Dark Knight Rises - SPOILERS start pg 31

[Poptone]

i would just like to pop in to say that this movie was disturbing/tense/intense enough to warrant an "r" rating, and that it's kind of messed up that it would have had one had there been one bare breast

this is tipper gore, signing off

Not one single drop of blood is spilled

TDK was the same way, and in my opinion, far more horrific

Definitely. The lightening cut away from Joker slicing Gambol's face open is so much more visceral than any of the (self-consciously) similar shots of Bane snapping necks or, more troublesomely for TDKR's effectiveness, Batman's face.

I keep coming back to how visually ugly this film was, and not in an intentional, post-apocalyptic miasma way. I mean, when I close my eyes and think of ...Begins, I see a color palette of really rich oranges and blacks; TDK - deep blues, violets, and greys. ...Rises, I see brownish piss.

[CudNylon]

i would just like to pop in to say that this movie was disturbing/tense/intense enough to warrant an "r" rating, and that it's kind of messed up that it would have had one had there been one bare breast

this is tipper gore, signing off

Not one single drop of blood is spilled

TDK was the same way, and in my opinion, far more horrific

bane's method of killing made me feel off. i mean i understand why but it was still uncomfortable to watch. i felt every life as it was extinguished.

there have been a lot of scenes in the trilogy that could be considered horror but yeah TDK definitely had the most and was very disturbing at times.

[Rhodes]

What wasn't a surprise? I was only surprised by how the ending unfolded. The Talia thing, no, not surprising at all, just a good gotcha moment, sure. Agreed there.

I'm just commenting on the kinds of movies demanded by the "voice" of the Internet, or even here. I didn't need this to be Episode V when TDK achieved that plenty on its own. I didn't need to see this ending with the pivotal Knightfall splash page, either, when that image was last shocking to me at ten years old.

To each his own, I s'pose.

[Poptone]

there have been a lot of scenes in the trilogy that could be considered horror but yeah TDK definitely had the most and was very disturbing at times.

Conversely, I'd say that ...Begins has the most horror DNA. The aforementioned color scheme, themes of fear and masks, the main villain and his modus operandi... The first appearance of the Batman, particularly, is straight out of a (exceedingly well-done) slasher.

[good pups]

your brain has tricked you into thinking this is an ugly movie and you are wrong

[badhat]

i just didnt find the blake story satisfying

the blake becomes batman thing was just tacked on

i would rather have seen a story where that was important, when it happened during the action and we saw a blake (ideally better prepared than he was) in the cape as batman, instead of just cheap fanservice at the end montage.

that had the potential to be a really interesting arc and fulfillment of the idea of batman as an ideal instead of a guy, but like all the movies other good ideas it was just kinda thrown in there and not woven in very well.

[Architecture]

Batman Begins is a pretty great movie right up until they introduce the microwave emitter plot device

From then on, it becomes a shitshow of ruining the Scarecrow, Katie Holmes single-handedly demolishing entire scenes and a CGI-laden final confrontation with no emotional gravitas whatsoever

[Poptone]

What wasn't a surprise? I was only surprised by how the ending unfolded. The Talia thing, no, not surprising at all, just a good gotcha moment, sure. Agreed there.

I'm just commenting on the kinds of movies demanded by the "voice" of the Internet, or even here. I didn't need this to be Episode V when TDK achieved that plenty on its own. I didn't need to see this ending with the pivotal Knightfall splash page, either, when that image was last shocking to me at ten years old.

To each his own, I s'pose.

I'm not necessarily unhappy with anything that happened in the film, rather than I am about how it got there. Introducing a sidekick character - sure, just do it well. Tackle Knightfall/No Man's Land? Awesome, go for it. The execution was piss-poor, though. For as ostensibly HUGE as this film's events were, they feel so small and inconsequential next to TDK. And it's definitely not just Ledger's performance for me. The Dent storyline is equally compelling.

[FourLegsGood]

This had the strongest 3rd act of all the Nolan films. It made Bane, who I had no attachment to outside of his role in Knightfall a strong villain. Regarding the palette and tone, it felt a little like Romero's "Dawn of the Dead".

[badhat]

i actually agree that it had a cleaner arc than the others.

but i still think it was sloppily overstuffed either needed to get cleaned up (shitcan blake, streamline the talia thing and the jail pit escape stuff) or make it a lot longer/split it.

[Poptone]

I can't think of one awesome "Batman" thing in this movie, either (I'm including Wayne action scenes in that, as well). There is nothing that even touches the extraction scene or the first appearance in ...Begins. Or either the Flass or Joker interrogation scenes.

[good pups]

i don't see the blake thing as being tacked on/cheap fanservice. i think it's cool/intriguing because you know that there (probably) will not be a sequel to this, but you're primed to imagine the action continuing after the end anyway.

[badhat]

FINE

[Poptone]

i don't see the blake thing as being tacked on/cheap fanservice. i think it's cool/intriguing because you know that there (probably) will not be a sequel to this, but you're primed to imagine the action continuing after the end anyway.

It's because everything with the Blake character was half-assed. Casually tossed-out backstory established in one or two lines, horrendously shitty and nonsensical reason for him discovering Batman's identity, fairly one-dimensional (read: dull) saintly cast through the entire film. Blake is a stack of balsa wood.

[badhat]

i dont like ot try to talk people out of enjoying shit they enjoyed i can only speak to my response and i just kinda found it underwhelming and overstuffed and it squandered most of the ideas it brought up by not having much to say about them or integrating them into some larger piece.

[Poptone]

i dont like ot try to talk people out of enjoying shit they enjoyed i can only speak to my response and i just kinda found it underwhelming and overstuffed and it squandered most of the ideas it brought up by not having much to say about them or integrating them into some larger piece.

I've been trying to talk myself in to liking it. I really, really wanted to embrace this movie.

[good pups]

i dont like ot try to talk people out of enjoying shit they enjoyed

noble of you

[FourLegsGood]

i dont like ot try to talk people out of enjoying shit they enjoyed i can only speak to my response and i just kinda found it underwhelming and overstuffed and it squandered most of the ideas it brought up by not having much to say about them or integrating them into some larger piece.

This.

It felt like they were priming him up to be this driving force in the movie and so you forgave a lot of (what felt like) hasty exposition and then 2/3 the way through you realize, "oh, this is the extent to which they're gonna take him" and it's a bit of a letdown.

[badhat]

i dont like ot try to talk people out of enjoying shit they enjoyed

noble of you

dont be a dick about this man cmon

[good pups]

nah i know, just foolin around

i don't think you guys are wrong to feel this way, but i'm equally certain that it was a good movie.

[Rhodes]

I don't recall if this has already been mentioned or not, but Bane felt like a Universal monster to me, in the best possible way. I got a genuine sense of dread every time he was on screen; there was a great disconnect there. Whereas, with Ledger, I simply thought to myself, Should the audience and I be laughing at a guy getting a pencil through the brain? And then laughed anyway. The ludicrousness of Ledger's Joker became disturbingly palatable through the sheer absurdity of it, and how intelligently Ledger forced you to gaze into the abyss. They're horrific crimes, sure, but you can't help but keep looking. His rationalizations felt like the best monologues from The Killing Joke to me.

On the other hand, Hardy's Bane didn't even feel human, which was great. Where the Joker in TDK was a calculated killer who cackled as he murdered, Bane was brutal without being too much of a brute; it's scary how he's elegant and monstrous at the same time. There's so much detachment in what Bane is doing unflinchingly. It made me uncomfortable, which achieved the desired effect, I think. Hardy is so stoic in the final scene with Talia, too. The performance is all in the eyes, which didn't humanize the monster so much as turn it into something weirder, more sinister. I think that conflating Bane with Ubu was a smart/economic move, too.

[badhat]

i will say that half way through i nearly leaned over to sharon and declared it was better than DK

[Rhodes]

i dont like ot try to talk people out of enjoying shit they enjoyed

noble of you

dont be a dick about this man cmon

We're all your children, 'hat, you know that.

[jerbear]

really dug it, definitely need to see it again. i'm a big bane fan as a villain and thought they pulled it off well.

[fox]

i will say that half way through i nearly leaned over to sharon and declared it was better than DK

it's great until right about the moment that the cops decide to ignore the stock thieves and focus entirely on batman

which I guess is kind of fitting

[chairkicker]

let's throw out splitting this in two. no way that ends well, as rhodes put it. so, yes, it's better as one. it's a good arc. but there was serious lack of foresight in getting there - it's the details that wreck it. and though a different cut could improve it dramatically, you're stuck with a number of baffling scenes anyway. lose the explicit knightfall breaking of batman and put wayne in the prison wounded and demoralized, but not crippled. weave bane and talia's backstory organically into his time there, instead of related to the audience as the routine fable it becomes. do passage of time differently; eliminate the unnecessary repetition in establishing wayne's connection with the outside world, blake/gordon's communication with the cops, etc. sever bruce and alfred without using rachel as a cheap turning point. handle blake and catwoman linearly. find any way to make the fusion reactor less a hand of god. and let some moments breathe

then you have that good movie that pulls off the impossible

[chairkicker]

and, really, talia was never that crazy. she's the brainwashed daughter of a cult leader, but she has a soul. use that to your advantage instead of flipping a switch just so cotillard can do some manic crowdpleasing in the end. and i'm not talking angst, but i wanted talia the human being, caught between two sides she cannot reconcile.

[Dinosaurboner]

As others have said, this movie was so stupid. Way too much going on without it seeming like anything was really happening. What a stupid disappointment.

Movie should have begun with Bane snapping Batmans back and Robin filling in for a missing Batman. Fuck. They should have spent this movie as an origin story for Blake so we don't have to fucking go through this shit one more time when they make the new ones now.

[chairkicker]

and, really, talia was never that crazy. she's the brainwashed daughter of a cult leader, but she has a soul. use that to your advantage instead of flipping a switch just so cotillard can do some manic crowdpleasing in the end. and i'm not talking angst, but i wanted talia the human being, caught between two sides she cannot reconcile.

the kindred spirit of bruce wayne and a foil to batman (and two-face) simultaneously

[Beyerstein]

is the new total recall movie gonna actually show the three boobs or do we not get to see them since its pg-13