The Dark Knight Rises Review

I bought my tickets for The Dark Knight Rises (the conclusion to director Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy) on Fandango on Tuesday. I had to pay some kind of $1.25 processing fee, but I also got to use something I'd never heard of before, a "mobile ticket" -- meaning, I didn't have to print out a paper ticket, I could just show my phone to the guy inside the theatre. I wasn't so excited that I wanted to go to a midnight screening, but wanting to see it in my relatively spoiler free state as soon as possible, and with Friday off of work, I signed up to see it at my local Southern California theatre at 9AM Friday morning. Then I woke up and turned on the news.


It was a little spooky going to the theatre to see TDKR after hearing about the shooting in Colorado last night. I kept looking at the emergency exit door during the movie (an usher can in at the beginning of the film to check and make sure it was secured). The trailer for "Gangster Squad" which shows men shooting into a movie theatre crowd was certainly in poor taste (I read afterwards that it has since been pulled). But I wasn't going to let some madman with a gun ruin my movie going experience!


The SPOILER-FREE Part of My Review:


Now, the film. I don't know how to describe it exactly, but it didn't really have the power to pull me in like Nolan's other Batman films. Bane was OK (his voice took some getting used to - it must have all been dubbed post-production, right? Could he even talk while shooting)? But Catwoman was great! I'm not a big Anne Hathaway fan, but her turn as Selina Kyle was the most fun part of this film. She gets some of the best fighting sequences, too. I also like Joseph Gordon Levitt as Blake, but I'm always a sucker for JGL. His first scene with Bruce Wayne cuts right to the chase in a way I found refreshing for a movie I knew going in was going to be almost three hours long. While Marion Cotillard was OK and everything, there didn't really seem to be much point in her being there - especially when she was an expert in doing things that Morgan Freeman could already do, but more on that later. I also really didn't really care for Matthew Modine's stupid pointless cop character.


Overall, I liked the film, but I wouldn't call it a must-see on the big screen. And now for...


The SPOILER-FILLED Part of My Review:


The best surprise for me was not at the end, but seeing Cillian Murphy back AGAIN as Dr. Crane! I was so excited to see him in the second film; this time was just as much of a fun surprise! He, like JGL, is a favorite of mine and is always great in everything he does.


So, as much as I wanted to stay spoiler-free going in, we pretty much all knew that Bane was bound to break Batman's back and/or kill him. We also knew Cotillard was probably going to be Talia Al Ghul. I mean, right?? It seems like some people thought Bruce Wayne would retire as Batman (or die, or be put in a wheelchair) and that JGL would take over the cowl, but I guess he's, what, Robin, right? That kind of makes sense because, well, he is little.


It seemed to me that the movie took place a year after the last film, but from what I have read, it is supposed to be eight years later. That seems like a lot.


Random thoughts:

• If you know anything about foreshadowing, the second they show those flashbacks of Alfred in Italy, you know exactly how the film is going to end, right? I mean, it's textbook.

• This movie was about some kind of clean power stuff, right? Also, did we really need the whole Liam Neeson/League of Shadows connection? Bane could have just been Bane, and Bruce Wayne did not need a sex scene. Random. But the guy playing young Liam Neeson did look a lot like a young Liam Neeson, I thought.

• How cool was the motorcycle stuff?! I loved the stock exchange guy with the douchey blue shirt/white collar on the back of the bike!

• I was glad to see Batman's big-ass-tired motorcycle back for this film (and Catwoman gets to ride it a lot) but I didn't really like the Bat Helicopter thing they used so much in this. It was really cartoonish compared to his other bat vehicles which, while strange, always kind of made sense in the they-are-military-prototypes sense. Was there even a Batmobile? No?

• When Catwoman stole Bruce Wayne's fancy sports car after the charity ball, did he ever get it back?? I don't remember.

• I recognized Hines Ward as one of the football players.

• Why did Alfred need to leave?

• I liked the airplane sequence at the beginning.

• Plus, it's always nice to see Nestor Carbonell's eyelashes.

Did you see it? What did you think? Don't want to see it? Why not? As always, feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments. Until next (bat) time!