The Dark Knight Rises - seen thread *SPOILERS WITHIN* See Mod Warning in first post

Boo Radley

guerito wrote: »

It was the most comic-book-y of the three (if you can make that criticism of a series of movies based on a comic book), but for me the first two generally had an element of realism which this one didn't and again, it suffered for it.

I've been saying the same to friends all day.

While it is based on comics the previous two set precedent for a certain atmosphere and style but this felt like a huge departure. It really started feeling odd when Batman and Catwoman were fighting along side.

I just preferred the other two and felt this one, at times, was almost set in a different universe.

Basq

I think the problem with Bane that he might have been fierce and intimidating.. but dialogue was a problem. A BIG problem.

It wasn't so much that his voice was hard to hear - but more than his dialogue seemed to consist of nothing but hammy lines and added very little.

Maybe it was just me.. but Joker's dialogue in TDK felt like it had more substance and purpose than Bane.

DB10

Was it just me that found it hard to hear some things Bane was saying. I mean the film was loud enough so I assume everyone had that problem!

And yeah his death was kind of odd. I was expecting him to come back. You never really know their dead unless its a close up.

CL7

Just back. I loved every minute of it. Epic end to to the trilogy.

dastardly00

Mind = BLOWN.

Einhard

Boo Radley wrote: »

I've been saying the same to friends all day.

While it is based on comics the previous two set precedent for a certain atmosphere and style but this felt like a huge departure. It really started feeling odd when Batman and Catwoman were fighting along side.

How so?

One of the thing that impressed me about this, and the other two, was how little I had to suspend my disbelief.

krudler

parts I loved, parts I thought were absolutely terrible.

the biggest issue? for how big it was in scale it felt so little was at stake, a nuclear bomb? really? the idea that Bane wanted to have Gotham tear itself and create social anarchy apart was inspired and followed on from the plan in Begins with the fear gas, it was just put into a modern context, like a more comic book version of the occupy movement, loved that. but no, explosive thingy we have to stop in the last few minutes, how lazy was that?

Things I loved about it: the emotion, the best scene in the entire film, possibly of the trilogy, was Alfred telling Bruce about the letter, I welled a little I'm not afraid to say.

The actors, all played their parts well, the standouts were Caine and Levitt, Bale did a great job of looking believably knackered at the beginning, Hardy was great as Bane but had some godawful hammy lines. The beatdown scene was brilliant though, brutal as you'd want.

I dunno though, after the previous two it just all felt so...elaborate, and gimmicky. The scene between Batman and The Joker in the interrogation room had so much power behind it and all it was is two guys talking, in this you have a city held to random with mercenaries and thousands of cops living in the sewers, and I never felt like anything was at stake. the Joker's "battle for Gotham's soul" felt so much more believeable and all it took was the corruption of one man.

I did enjoy it, its excellent overall, but I wasnt blown away. The first hour is excellent, can't fault it, the middle sags and the last few minutes are excellent again, meh maybe rewatch will make me enjoy it more. There's a lot to love in it. except Bane's death, that was awful, this guy is constantly shown as cunning, ruthless and a imposing physical prescence, and he's quickly dispatched alongside a throwaway line of comedy dialogue.

I do agree it was a mistake showing Bruce at the end, it should have just had Alfred nod and thats it, would have been an absolutely perfect way to end it.

4/5 for me.

Duggy747

Seen it tonight, won't say I was utterly disappointed as honestly my expectations for this film were nowhere near the same level as TDK but I just found it above-average.

Not bad at all and ties the trilogy up nicely with a good, solid ending but on it's own I didn't find the movie that great.

I never once thought Bane was anywhere near as ferocious or deadly as we were made out to believe leading up to the film's release. Besides battering Batman (and Batman battering him back in another scene, which I thought was really good), he just went about slapping people over the head and breaking their necks off-screen. Nothing new from any hard guy in your average action movie.

Hardy did a good job with what he had, though, his presence made up for the menace rather than the ho-hum actions of him punching things. As for his voice, many times it was drowned out by Zimmer's score and was bit hard to keep up with him when he'd spout a quick one-liner. It happened throughout the film to other character's but since his voice was already muffled the mix should've been lowered during his dialogue scenes.

What threw me off was how off the dubbing was when he gave his speech on top of the tumbler when they released the prisoners. Almost as if the tone of his voice didn't quite match his physical and facial movements.

Bale, Levitt, Caine, and Oldman were on fine form. I did enjoy seeing more of Bale this time around and Caine always livens up a scene, even during his emotional ones which were great.

The person who I thought came out best was Hathaway, she had the hardest role to fill and alot of pressure from people of whether she'd do the role any justice. She actually owned every scene, even if some of her dialogue was cheesy.

Speaking of the dialogue, I found some of it to be shockingly cheesy with painfully obvious and simplistic exposition. I found it to be alot closer to BB than TDK, where odd moments of cringey one-liners were thrown out which I thought didn't suit this universe Nolan had set up.

It's when Nolan sets up a "realistic" universe and then when he throws in these types of dialogue parts they just don't gel together. My main problem with BB was it constantly shifted from dark realism to cartoonish jokes and one-liners (Guy looking into his coffee as the tumbler drove by him) and then back to dark realism mode.

I thought the scene where Dagget explains what the software did to Selena was delivered so brutally simplistic it was like getting hit over the head with a copy the 60's Batman where the villian reveals all of his plan's secrets in a cartoonish way.

There was plenty of other niggling bits that constantly threw me off throughout (Talia's death was quite hammy, as was the kiss between Bat & Selina while the bomb had just over a minute to go........really corny) but not enough to warrant this to be a crap film by any means.

I thought the time flew by, even if the first hour was sluggish. I enjoyed it, it had some great scenes in it and the ending was nice and neat with the right emotional weight but, overall, I just wouldn't personally class it as a great film.

krudler

Basq wrote: »

Oh.. and before I forget.. holy sh*t.. it was all so bloody predictable.

this, this,this a million times. "that? oh thats a fusion reactor we built, but never turned on COS, well its bomb in the wrong hands" oh right, well thats the finale of the movie summed up 20 minutes into the film then.

johnny_ultimate

The sound design was definitely awkward, and one of the few things I'd take issue with. There was a jarring bit near the start where the music stopped, went silent for around ten seconds, and then started again. Gives the film a very strange sort of pace. It's not a new thing with Nolan films though: The Dark Knight seemed like a montage at times with the constant rousing soundtrack in the background.

My biggest beef was definitely with the way they handled Bane's voice though. It really did sound like it was on an audio channel completely separate from the rest of the soundtrack. Got a bit better later on, but the prologue particularly was misjudged.

And yeah there were three or four times when dialogue was drowned out by music. No reason at all that should happen on a production of this scale.

The best music cue was definitely when Batman arrived in the Tunnel on the pod. And that was the same old music cue from Begins!

krudler

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

The sound design was definitely awkward. There was a distracting bit near the start where the music stopped, went silent for around ten seconds, and then started again. It's not a new thing with Nolan films though, The Dark Knight seemed like a montage at times with the constant rousing soundtrack in the background.

My biggest beef was definitely with the way they handled Bane's voice though. It really did sound like it was on an audio channel completely separate from the rest of the soundtrack. Got a bit better later on, but the prologue particularly was misjudged.

And yeah there were three or four times when dialogue was drowned out by music. No reason at all that should happen on a production of this scale.

Yeah Bane's voice, particuarly in the opening plane scene, everyone else sounded like it was on set and his sounds like this booming supervoice, its very unnatural throughout. like ok he has a mask and it amplifies what he's saying but jesus, don't make it sound like he's got own personal sound system strapped to his face.

Dman001

Haven't got a chance to read much of this thread, but I'm very much on the fence with it.

My biggest gripe with the film is the focus on the Bomb. I really think Nolan is better than providing us with an "End of World" type scenario. Unlike many, I was really looking forward to the confrontation between Batman and Bane but thought it was really pushed to the side. In the end, the Bomb became the focus point. Bane was merely destroyed by Catwoman on the Batcycle. Very anticlimatic.

Having said that, I thought the initial fight between Bane and Batman was fantastic, where we see the sheer strength and size Bane has over Batman. The lack of dramatic music, no musical score infact, added to the effect.

Was very impressed with Anne Hathaway, and Joseph-Gordon Levitt. I actually liked the ending too, despite being very obvious. Although there was something missing, something lacking, with the way it ended between Alfred and Wayne. But I guess the last scene said it all.

Some other great scenes in there too, with Neelson and Murphy making an appearance.

Will have to give it another watch to make a final judgement on it. There's no doubt that it was very enjoyable, was just expecting more from the antagonist I guess.

Duggy747

I think the most obvious bit of the music drowning out the dialogue was when Levitt was talking to the cop on the other side of the bridge, the music went way OTT at that point and you couldn't even hear them.

Banes voice on the prologue was quite strange actually, but I put that down to having seen the prologue before a few times when he had "difficult to understand" voice.

McGrath5

Wow, back from the cinema, and wow, that was incredible.

From the opening to the closing scene I was hooked.

Bane was a fantastic villain, I thought he was so evil, no dark humour like the Joker.
The plane scene at the beginning set the tone perfectly.

Falling asleep as I type this, will come back to this thread in a while when I have had more time to let it sink in.

tvnutz

Really enjoyed it, very good movie. Probably the weakest of the 3 movies but still that doesn't make it a weak movie.

Surprised people are saying they couldn't understand Bane, for me he was the clearest in the whole thing! Maybe it was the cinema we were in,and I think we were right beside one of the speakers but the music seemed to be so much louder than the dialogue. I could barely here anything being said on the plane at the start (apart from Bane), the scene on the Bridge where the cop blows it up was also bad and I nearly missed the Robin reference.

Other than that I think the scene where Bane absolutely destroyed Batman was brilliant,that made him a great bad guy itself.

8/10

Boo Radley

Einhard wrote: »

How so?

One of the thing that impressed me about this, and the other two, was how little I had to suspend my disbelief.

As I said it was more down to the atmosphere and style. There was just something about it that bordered on previous Batman films (not in this trilogy).

Maybe it was the sidekick type scenes where Batman and Catwoman were fighting alongside each other or the rather unimaginative peril being an A-bomb, which, let's face it, is such old hat in comic book stories and blockbusters in general.

To be honest I'll have to wait until my second viewing to articulate better I'd imagine but as a previous poster said it was just more "comic-book-y" than the previous two films, which were more grounded I felt.

IncognitoMan

I loved this film but cant help but feel disappointed at the Marion Cotillard plot twist.

Took a bit away from Bane as the villain for me and up till that point he was amazing, a real boss of bad guy (If that makes sense) Tom Hardy was excellent.

The last 10 minutes is some really emotional stuff. I'm a bit sad that its over now

Kylo Ren

I loved it. It had a few poor moments but it by no means over shadowed the film.

I just want to say that scene with Alfred when he's at Bruce's grave might be my favorite scene in the series. It evoked actual emotion from me!

I might of preferred if it cut to black after Alfred gives the wink.

Didn't Nolan say he would not have Robyn in his films? And that when BB was shot he said Robyn would of only been in a crib?

TEMPLAR KNIGHT

I'm actually shocked that people are moaning about this film, it was utter class
I loved every second it ain't perfect nothing is But whatever there's always going to be moaners it seems.

Dr Gradus

I couldn't help feel like it lacked the pace and creativity of the last two in the trilogy, though overall it was realy enjoyable.

- The 'bat' hover ship thing didn't really work for me, particularly in the climactic moments, where, as someone has mentioned, it really dilutes Batman's final effort. Just pushing buttons and dodging missiles, I'd much rather see a more personal sort of approach to things there.
- The soundtrack was much weaker than TDK in my opinion. No real stand out pieces that weren't just rehashed from the last one, excluding perhaps Selina Kyle's theme that pops up a few times. Though I did like the decision to leave Bane's first beatdown of Batman without any music whatsoever. Made it much more visceral.
- Again, as mentioned in other posts, the reactor and bomb idea never really brought up the tension for me, and I never felt particular sympathy for the various policemen trapped underground and the struggle of gotham.
- As for stand out scenes, definitely Michael Caine's dialogue with Bale in the mansion in regards to the letter. Also I thought the drama building up to the football pitch explosion was handled really well.
- Was plesantly surprised with Anne Hathaways performance, and I thought Levitt was very believable in his role as well.
- No real issues with the Bane character, although I think after their final confrontation and his demise, the intensity and pace of the film dropped a bit for me.

Definitely a film worth watching, but it didn't live up to it's predecessors for me despite some terrific acting. I think the main gripe was in the set pieces, nothing really took me to the edge of the seat like the chase in TDK with the truck flipping and so on.

Kilkenny14

I would give it an 8/10 and defiantly re watch it in the cinema. - Bale was brilliant as Batman and its length wasn't noticeable. I also called

Tate as Ras Al Ghul's daughter

but it wasn't that hard to guess.

One thing I loved about it was the actors in 1 minute roles who I ve seen in some of my favourite tv shows; Major Colville and Carcetti from the Wire, Franco from Rescue Me, Bane's sidekick was in Criminal Minds, Quinn from Dexter as a cop, and the doctor who checks Wayne was in Reno 911. It was fun, and weird, to see them in the film!

8 seconds to escape the 6-mile blast radius and somehow be available for inspection, impressive.

As far as I'm concerned the last few minutes were a dream for the most part, especially Alfred.

tvnutz

tvnutz wrote: »

Really enjoyed it, very good movie. Probably the weakest of the 3 movies but still that doesn't make it a weak movie.

Surprised people are saying they couldn't understand Bane, for me he was the clearest in the whole thing! Maybe it was the cinema we were in,and I think we were right beside one of the speakers but the music seemed to be so much louder than the dialogue. I could barely here anything being said on the plane at the start (apart from Bane), the scene on the Bridge where the cop blows it up was also bad and I nearly missed the Robin reference.

Other than that I think the scene where Bane absolutely destroyed Batman was brilliant,that made him a great bad guy itself.

8/10

The audio where I was was ****ing awful, reminded me of watching TV with the OTT music and background noises with blunted dialogue.

Scanlas The 2nd

Overall I thought it was an excellent movie. The best ending to a trilogy you'll ever see, however their we're numerous underwhelming aspects. Bane's death was poorly done, also It was missing some good tense action scenes from batman, as has been said, the missiles chasing the bat scene wasn't worthy of a final action piece.

hatrickpatrick

Here's a bit of irony for you:
I presume most of you probably watched the 6 minute IMAX preview of the movie a few months back? Essentially, it was the first 6 minutes of the movie, released as an extended trailer, from "I believed in Harvey Dent" to the moment when Bane presses the eject button and the plane wreckage falls away, leaving him and Dr Pavel hanging out of the bigger jet.

You can watch that here:
http://www.funnyjunk.com/movies/3036025/The/

Now here's the thing. I can understand Bane perfectly fine in that recording. However, tons of fans b!tched about it for some reason and said they couldn't make out a single word.
It's VERY obvious if you compare the two that his voice was completely re-recorded for this particular scene. There's nothing wrong with that of course, and if it makes it easier for some audiences to understand, that's great.

But it was HORRENDOUSLY mixed. It's so obvious as an overdub it's not even funny - Bane comes across as being about 3 times louder than anyone else in the scene and drowns out all the background sound and music.

It's only a tiny detail, it was only in this one scene, and I suppose with my hypersensitive hearing I notice these things more than most (I memorize conversations like songs, as in I notice differences in intonation etc which perhaps others don't) but I remember thinking "Wow, whoever mixed the redubbed audio for this scene did an amazingly crappy job"

Anyone else notice this?

Penn

Brilliant. Sure, probably the weakest of the trilogy, but when you're comparing it to BB and TDK, you're comparing it to two amazing films.

I also agree that Catwoman was outstanding. I was more concerned with casting Hathaway as Catwoman than Hardy as Bane, but I was happily surprised. Hathaway was absolutely perfect in that role

Basq

Ok.. on further reflection this morning.. I think I was a little hard on the movie - but there was some major problems with the film IMO.

I've briefly touched on most of them already but let me elaborate a bit more:

- Score / Sound: a lot of people have mentioned this already but while I enjoyed Zimmer's score (though I prefer BB's score), it did seem overloud and occasionally drowned out dialogue. Bane's voice was dodgy.. anyone who says they could understand it perfectly, I'd love to test them on that and play a couple of gruff lines and ask them to repeat it. I'd be willing to bet they'd miss at least one. But at the same time.. there were times when he was perfectly understandable. 

- Script: OK.. I've a lot of niggles here but I'll touch briefly on my biggest problems with it:

The nuclear reactor thing was lazy..  and just never particularly felt like there was any danger with it.

The "big bad" had presence but suffered with poor clunky dialogue. And we get two - three meetings and all-too-brief altercations between them. Would have personally enjoyed a close up on the back breaking scene just to show the ferocity of it.

Sweet Jesus.. the middle portion of the movie was just utter flab. Nolan could have easily trimmed a good 20 minutes from the movie.

Also odd to see Bruce quickly get over 8 years of anguish over Rachel's death by rolling around with Miranda, and then hook up with Selina not too long after. Can you even remember Rachel's hair colour now?! :rolleyes:

- Performances: solid performances all round to be fair. Standout's being Caine (always good, although he was sorely missed with his exit an hour into the film) and Hathaway (her flip-flops between meek Kyle to a crafty cat-burglar / Catwoman were an absolute joy to watch). And always great to see Murphy as Crane again.

Big fan of Tom Hardy but found it too had to judge his performance as Bane. He had presence but as I mentioned earlier, the dialogue written for him was horrid and extremely clunky.

- Ending: Sorry.. but as soon as they introduced Levitt and the fact he knew Wayne was Batman (and he was an orphan for gods sake), i was just waiting for that corny reveal. So yeah, the realisation of Robin was always in the back of my mind, and I doubt I was the only one. This wasn't a surprise!

Batman's sacrifice for the city was all a bit remiscent of that "classic" scene..

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

It all didn't feel nearly as emotional or heart-wrenching as it should have been.. Or "epic" as people are saying. Went out with more of a whimper than a bang!
 
Now, as for Talia Al-Ghul, wasn't there a press release more or less indicating Marian Coutillard being cast as Talia? While I didn't hugely expect the twist, it didn't come as a shock either.

As for Alfred and the cafe in Florence -  this ain't Inception kids. It wasn't a dream or a dream within a dream! I would have personally preferred a nod by Alfred and then the camera goes black. The scene with Alfred at the grave, although brief, showed just how amazing Caine can be.

----

I was a tad harsh on it overall last night but I can't help but be disappointed with the above and more.

Sorry Mr Nolan.. but Whedon still holds the comic book movie of the year IMO.

krudler

TEMPLAR KNIGHT wrote: »

I'm actually shocked that people are moaning about this film, it was utter class
I loved every second it ain't perfect nothing is But whatever there's always going to be moaners it seems.

Its not really moaning its valid criticism, while its excellent overall its got flaws, as did BB and TDK.

Joeyjoejoe83

Buttonftw wrote: »

8 seconds to escape the 6-mile blast radius and somehow be available for inspection, impressive.

As far as I'm concerned the last few minutes were a dream for the most part, especially Alfred.

Just because it shows him in the bat at the last second doesn't mean he was in it at that point of time. He would be able to jump out as soon as he was over water an let it autopilot itself away. Don't know why people don't get the autopilot thing...

It was not a dream sequence.

Joeyjoejoe83

I think I read in this thread that people say Banes mask is a result of a botched attempt by the doctor in the pit to save him, I actually thought it was due to the doctor torturing him as he was part of the mob and left him like that when Ra's found him. Didnt Talia say that it was? Also it was said this is Banes prison now so that's why the doctor remains down there.