"You don't fear death... You welcome it.
Your punishment must be more severe."
The Dark Knight Rises was a film that I anticipated ever since the end credits of The Dark Knight back in 2008.
When the time came that The Dark Knight Rises was to be released, I was ecstatic to say the least. I was first in line on the day of it's release at the IMAX and I was not disappointed. I was thrilled at the spectacle and swept away by it's action and scope.
On my return from the cinema I was reading reviews and could not fathom the bad reception the film was getting. I decided it merited a second viewing and to my surprise, I wasn't as thrilled as I was the first time. I saw it in a regular cinema and was able to take it in on a second viewing. I was able to actually look at it from another point of view, rather than the excited man child I became on my first viewing.
You have to admire the film's scope, vision and the massive technical undertaking but despite this, The Dark Knight Rises but then starts to dip the more you think about it...
I started to notice all the major flaws in the film and the real lack of substance that I was trying so hard not to see.
The main problem I have with the movie is the extreme pacing issues. The film's opening hour or so is a very well thought out, slow build up. However when the pace is cranked up a gear, I couldn't help feeling that the film was in too much of a rush to squeeze everything in. It doesn't settle on any plot point to let the film breathe before rushing ahead of itself to get to the next spectacle. On a first viewing you can't help but get swept up by it but on return it starts to crack. For instance, the stadium scene was a major focus point of the movie but it was over before I felt it had even started. It leaves you breathless but not in a good way. Important struggles and major plot points (especially deaths) were too quick and on the verge of being comical.
The plot holes and logical flaws are endless in the movie, granted it is a comic book movie so it doesn't have to be totally realistic but some of the issues I have are just common sense. For instance - spoiler alert - sending an entire police force underground is a severe lack of forethought and quite frankly a convenient plot device for the writer to get to the conclusion that he wanted.
This then ties in with some editing choices that I started to notice on repeat viewings. There had obviously been some structural issues with the plot which had to be solved in the edit, therefore some scenes feel completely out of place in terms of pacing and in terms actual story telling.
In a film that's nearly 3 hours long, we only really see the hero for around 30 minutes. This worked great with The Joker but it seems to be a movie more about Bruce Wayne than of Batman. Which would be great if it had went another way. Batman's character arch from the 1st Batman movie to now is an interesting one, the battered and out of touch hero who has been deserted by his people could have been so interesting to watch in this ending to the trilogy but just wasn't.
It seems that there were a lot of issues that needed resolved in the script that were swept under the rug to just try and stagger through the obligatory finale to the trilogy.
To it's credit though there are good points to the movie to balance this wildly spiraling out of control movie.
Bane's a great villain, despite being slightly hard to understand at times, he's menacing and his sheer power and dedication is to be admired and his character is quite well thought out. Tom Hardy brings a lot to the table as well and pulls off a good performance despite nearly his entire face being hidden. I enjoyed his part in the movie but in the end it felt a little anti-climactic if I'm honest.
Anne Hathaway is smart and seductive as Catwoman which surprised me. She brings a certain quality to the role and pulls it off better than you would think. No longer is she stuck in run-of-the-mill romantic comedies as she suits up to kick some ass. Quite refreshing to watch a female character who doesn't really need a man to fight her battles, just a big cannon attached to a bike apparently.
Overall The Dark Knight Rises is a fairly spectacular piece of filmmaking, which inevitably would not please die hard fans and didn't quite live up to the hype. How could it? Having to follow the success of the Dark Knight was always going to be a disaster.
I wanted to love this film so much but every time I watch it I can't help but feel a little let down.
No comments:
Post a Comment