Starring Christian Bale, Gary Oldman, Tom Hardy, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Anne Hathaway, Marion Cotillard, Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, Matthew Modine, Alon Aboutboul, Ben Mendelsohn, Burn Gorman
Directed by Christopher Nolan
Expectations: High. I expect it to be the worst of the three, but I’m pumped.
[Editor’s note: I’m gonna try to stay spoiler-free, but if want to see it unspoiled you really should just get out there and see it! The comments below I can’t vouch for at this point, but I’m guessing they’ll be spoiler-filled.]
Having just watched all three of Nolan’s Batman films in the space of a few days, I can say one thing definitively: this is an excellent superhero trilogy. Each film has its share of flaws, and I’m of the mind that each subsequent film is worse than the last, but each one is made with supreme skill and care, delivering some of the best films based on comic books we are ever likely to see. It’s a stroke of genius not to adapt any specific Batman story from the comics, instead combining multiple storylines into one cohesive narrative that blends together into a cohesive trilogy. While The Dark Knight feels removed from Batman Begins, like another story about Batman as opposed to a direct sequel, The Dark Knight Rises is a direct sequel to both Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, and it’s an absolute joy to watch.
I’m going to forgo my traditional second paragraph plot synopsis because I don’t want to ruin anything for anyone. I went into the film only having seen the first trailer once, and even then I felt like I had seen too much. As it turns out I hadn’t, as the film is nearly three hours long and the trailer seemed to focus on the one scene that I really didn’t care for. It’s set in a football stadium, and while the scene itself is well constructed, I hate the CG FX employed to achieve the big “WOW!” moment. Nolan is, and hopefully always will be, focused on mostly practical FX, and this one moment sticks out among the rest of the realistic explosions and car chases. My fear from seeing this in the trailer was that Bane would bring the pain, not only to Batman and Gotham City in the form of massive destruction, but to me in the form of ugly, painfully obvious CG. Thankfully, everything else was splendidly done, and even this one moment isn’t horrible, but it does look a bit too ridiculous to blend in with the rest of what’s going on visually.