The Dark Knight Rises [A Fat Jesus Movie Review]

This is easily one of the biggest releases in quite awhile, and probably the most anticipated release that will come out of the 2012 film season. Over the past couple of days I've gone back, re-watched, and reviews both Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. Easily two of my favorite superhero movies and hell two of my down right favorite movies of all time. But last night was the midnight premiere of The Dark Knight Rises. Me, mom and two of my best friends were there to witness some of the first showings of the end of an era so to speak. Sorry for borrowing that WWE, you came up with a catchy tag-line. And I do not think this movie disappoints.

We open the final chapter with the end of  The Dark Knight and Gordon (Oldman) giving the eulogy at Harvey Dent's funeral. Fast forward eight years. Bruce Wayne (Bale) is throwing a party in honor of Dent's death. The Dent Act has effectively eradicated organized crime in Gotham City keeping criminals off the street with no chance of parole. [Now] Commissioner Gordon is slated to give a speech and was going to tell the truth about what really happened the night Dent died but decided not to. Inside Wayne Manor itself Alfred (Caine) tells one of the waitresses (Hathaway) to take a plate of food to Bruce who has secluded himself in a wing of the house. Instead of just leaving the platter and exiting, she decides to snoop around. She starts examining a bulls eye and Wanye shoots an arrow at it. Bruce is revealed to be walking with a cane now. He exclaims that the pearl necklace she is wearing looks exactly like his mothers that he kept in an uncrackable safe. The woman smiles, kicks the cane from under Bruce and with cat-like reflexes jumps out the window. Meanwhile, while all this is going down, on the other side of the world, three men are captured and put on a private plane. The kidnapper starts interrogating them one by one, until he has the misfortune of uncovering Bane (Hardy) as one of the prisoners. Bane and his crew wreak havoc on the plane and kidnap the scientist they need. Then they down the plane. Fast forward again, not too far, and Officer John Blake (Gordon-Levitt) comes to Gordon informing him that a senator has gone missing. During the search Gordon stumbles upon Bane's hideout. Bane questions him, takes the confession of what really happened to Harvey Dent and as Gordon is escaping, he gets shot. Now with motive and cunning behind him, Bane is aiming to destroy Gotham City from the inside. Batman has to restore the Wayne name, learn about his true self and save the city of Gotham from perhaps its final threat. The Batman must rise to conquer some of his biggest obstacles, both psychically and emotionally. The Dark Knight must save Gotham one last time.

Let me start off by saying, this is a movie. If you're a comic book fan going to see it you can't possibly get everything right, use everything and include every detail. That being said the end to this trilogy, without spoiling, is very good and satisfying. The story was grand and I can't think of one like this happening in a movie before. It kept me intrigued and questioning things till the end. There was suspense, heroics and twists that all worked well. The dialogue was written well, as in the other two, mixing humor, seriousness and emotion. This leads me to the acting. Superb as with the other two. Bale, Freeman, Oldman and Caine all reprise and rise to the occasion yet again. Hardy brutally plays Bane to perfection (not quite as grand as Ledger, but we'll not get into that). Gordon-Levitt, Hathaway, Cotillard, all also being the new, all played their parts well and I really liked Hathaway's portrayal of Catwoman. Not many non-Disney movies spark emotion in me, so saying that this is one of them, is a big deal for. There are a couple parts that leave you for lack of a batter term, in shock. But there are also parts that have you cheering or laughing. Nolan has found the perfect mix and has turned the superhero genre into something that can be taken seriously now with this trilogy.

There was a lot less hand to hand combat in this movie. But when it was there it was focused on one-on-one and it looked great. Batman looks smooth and strong, Catwoman parts are quick and punishing and Bane completely out muscles everything in sight. Also this is the first movie I'm not seeing anything directly relating to the Batman games or vice-versa. Maybe it's cause this came out after both games, but there wasn't anything I noticed regardless. Gadget and tech-wise, this was awesome because of The Bat, enough said. But oh man, did I love the characters in this. Even beyond Batman, Alfred and the returning crew. Catwoman is always a crowd pleaser, including myself. Bane is very underrated as a villain and this movie made him look good! There is a mention of someone that got a nice laugh out of me, a return of a couple on-screen characters, and a couple nice twist-characters. One that I'm kicking myself for not noticing before it happened in the movie. But I loved, and at times geeked out at, everything character related in this film. For the third film in a row Nolan maintained the essence of the originals returning and seamlessly added in the new as if they were around since the first movie.

That is my ticket stub from the midnight showing. I've been to quite a few now, but this is up there as one of the best. Along with The Hangover and The Avengers. The theater I went to had it showing on like seven screens. People were a buzz, hell a dude in a full on Batman suit came in and my friend got a picture with him. As the movie started people clapped and as the credits starting rolling a roar erupted in the theater. The only other movie that got a roar for me EVER was The Avengers. I love Batman and I was right there with them clapping cause I truly enjoyed this movie.

On a basic level the story was great, the music never detracted, the acting was superb, the action was good, and while two and a half hours long the movie never dragged or was boring to me. On a deeper level this is the end of a Batman film era. There was emotion in the movie, there was a sense of urgency I'd never felt from a story before, and it had me reeled me in until the final reel. While I don't think this was on The Dark Knight's level this was a damn great flick. More comparable to Batman Begins for me. Like being compared to that is a bad thing. This is a great movie, this is a great end to the Nolan trilogy, and The Dark Knight truly rises to glory in this film.

The Dark Knight [A Fat Jesus Movie Review]

If you read my Batman Begins blog post, here, you know that I already love the two movies in the Nolan series. And compared to the original movies....well there is no comparison, the first one alone blows them out of the water. The Dark Knight is no exception to the love. This movie is nothing short of astounding and for now should be in the class of greatest superhero movies of all time.

We open this sequel with The Joker (Ledger) robbing a bank in Gotham City. He kills all of his accomplices and gets away with a ton of loot. We cut to Batman (Bale) and now Lieutenant Gordon (Oldman) discussing the inclusion of the new district attorney, Harvey Dent (Eckhart), in their plans to help Gotham City. Bruce decides to throw a party to endorse Dent to gain favor in the people's eyes and help campaign funds. Dent is dating a familiar face in Rachel Dawes (Gyllenhaal), Bruce's childhood friend. Meanwhile mob bosses are having a meeting and are informed that businessman from China, Lau, has taken all the money as precautionary measure to keep Gotham from taking it. The Joker crashes the party and says that there is no place Batman can't go and the only real way to get things back on track, so to speak, in Gotham is to kill the Batman. The mob bosses laugh at him as he says he'll kill Batman for half of what was taken and one of the mob leaders put a hit on him. Fast forward and The Joker is brought to said mob boss, presumed dead, but is playing possum. He kills the leader and assumes control of all the organization. He informs the people of Gotham, through a video tape of him torturing a man, that he will start killing people everyday until Batman reveals his identity. Batman has overcome this new threat to Gotham in The Joker, while managing to keep his identity unknown and protecting the people from dying. But to do this he must become the watchful protector, the silent guardian, the Dark Knight.

This movie is damn near perfect in my eyes. I could single out Heath Ledger playing The Joker perfectly or Bale as Batman, or Oldman as Gordon or anyone who acted in this film. They all did a phenomenal job. Heath made me crack up at times, Bale is still this unnerving presence, Oldman commands the screen whe he's on. Same with people like Caine and Freeman. You can do no wrong. Then there a flip side adding people like Eckhart and Gyllenhall in. While not commanding the screen they brought much needed emotion to the film. Not saying no one else did, but there are a few very "tear-jerky" scenes in this superhero movie. The story is amazing from start to finish and once again this well over two hour movie never drags or feels long. The dialogue is both humorous and heart wrenching and the monologue by Gordon to close was just awesome. Like in Begins there is funny parts, the obvious serious parts, and a range of happiness to terror throughout. You could not keep the better part of a full ensemble add a few people in a do a better job than this. Though I do hope Rises aspires to this level.

Once again these fight scenes are fantastic in this movie. I seem to be starting this fourth paragraph with that fact, but it is. They are still brutal and they still show-off Batman in hand to hand combat well. Yet again I'm wondering if this series inspired Batman Arkham Asylum/City. Cause when Batman starts using the sonar scanner in the hostage building it feels A LOT like Detective Mode in the games. Either way I love all the new gadgets, suits, and vehicles. Also again the huge chase scenes aren't over done. There are explosions, and flipping cars and trucks, etc, some maybe unnecessary, but you can't blame The Joker for having a flair for the dramatic. Some men just want to watch the world burn. See what I did there? Once again Nolan does a great job of incorporating the Batman universe into this. he brought back the important people (Batman, Alfred, Fox, etc), there were cameos from the first movie (most notably Scarecrow) and added in the new SO well (The Joker and Harvey Dent). Everything melded well and you would think this full cast had done a full movie like this before. I love it.

In all honesty this has been the first one-two punch of a trilogy that I truly enjoyed both movies out of. I really liked Spider-Man 1/2 as well as SAW 1/2, X-Men 1/2 were pretty solid as well. But none to this scale for me. These are two movies that are great. This movie alone is great. These are superhero movies that don't FEEL like superhero movies. I love that because the genre is so watered down. I'm happy that there are still people, like Nolan, who just want to make good films. The Dark Knight is one of those films.

Batman Begins [A Fat Jesus Movie Review]

So I'm obviously going to see The Dark Knight Rises. And yes I'm going to see it at midnight Thursday night.(It still is a Thursday night showing despite the movie itself starting on Friday. AND despite what Micheal Ryne would argue with you about). Moving along, haha, I figured this would be a nice time to catch up on the Nolan trilogy. Considering I haven't seen either movie (Begins/The Dark Knight) in well over two years, this is the perfect time. Batman is easily one of the most recognizable superheroes to date. But his movies never really got a good rap until these Christopher Nolan ones. Batman grew up and got serious. No more is there a movie full of Arnold Schwarzenegger doing Mr. Freeze puns or Jim Carrey laughing TOO maniacally as The Riddler. Now we have a movie where Michael Caine is a bad-ass Alfred and Gary Oldman is the intimidating Lieutenant Gordon.

Batman Begins begins with Bruce Wayne (Bale) and Rachel Dawes (Holmes), as children, playing together in the back yard of Wayne Manor. Rachel finds an arrowhead and Bruce takes it and runs off. While running away he falls into an abandoned well and a swarm of bats fly past him, causing a phobia to develop. One night as Bruce, his father and mother are at the opera, Bruce get's scared of the bats portrayed on stage and they must leave. Walking though the alleyway outside of the opera house they are confronted by a mugger. Even with full compliance the mugger shoots and kills both of Bruce's parents and runs off. Skipping forward a few years, Bruce is now a young man. There is a parole hearing for the man who killed his parents and it's presumed that he will walk after giving up information about Carmine Falconie (Wilkinson). After the hearing Bruce fully intends to kill the man who killed his parents but one of Falconie's assassins gets there first. Bruce decides to leave Gotham (for seven years) to learn about the criminal underworld and hopefully learn ways to stop it. He ends up in a Bhutanese prison and is approached by Ducard (Neeson), who offers him training at The League of Shadows led by Ra's Al Ghul (Watanabe). Bruce completes his training, learns of The League's true intentions, destroys the headquarters, kills Ra's, saves Ducard and calls Alfred (Caine). On the plane ride back to Gotham, he informs Alfred that he's coming back to save Gotham from the criminal and the corrupt. To become a symbol for the people. The eventual Dark Knight. Batman.

We have to start with the acting. Christian Bale plays Bruce/Batman phenomenally. Just get past him going on a tirade on set over essentially nothing. There is emotion, seriousness, humor (when needed) and a general sense that he wanted this reboot to go well. Where there was hardly any discernible (good) acting in the earlier movies, everyone here wanted this to do well. It also helps that this was written WELL. When you give actors gold like this (Gold Jerry, GOLD), it's hard for anyone to mess up. Much less greats like Oldman, Neeson, Caine and Freeman. Props to Nolan for getting this great ensemble cast. Leading me to the point that this screenplay is awesome. The dialogue is real and the origin story is great. I'm sure everyone knows the tale of Bruce's parents being killed and having to grow up with Alfred. Full of vengeance and confusion. But this adds to it, it adds true emotion and really makes you feel sympathetic towards Bruce as a kid and even growing up. Also we really got to see the transformation of Bruce into Batman (training and suit/gadget assembly-wise) as well which really appealed to me. The music is grandiose. As it should be for a reboot and a story a big as this one. Nothing felt out of place and never detracted any scene.

I loved the fight scenes in this movie. Especially the one at the docs and the one inside of Arkham Asylum. They were done beautifully. And I'm now wondering if the people that made Batman Arkham Asylum and Arkham City, drew inspiration from these scenes for some of the combat and level design in the games. The fights looked good and looked brutal. Even still without Batman killing a single thug. The chase scenes are pretty damn cool too. Batman driving essentially a tank anywhere and everywhere in Gotham and even the train scene (complete with fight on board) was awesome. Thank God Michael Bay didn't do these scenes. The inner comic book nerd loved this movie too. Besides the new Batman suit and badassery. The inclusion of criminals like Zasaz and the story-line revolving around Scarecrow (Cillian Murphy) and Ra's al Ghul was awesome to me. That you didn't need the big name villains like Penguin, Freeze or Riddler to have a great Batman story. To have such a big pool of villains to choose from, I'm glad Nolan started with a very underrated one (Scarecrow) and one of my personal favorites.

All in all this is how a reboot should work. No dragging scenes, a great story, awesome acting, amazing fight scenes and visuals, and an ending leaving the viewer wanting more. Batman is a deep character, more so than I think a lot of superheroes. He's much more relate-able to people I think as well. So I'm glad Nolan started this off on a more serious note. This is this NEW Gotham City and this truly is Batman!