Review 2012 by RD Clark
The Dark Knight Rises
Written by: Jonathan Nolan, Christopher Nolan & David S. Goyer
Directed by: Christopher Nolan
Starring: Christian Bale, Anne Hathaway, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Gary Oldman, Tom Hardy, Marion Cotillard, Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, Burn Gorman, Matthew Modine and many, many more…
Rated PG-13
A mysterious masked man (who looks like an out of shape wrestler) starts a major campaign to ruin Gotham City. In the meantime, Bruce Wayne, who is recovering from injuries he sustained in the last film, has retired as Batman and has managed to flick his corporation and fortune into the wind. He is robbed by one of the help, a mysterious (well, not really) woman with connivances of her own. Amongst all of this, Commissioner Gordon, who is recovering from injuries he sustained in the last film, lies around in a hospital bed for much of the film. Meanwhile, a young cop named John Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) steals the show as the only really heroic figure in the entire film.
I’ll be truthful here: I didn’t really like the first two Nolan Batman films, but I went in with high hopes for this one. I never pay good money for tickets and popcorn hoping I’m not going to enjoy myself. I did not enjoy this film, I endured it. A long, glum, cruel, loud movie that never lightened up, with characters that grimaced their way through a maze of painful encounters. I love Anne Hathaway, but her Catwoman had little of the charm or whimsy of her predecessors; she seemed to be solely a plot device. Bane was not very fearsome and his speeches were mostly incomprehensible behind that mask. (I actually started missing Ledger’s Joker; at least he had a sense of humor.) Batman was hardly in the movie at all and most of that was in that flying thing that looked like a collection of box kites, or standing around croaking at Catwoman with that throat-cancer voice. Most of the time, we saw Bruce Wayne acting like a dip-shit and managing to screw up everything he gets close to. Gordon-Levitt as Blake was the real hero in this film and I hope to see him in many more.
Very little heroism from the superhero (shooting at targets on the ground from his flying machine doesn’t count in my book). A dull Catwoman and a villain with no real gravitas, plus a score and a lot of noise that left my ears ringing as I went out. I’ll be fair: If you liked the first two, you might like this one, but I cannot recommend it.
I did my duty and sat through the credits for you; don’t bother, there were no post-credit scenes. That’s something, I guess.
Flytrap rating: 3/10
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