Come anticipate "The Dark Knight Rises" with *BATSPOILERS*

internet philosophizing > nolan's philosophizing

That campy tone would be out of place for the new series. I've heard about other villians, not Riddler. Can't recall their names now. . . Dark Mask, maybe? Something about a mask melted onto the villian's face.

― Daniel, Esq., Friday, 24 July 2009 19:59 (3 years ago) Bookmark

I love the way this reads now. You want Batman to pop up and say "I'll look into it".

Nothing campy about a grown man dressed as a bat.

I did a great job avoiding anything written about this, including this thread. Saw it tonight, though it a slack slog, borderline incoherent at times, all portent and no purpose. I barely have the energy to complain, but my biggest problems were its totally chaotic sense of geography, Joseph Gordon Levitt as more impossibly ubiquitous than Batman, the fact that it telegraphed every last Chekhov's gun twist and turn so that the whole movie felt redundant in real time, and ... eh, why bother. I may have even enjoyed "Inception" more than this. Now that Nolan has got this out of his system and the franchise will move on to some hack like Len Wiseman, Louis Leterrier or McG, I hope he never makes another action movie again.

Things I liked: this may be the only action movie other than "True Lies" to actually detonate a nuclear bomb, though of course that movie went on a good 20 minutes more afterwards. I also liked the I recognized like 50 actors in this, including a bunch of walk-on day players. They really went all out putting the b-listers to work.

Shit, after reading this thread maybe we can all agree on Nolan being a genius just for getting people that hate his films to pay and see every single one he makes.

lol

I've loved all his non-action flicks, and I liked "The Dark Knight" a lot.

That wasn't aimed at you in particular, Josh, just seems like so many people itt have really strong negative reactions to his films, but keep on seeing the new ones. Granted, more than a few in here get paid to do so, but not that many.

tbf, I don't remembering getting any real negative "Nolan!!!!!" vibes until after "Inception."

Something I've always wanted to know: actors makes a big deal about bulking up for roles, going on these crazy weight gain and exercise regiments. But how long does it take someone like Hardy to deflate again for normal roles after they've bulked up? Do they just do nothing and let nature take its course?

That wasn't aimed at you in particular, Josh, just seems like so many people itt have really strong negative reactions to his films, but keep on seeing the new ones. Granted, more than a few in here get paid to do so, but not that many.

i keep thinking things'll be different, also TDK had some bright spots, etc, also it is one of the two biggest movies of the year and everyone in the world will be talking about it, also general curiosity/nolan's movies look pretty and have impressive explosions, also f u

xp I would guess so, just because the intense regimen it takes to keep up that body probably conflicts with work schedules that don't require the build

atom bombs get exploded in hard target, sucker punch, aliens...

Anyway, you know you wanted it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqJDLzIXDps

is it brostep?

Well, Aliens was a reactor going critical - so, yknow, kind've like a bomb but not exactly.

aliens = an explosion at a nuclear plant, I thought?

Woah woah, woah, you're right. The whole station was basically a nuclear reactor, right? So you're talking about a thermonuclear explosion and "Adios, Muchachos."

I also liked the I recognized like 50 actors in this, including a bunch of walk-on day players. They really went all out putting the b-listers to work.

― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, July 25, 2012 11:40 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

one thing i do love about nolan is that he fills his movies with 80s has-beens just because he can

There's a nuke in "Hard Target?" Or "Broken Arrow?"

I should say, then, that it features a bomb going off in a population center set in the ostensibly real world. Regardless, I find it the most glaring of excesses. There are entire movies built around the aftermath of nuclear explosions. In this movie, it's just another thing that blows up. Then life goes on, la la la.

xpost I even recognized the Asian antagonist from "Drag Me to Hell" in a one-liner.

Mayor from The Wire, I recognized the cop who brought cat woman to jail, the villain who made the dudes walk across the ice ...

broken arrow's entire plot is about a rogue nuke

Yeah, but does it blow up?

This movie:

"Oh, here is my nuclear fusion reactor that someone LEARNED TO WEAPONIZE. BUt don't worry, we can FLOOD THE TUNNEL."

Right there I was like, ok, there's another few million of effects coming.

OK, now that I am better rested:

why was Bruce Wayne limping at the beginning?

how did a regimen of push ups and pulls up allows him to overcome a broken back and a full-on beat-down in the bottom of a pit?

how did penniless Bruce Wayne get from said bottom of pit through exotic foreign land - India? - and back to under-siege Gotham in less than 24 hours?

How did Miranda Tate pull such a crazy long con?

None of these things bothered me terribly, but it did underscore that this was just another "stuff happens on screen" sort of movie.

Limping = a fucked up knee, there's a doctor's appointment half way through the film (with one of the few jokes)

Mysterious Foreigner Tom Conti did some old school chiropracty on him + Iron Will of the Bat-Man = all fixed!

Bruce Wayne is not in this film played by Denholm Elliott.

Miranda Tate is League of Shadows! There is probably one in your office now, playing a janitor for the last 20 years.

I mean, you can accuse Nolan & Goyer of a lot of things, but not thinking through their scripts really isn't one of them.

Was reading about making little actors look big in movies. This is pretty cool:

http://www.jbwebtv.com/index.php/articles/movies-tv-and-more/109-moviereshape

how many of nolan's movies manage to avoid having completely implausible 'long con' stuff

Eh, "Memento" is plausible, I guess. But yeah, good point.

I also liked the I recognized like 50 actors in this, including a bunch of walk-on day players. They really went all out putting the b-listers to work.

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, July 26, 2012 4:40 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, I was thinking that with Tom Conti who I spent way too long trying to remember the name of when I was watching the thing, kept getting stuck with 'not Derek Jacobi'.
Also the neat-scrubbed clean looking office boy type who I was thinking was the guy from Misfits but was actually the medical officer from Torchwood's 1st couple of series.
Still thinking of the good orphan cop as the guy from 3rd Rock too. Probably ought to be better known as himself by now though?

& has Anne Hathaway done action before? Did enjoy her in this.

batman fixing his Earl Campbell knees with a simple brace probably bugged me more than anything else in this movie. i always thought it would make sense for batman to turn into a broken down running back over time, but they bring it up and then forget about it. i mean are we meant to assume he's wearing the brace for the whole movie? why wouldn't Bane and his bros tear it off him when they're changing bruce into his complimentary pit o doom peasant rags. or did just wearing it once fix not having cartilage???

I liked how they gave Christian Bale grey streaks at his temples that made him look like George Hamilton.

The movie takes places 8 years after the last one, right? So he's been limping the whole time? Because in Nolan's conception, Batman hasn't really been around that long, right?

Was wondering if it was a subtle (!) political dig, that even bankrupt and without funding, Wayne enterprises still had a robust weapons program.

Man, how many times was Levitt the lead cop arriving at the scene? Five or so? More? Hospital, airport, bar with cat woman ... guy got around in this flick.

i love that you get guys like matthew modine, eric roberts, anthony michael hall, tom berenger popping up in these puppies. and then they go right back to whatever direct to video things they had on their plates

The prison was meant to be (plot-wise) in Mexico, I read somewhere.

sure, why not

the idea of all the necessary steps i would have to take to see this - like, i'd have to put clothes on, and walk to the cinema, and buy a ticket, and consider snack and beverage options, and sit through the trailers - just seems impossibly daunting, risk-to-reward wise

Bane in the comix was meant to be South American too I think.

"The Dark Knight Rises was gloriously the best moment of my life in a movie theatre. It stands alone, peerless in the pantheon of superhero movies."

So says some shmuck in a user review on metacritic.

what a twat amirite

is tom hardy any good? i feel like the reason (well, the other reason) people latched on to ledger so much in the last one was that he seemed to have been the only person in the movie who'd been given permission to act. nolan seems to always end up with shitty over-naturalistic performances one hundred percent of the time and it's a really irritating fit with his scripts and his visual style. n.b. i am sure there are counterexamples (batvoice) but don't bother me with them

I love Hardy but you can't tell if it's him in this; dunno if that's a good or bad thing. He's certainly scary and mean and tough, but it could almost be anyone. Would want to watch this again and then watch Bronson again and compare.

he is good. its not a centerpiece performance like ledger's, more like just a guy doing his job really well a la cillian murphy

i had a real problem with Hardy's Bane voice

i mean, everyone he casts always does their job really well, it's just .... enhh

except maybe david bowie, predictably enough

like i said upthread, i dug the voice a lot. its silly, but its the kind of flourish that the movie needed more of.

but it just made Bane ridiculous to me, which removed any sense of menace from his confrontations with Batman. He never shut up either

i thought he was ridiculous AND menacing, which is a great combo!

Mendiculous!