On another note, the overall lighting, shooting, and feel of Gotham feels distorted to me. Even in The Dark Knight, Gotham felt different than the Gotham of Batman Begins, which I think gave Gotham its due as a dark, gloomy city. Although Gotham’s outlook is brighter, I feel that the 2nd installments of the trilogy strayed too far from the Gotham imagery invoked in the 1st film. The high speed train that weaves throughout the city is never shown after the first movie, nor are The Narrows or the complete facade of Wayne Tower…Wayne tower in movies 2 and 3 looks completely different in the first film, as does the city itself when being shown in wide shots…The Gotham of Batman Begins seems saturated in a gloomy miasma, while the latter 2 movies portray it as a normal city, bright and radiant. That’s a matter of preference, though, I suppose.

Lastly, I do not think Selina Kyle + Batpod being Bane’s bane was befitting. I found it anticlimatic and a waste of a chance to dramatically show Bane’s demise in some other creative fashion.

Anyone agree/disagree?

It’s the only one that’s really about Batman -

This is not to take away from Ledger at all, and in fact I think Ledger’s performance is easily the best of any actor in any of the films, but they are all supposed to be Batman films, and no matter how good the Joker is, it can’t make up for Batman doing virtually nothing. If you had to sum up the films as concisely as possible, this is how I would do it; Begins: Bruce Wayne becomes Batman, TDK: the Joker terrorizes Gotham, DKR: Bane terrorizes Gotham. in TDK and DKR, Bruce whines a lot and moralizes a lot, but it’s not about him, it’s about something else that he gets very upset about, but then seems to respond merely by bucking up and beating hell into the bad-guy. Begins also shows Batman as a detective, which is really the core of the character; he doesn’t detect anything in the next two, he just beats people up.

It’s the tightest –

It’s simply better written in every respect. It has three clear acts, and an epilogue, and the pacing is perfectly appropriate to each. The dialogue is brilliant, and sets a theme that the next two fail to match, particularly with the repeated lines; ‘nice coat’, ‘various funds and brokerages’, ‘didn’t you get the memo’, ‘mind your surroundings’, ‘finders keepers’ (pretty much too many to list), vs. ‘you have my permission to die’, ‘about your no guns rule’, etc. – the next two even start ripping off the good lines from begins – ‘don’t worry, it comes in black’. Even the comic book shout outs are better – Zsasz, ‘two faced friends’, and so on; in TDK all we really get is ‘should do fine against cats’, which is really just gratuitous and foreshadowing, not cleverly worked in like in Begins.

The Dark Knight has the pandering ridiculousness of Gordon’s death/return, the ‘deus ex’ tension lurch into the Harvey/Rachel dilemma, and an absolute mess of an ending. Rises has pacing problems too severe to discuss in detail. What is interesting is that I would genuinly argue that the Joker’s character introduction is the best of all time, in any film of any genre, and Rises’ epilogue is the same, but these two movies are marked by this type of moment – scarily brilliant in isolation, but dragged down by context. in Begins, it seems like everything fits the context, enhances it, and works with it.

It’s deeper –

The final two simply try too hard to be epic, almost without realising that actually being epic does not come from the ambition and sheer length of a movie, but from its content. Begins grapples with justice masterfully, invoking a characterised embodiment of old testament wrath versus new testament compassion. Almost every single character has a line about fear, each making a different point, and each in line with their particular role. From that we get to the Joker, supposedly embodying anarchy, but really doing little other than constantly blowing things up, and Dent, Gordon and Batman forming a pseudo-triumvirate hammered home by Rachel’s utterly false account of Roman History, then in Rises we get Bane blowing up Gotham… but first chilling around for five months and starting a French Revolution to kill some time.

The irony is that while TDK is merely, and superficially ‘about’ an entire city, and Rises skips the subtlety of Begins and starts throwing Dickens quotes into your face, Begins achieves its purpose because its characters act based on what they believe, rather than the mixture of simply talking about what they believe and Nolan working in sky shots of Gotham with contrived moral conundrums.

HOWEVER – Katie Holmes sucks, the action (and presumably the budget) in Begins is below par, I’ve mentioned the Joker is a new level of awesome and the ending to Rises is crazy good, I liked Bane’s voice, and I loved Catwoman’s ass…iduous characterisation.

Not saying they are bad. They are both great. Saying Begins is simply a class apart. Try watching them again, but actively look for things that are wrong with them. I found almost nothing in Begins – it wasn’t ‘epic’ because it wasn’t trying to be ‘epic’, it was trying to be ‘Batman’. The next two try too hard, and their flaws compound to drag them down (down simply being a little bit below Begins, but still very high).

That’s just my opinion though. I’m sure everybody disagrees.

FISH, FISH, BUTTER, BUTTER! FISH, FISH, BUTTER, BUTTER!

However for me I think it was a gloomy unpleasant feeling what the movie make me feel. Bruce/Batman becames a shell of his former self, showing that make the right thing doesn’t makes you happy.

The anarchy form a story perspective shows what happens when the hero don’t tries hard enough to beat the bad guys (like the evil futures in comic logic). Also in this regard (I probably be wrong), is this how americans view terrorists? (adding – in a magnified way)

SPOILERS! IF you don’t want to ruin the movie DO NOT READ.

I have ten very distinct reasons why I am dissapointed in the movie.

1. Too many plots taken from comics: I think Nolan is great. However, as an avid Batman fan, I have noticed he uses a lot of plots from different comics/comic runs/graphich novels for his movies. Batman Begins: Batman:Year one was used HEAVILY I mean some scenes in it resonate direct copies from scenes just changed around alittle. He also used Scare crowes origin as well as a bit of Ras Al Ghul. This is fine most comic book movies use other author’s comic work as inspiration and even knock things off. Dark Knight: Uses subplot from Batman A Long Halloween, Origins of Two-face and Joker. All fine and dandy. In fact in this film he only took some very small scenes from these comics/graphic novels. IT felt more original and WAS more original hence why it was more of a hit then Batman Begins. Now, Dark Knight Rises. It uses subplots/story plots from No Man’s Land, Knightfall Saga, Bane vs. Batman, Birth of a Demon, Catwomen stories. Essentially he used material from alot of different sources. Trying to fit it all in to roughly a 2 hr and 40 min film. It’s fine to use comic book source material for a comic book based film because heck ITS BATMAN its what fans expect even at times want. Works. However if you notice Dark Knight Rises had WAY too much backstory/source material working with then the other two previous films.

2. How Nolan’s releastic world falls flat. Nolan is known for creating the most “realistic” batman. However within the story there are some problematic problems. For instance the scene in which 1,000′s of cops are going underground and its a trap made by Bane. When I saw this scene I was asking WHY?! HOW!? Why would they send THOUSANDS of cops for one man. I understand having maybe a fraction of how many where running down there but not ALL the “cops” in gotham. Really? When has a man hunt ever been done on foot in modern times where ALL the cops were running in ONE area after a small group of people. (They didn’t even want him that bad earlier in the film when they started chasing Batman who only re-appeared after 8 years of disappearing.) That was also another scene I felt was stupid. They all chase after Batman who for all they could know is a copy cat and maybe even hired by BANE to lead them off his trail……

3. Batman’s back breaking wasn’t very dramatic. Why? Begining of the film he’s limping around in a cane depressed. HE WAS ALREADY A BROKEN MAN without BANE ever touching him. In the comics it was dramatic because Batman felt unbreakable, Bane did something that NO one else ever did he broke him literally and mentally. In Nolan’s film the man was already broken after his girl (who wasn’t even dating him at the time but ANOTHER man) died. I understand he loved her but iit made no sense. His parents die and is killed by som criminal he goes hell bent on fighting crime, his not-so-much girlfriend that he loves dies and he is broken? No, simply, NO he wouldn’t be, he’d be hell bent on beating crime. Batman would be going insane chasing criminals. If this was realistic, Batman is essentially insane about fighting crime, it would become a day to day obsession with no end. Not some man shutting himself up. Alfred wouldn’t be afraid of him going back out there, Alfred would have been trying to get him to relax and take time off from fighting crime like an obsessed lunatic. Anyways, when Bane broke him in the movie it just didn’t have any effect the man was broken already there was NO point.

4. Alfred’s big speech falls flat. Right away Alfred tells him he is leaving and why. He starts with a hight note and then the conversation goes to a “reveal” but falls flat because his highnote was he was leaving beause bruce wouldn’t listen to him any other way and it was the only way to tell him he had enough. Simply put his big reveal should have come first and then say I’m leaving I can’t see you go back out there. I love you like a dad, blah blah blah.

5. Nolan tries to show everything that has happened from the last two movies in this one but ignores anything Joker related (exception of Harvey Dent’s last 2 minutes on screen). I get why he didn’t want to touch it. BUT he could have had at least some mention. Hell, Joker was supposed to be very impactful in the last film but no one makes one mention of him and there WAS a perfect time. When Blake is questioning Gordon after learning the truth about Dent and the Dent Act Gordon could have said something like. ” That Dent act put men like Crane away for life. Would you want the Joker out? He would have been without that act.” I mean comon I think that would be a VERY good reason why Gordon dirtied his hands so to speak. It would be tasteful that way Nolan gives credit to how important Joker was in his universe not just ignoring him like the white elephant in the room no one talks about. Crane was put in the film and had NO purpose. Honestly, there was no point.

6. Bane is turned into Batman and Robin Bane all over again for the last 10 seconds of his life. Okay so Bane is the huge Mastermind. At least thats what Nolan and friends want you to think. (except the mentioning of Ras and huges hints of Tate’s real identity all over the place) Either way you do think that Bane was the one behind the plans and was maybe trying to please his masters or something or show that he is better then Ras. Either way in the last 10 seconds of his life he is reduced to a Bodyguard just like he is in Batman and Robin. Yes, he actualy SPEAKS and is very intellegent in this film, but he is just a bodyguard following orders from Talia, nothing more. It’s an insult in the comics Bane is very egomatic and a villian in his own right. He didn’t need to be following Talia’s orders.

7. Talia is a weak character. You hardly know her throughout the film except that bruce gets intimate with her for one night and leaves her to get his back broken after chasing his other girlfriend and that she owns most of Wayne company because he didn’t care to stop anything that happened to his source of Batman gear and life.

8. Catwoman had no real purpose in the film other than for Batman to run off with, chase, and date. Oh and kill Bane. Honestly she makes a huge deal at the party with bruce that something big is coming and then when it does she has nothing to do with it, nor seems to have any knowledge of it. She could have been one of the main people being a leader of theives stealing from the rich and then betrayed by Bane but no she just gets herself busted after feeling guilty and then does the right thing at the end.

9. Revolution fails. Bane makes a huge deal about a revolution, heck even Catwomen mentions it to bruce that something is coming. Bane makes a speech about Dent and all his lies and all he gets on his team is Criminals from jail, not the common man on the street. What would have been more blowing to Batman would be him convincing everyone that the status quo is a lie and to join him. Batman fighting the people he has been protecting for years…. oh wait…..

10. Mediocre ending with obviouse Tim Drake (cough) I mean John Blake taking up the mantle. Alfred getting a possible heart attack from finding out Bruce is alive and that his mourning over the man he conisdered a son didn’t even bother to give him a hint he was alive. Oh, and Batman retires from fighting crime but no real explatination is given. I just felt it was weak.

It was fun to watch but didn’t make sense as a film and comparing to Nolan’s other 2 Batman films the worst of them. I could have dived deeper into my 10 reasons but I’d rather summarize them as jsut 10 main points I wanted to make. Please to not get too upset. IF you loved the film great. I am just stating problems I saw with it. I felt Nolan could have done better. I just felt he needed to just have one strong villian less secret twists and focus on a few characters. The dark Knight was great because your main focus was Harvey Dent, Batman, and the Joker. This film was Batman, Bane, Gordon, Blake, Catwomen, and Talia? It just wasn’t as strong as it could be. Too many new characters. It was an okay film I’d say a C for Nolan standards. He is great at making films but this one was lacking. Thats how I feel and I am glad that many people enjoyed the movie. I’d watch it again but it’s not the greatest of the Batman films in my opinion. Thanks for reading.

“One thing I didn’t get was what’s the point of stealing the fingerprints? Was it so they could use them to activate the fusion reactor and if that’s the case why not just activate it sooner with talia’s and Bruce’s handprints?”

My friend asked me about this as well, but they mentioned “finger print verification” for when Bruce made the crazy stock play to bankrupt him. He was framed of course, using the prints.