Angel Dust on 19/7/2012 at 19:24
Saw it last night and ... eh. It's by no means a bad film but it is by far the weakest of the 3. I'm sure a lot of people are going to love it, and I don't begrudge them that, but I just found it to be loud, bloated, pompous and devoid of almost any real tension. It's grim and gritty posturing is just that since Nolan hasn't the balls to kill anyone, of note, off and the script is full of extremely clumsy foreshadowing, as well as more than the usual portentous Nolan nonsense dialog. Tom Hardy does his best as Bane but the character is no Joker and I struggled to hear what the hell he was saying at times. Hathaway's Catwoman is well done but kind of a side-show and Cotillard's is so underdeveloped it telegraphs the 'big twist' since she's surely got to have something more to do than be a damsel in distress. Jason Gordon-Levitt is by far the best thing in it (I would totally be down for some Robin films with him) and it was him and Oldman who were the real rooting interests since Christian Bale is a total snore.
It's frustrating because there is a really good film in this but it's a real muddle, even more so than The Dark Knight, and compromised by the fact that it is a big-budget popcorn extravaganza and as such must keep the masses happy ( that's the only way I can explain the horrendous cop-out that is Batman's 'death'. )
Scots Taffer on 19/7/2012 at 23:40
I don't totally agree with Angel Dust - particularly not around the end, because that definitely pleased me (notwithstanding logic issues) and I thought it was a particularly nice closer which leaves everyone walking out on a bit of a grinning high - but it is definitely the weakest of the trilogy and almost entirely lacking in tension (at least after the Batman/Bane showdown, but we all knew how that was going to end from the trailer so it wasn't exactly tense either).
The movie sags in the middle in a huge way. Bane's goal in Gotham is never particularly clear and that's a real issue when it dominates 2/3 of the story - it's clear the Talia twist is what neuters making his goal clearer in a big way because they want to slowly tease out the league of shadows connection, but it's not a big enough impact (in my eyes) to justify the audience not really knowing what the fuck is going on for nearly 2 hours, even though I more or less knew due to early rumours. Bane himself is given a reasonable background, but I never felt the villain was particularly interesting outside of when he was facing off against Batman in the early going.
Bruce's/Batman's struggle with himself and with Bane isn't enough to hold the story together given the way it doles out the character progression. Bale does well with what he's given and he does add a fair bit of humanity to what has always come off as an alarmingly silly character to me in previous franchise. He puts in some good work to hold up the weak middle section but it's still not enough to save it.
Selina/Catwoman was very good window dressing and a fairly welcome addition to the whole movie. Gordon gets a short shrift in this movie however and I didn't like where they took his character. Alfred was barely in it, same with Lucius. The character development kicked off in TDK with some of these supporting characters just wasn't there in this movie. Oh and yes, Gordon-Levitt is solid, though I thought the whole I just knew you were Batman was very poorly done.
I was probably most disappointed with the action - the finale was reasonable enough, but beyond that and the big fight (which was brutal), there wasn't a lot to get your teeth into there.
It was incredibly funny though. Kudos to the number of non-cheesy gags that landed pretty well.
SubJeff on 19/7/2012 at 23:43
Quote Posted by Brethren
Scots, are you saying you've seen it and didn't like it? Or are you guessing it will be bad and not live up to the previous edition?
He's seen it and it wasn't up to standard. The other 2 were, hence the 2 out of 3 jibe.
Scots Taffer on 19/7/2012 at 23:51
It should be absolutely clear that I went in with stratospheric expectations.
Nolan is my favourite director working today and I loved this take on the franchise, so a disappointment was probably inevitable.
That being said, they didn't stack the deck in their favour with this one IMO.
Shug on 20/7/2012 at 02:00
It's a little too busy to be a great movie
Scots Taffer on 20/7/2012 at 05:50
And speaking of being a little too busy: anyone else catch that catwoman is bi? ;)
Renzatic on 20/7/2012 at 07:47
Just got back from seeing it. I have to semi-agree with Scots and Angel Dust here. Don't think for a second I'm panning the movie, because I'm not. It's great. Nearly fantastic even. But coming after the nearly perfect in every way TDK, it's bound to be a bit of a let down.
It is a little too busy. There's too much story, too much going on. Even at 2 hours and 45 minutes, it's got barely enough room to breathe. The end result is it feels kinda manic at times, and yup, some of the characters end up undeveloped. Particularly one, who should've gotten a ton more screentime than she did.
If they trimmed it down a bit, decided to go with just a tiny bit less epicness, it would've been a better flick. But even as is, it's more than decent, and beats the everliving shit out of every other movie I've seen so far this year. It's a 7.5 to TDK's 9.5.
edit: Also, did everyone see the Total Recall trailer? I must have a little bit of the cinema snob in me, because it actually made me a little mad watching it. Like they were ruining an already good thing by messing with it.
gigagooga on 20/7/2012 at 09:41
14 dead and over 50 wounded in massacre at Batmans premiere in Denver...
