it later.
I don't understand where this puritanism with regard to Batman is coming from, to be honest. Harry professes his love for The Dark Knight, but the Joker in that movie is very different from any version of him I've seen in comics and cartoons. Batman is a fairly one-dimensional character in TDK, and the ones who really stand out in that movie are the characters around him: the Joker, Two-Face, Jim Gordon, and Rachel Dawes. I can barely remember Christian Bale appearing in that movie as Bruce Wayne at all.
That's why I thought it was actually refreshing to bring the focus back on Bruce Wayne for the third movie. The second act is all Bruce Wayne, while Batman really doesn't come into play until the third act, but I feel we need this "time-out" in order to reexamine who this man in the mask is. The events of TDK can't have left him unscathed so we can't take it for granted that his motivations and his convictions have remained the same as the ones introduced in Batman Begins.
Harry is right in one point: Batman is not a quitter. If he had taken some time to evaluate the movie before writing down his rant, he might have noticed that Batman is also not a quitter in TDKR. He has enough reasons to consider retirement (he is basically an invalid at the beginning of the movie; his actions in TDK have directly resulted in the deaths of two people he cared deeply about; Gotham's police force seems to be able to handle the city's crime on its own), but he comes back despite everything in his life telling him not to do it. In addition, when Bane believes to have broken Bruce's spirit and tosses him in the underground prison, he's not satisfied with spending the rest of his days down there. Instead of giving up, Bruce builds himself up again, rediscovers his motivation for being Batman, and returns to Gotham as its worthy champion. Bruce's resignation is a momentary snapshot in the film - it's an obstacle he has to overcome to become the hero we know from the comics. If you think this makes him a quitter you didn't get the point of the second act of the movie.
What I do have a problem with are large parts of the third act. It seemed like the Nolans didn't quite know how to end the story in a satisfactory manner so they chose an implausible happy ending that was the least satisfactory of all. I also didn't like the way they handled the revelation of Blake as Robin. There were enough clues and hints throughout the movie that suggested he might eventually join Batman or even become the new Batman if Bruce Wayne dies/retires. They even had him discover the Batcave in the end, fer chrissakes - wasn't that enough of a wink?
I don't know why they threw that 'Robin' in there and didn't have him give his legal name as 'Grayson' as the wink at the end.
I saw the movie yesterday and almost pulled a Fred Willard 'cause I liked it so much. I plunked down the $18 (Widgett only paid $11 for his IMAX screening!) for a matinee fake IMAX showing, and even in fake IMAX, it was awesome.
I like how how the Nolans & Goyer have shameless borrowed from many Batman storylines to make the series. Even TDKR had threads (mostly with Selena) from "Year One."
Having Blake's first name be "Robin," was, I'm sure just a nod to fans. Some people will dig it, others will think it's stupid. Either way, it was pretty clear that he's going to be the next Batman, and not the Robin from the comics.
I watched the "Half in the Bag" review and it was mentioned that some people thought it was extremely implausible for Bruce & Selena to just happen to be at the cafe where Alfred just happened to show up. HOWEVER, Alfred explicitly told Bruce about it early in the movie.
The only real question is how will Blake be the new Bats without funding.
As much as I doubt either would happen, I'd really like to see a movie with Blake as Bats as well as (oh god, please) a Selena Kyle movie.
The part where Bruce and Selena show up at the same cafe as Alfred isn't the implausible part. The implausible part is that Bruce shows up at all.
Jakester wrote:
The only real question is how will Blake be the new Bats without funding.
Hockey pads.
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Posted: 11 years 34 weeks ago
Does he ride a horse in it? Right now I am all about the horses.