Saturday, July 21, 2012

Film Review - "The Dark Knight Rises"

Just back from seeing a matinee of The Dark Knight Rises, and I have to say, it was very good.

Not perfect by any means - it's too long, too broad, very dark and takes its sweet time getting to the point - but there are some great action sequences, clever story bits and quite a few twists and turns. Most of the characters get some good bits of business along the way, and there are several strong hero moments.

It helps that the cast is so strong. Christian Bale's Batman has a lot to overcome (in many ways he has too much to overcome), Bane is a terrific villain here - very smart, very deadly, always one step ahead of the authorities and quite powerful - the first physically formidable foe Batman has faced in the movies.

Anne Hathaway's Selina Kyle (never referred to as Catwoman) is a fun, ambiguous character who gets several good scenes along the lines of Scarlett Johansen's Black Widow - just when you think you see her real feelings, you realize you haven't.

There are lots of other great characters here - but I don't want to say too much for fear of giving something away. There are some nifty plot points and great supporting performances. It does, very effectively, tie up the three movies into a solid trilogy.

I walked away from it with similar feelings to The Dark Knight - that it was a great movie, but would have been better with about 30 minutes trimmed out of it. It's not as much fun as The Avengers, but it's an outstanding comic book movie.

Highly recommended!

1 comment:

Dwayne said...

I'm going to disagree with you and say that the time flew by with this movie. It's epic in scope and execution.