I thought it would be appropriate to make a new thread on the topic to discuss things without ruining it for those who haven’t seen it yet.
I liked the movie but I didn’t think it was great. In my opinion, Nolan does a good job with the villains and the overall story, but as a fan of the comics and cartoons, he really goes on his own path that honestly doesn’t relate much to other interpretations. It bothers me that Batman is never really feared by anyone in these films and that he is constantly showing up at times during the day that aren’t night or dark. You also almost never see him work as a detective. Nolan took the Batman universe and rewrote the whole thing. I know some people are a fan of what he did and I will admit that I thought he did a nice job with a lot of it, but I’m just really eager for the next person to make a Batman movie and keep it a little bit more closer to how Batman has usually been shown up until this point.
Tom Hardy did a really good job playing Bane though. He was a complete bad ass. The first fight scene was really awesome to watch and I do have to give Nolan credit, he is the only person to write Bane into a new Batman story and have him break the bat since Bane first did it in Knightfall.
It had a good story line (of course the major thing)
I liked pretty much all the characters except for Talia. I especially thought that Catwoman and Bain, even though I’ve always felt that the Bruce Wane from this series was somewhat lacking.
It had very cool imagery throughout the movie
The closing off of Gotham and the Return of Batman were both epic
The sort of society that was portrayed after the city was closed off was very interesting and criminally under explored within the film.
A lot of it was very exciting, most of the action scenes were very well done.
There were clever and amusing little things here and there that made me laugh.
Con
The Talia plot twist was stupid and had practically no point and demeaned Bane while at the same time replacing him with Talia who did absolutely nothing cool.
They should have killed of Batman, it was stupid and stereotypical and foolish they didn’t.
Why the hell didn’t they make more of a nuclear explosion??
A lot of Gotham being shut off didn’t feel as real as it could have, even glimpses into what the millions of people were doing on a daily basis would have been interesting (this isn’t really against the movie, just a wish)
I thought that the whole "Wane finding happiness’ subplot just didn’t feel real.
The Robin thing really scares me because it means that they might be going for a sequel with Robin.
For a movie that was relatively “down to earth” for a superhero film, the most unrealistic thing about the entire movie was the unlimited number of seemingly perfect mercenaries who follow Bane blindly despite the fact that they were in imminent danger of being nuked and never leak any information.
I’ll write about some of the interesting themes in the movie later.
I actually loved Talia. It bothered me that Bane was the son of Ra’s as Ghul, so when Talia showed up it was beautiful. It’s a shame that a reboot is already being planned. I would have loved if Talia had gotten pregnant with Damian. A fourth movie dealing with Damian could have been done well I think. I agree though that the twist came very late in the film.
Batman definitely should have died at the end and I feel like Bane fell off as the movie progressed. The first scene was intense, and from that point on, Bane became less and less menacing. I think there should have been a scene where Bane crushes a mans head with his bare hands. Something of that nature.
The movie was pretty good, though the last one was much better.
Talia definitely took away from Bane. Even for a movie that was 2:45:00, there were too many characters for character development.
Bruce Wayne’s escape from the prison was rushed; the was no sense to the viewer that Wayne transitioned from fearless of dying to fearful.
Selina Kyle’s hardly developed.
Talia should have been cut out. I like the twist in which she is revealed to be Ra’s daughter and that Bane was her protector. But it was obvious that she behind the plot to become into control of the reactor.
Oh, and we also had to follow the character played by the guy from Third Rock From the Sun, who will be Robin, whose character development we must now sit through in the next Dark Knight movie, and most likely to the detriment of the character development of the other characters.
Actually, Talia could have stayed as long as Robin had been cut out.
Poor ethos development in this movie. If Batman didn’t fight for 8 years, why did he allow himself to atrophe? Why exactly did Bane need the mask, and how the hell did it make him strong enough to bust concrete blocks and move super fast when the syrum was merely to ventilate oxygen? Why would R’as Al Ghul kick him out of the League of Shadows simply for loving his daughter? If Batman’s vertebrae was out, all it took to fix it was a half-assed chiropractic visit, some rope and some chanting Mexicans? Why would Bane plan on getting caught at the beginning of the movie anyway if he could have just gone straight to Gotham?
At some point, you need to tell yourself, “this is a movie based on a comic book series.” I mean, some of his gadgets don’t obey the laws of physics… but they’re cool.
But, to answer some “thetabularasa’s” questions,
If Batman didn’t fight for 8 years, why did he allow himself to atrophe?
That was the whole point of the “I’m sulking in my own pain” part of the storyline.
Why exactly did Bane need the mask, and how the hell did it make him strong enough to bust concrete blocks and move super fast when the syrum was merely to ventilate oxygen? Why would R’as Al Ghul kick him out of the League of Shadows simply for loving his daughter?
I’m guessing Bane was trained by the League of Shadows for some amount of time (I don’t know the comic book very well). I don’t remember anything in the movie suggesting his strength originates from his mask. And Ra’s al Ghul kicks him out not just because he “loved his daughter,” but because Bane represented the pain of Ra’s al Ghul’s imprisoned lover and manifested nothing but a feeling of hate (I thought the movie was pretty explicit on this point).
Why would Bane plan on getting caught at the beginning of the movie anyway if he could have just gone straight to Gotham?
Err, you mean the part when he hijacks the only nuclear physicist who knows how to activate that neutron bomb?
I mean, the movie does have its storyline holes… but c’mon!
Unrelated, here are my thoughts on the movie as far as politics go. The movie is not as pro-capitalist as some people would like to assume.
I found it very enjoyable, all in all. Bane stole the show (as the Joker did last time) and I found it silly that he was killed off so inconsequentially. Perhaps they felt that with the big twist he was now unimportant, which makes me think they should have revealed the twist at the very end, when the core was being sent to the facility under the river. And that French revolution part was priceless!
All in all, for a movie that blatantly blasts off it conservative ideology (still much better than average Hollywood leftisms), I found it generally enjoyable and a good way to end a spectacular series.
PS: I still find the Iron Man a better modern iteration of what Batman was supposed to be back then, though.
That’s almost exactly how I felt. Though I didn’t hate Talia all that much - I just don’t think she should have written out Bane, who was being built up so nicely.
Overall worst of the three, but still a great movie. It was probably the most “comic bookish” one of the three
Definitely the most comic bookish of the three. Totally absurd movie. I loved it though. Michael Caine did a great job in it too. So many great actors in these movies, but damn, Caine is wonderful.
Totally, Michael Caine is the man. He’s one of my fav actors.
But that was another one of those mild criticisms I had with the movie:
I really thinkt the series is very strongly driven by the supporting cast of Freeman, Caine, and Oldman. While it did a perfect job with Oldman, I felt Freeman and especially Caine were underwritten and Joseph Gordon’s character took up too much time, and was simply not needed.
Yeah, absolutely. Gordon-Levitt is a great actor imho, but it’s almost a crime to neglect those other three in favor of him. They’ve littered these movies with great actors other than Christian Bale (1st movie had Wilkinson and Neeson, and the 2nd had Ledger). But they used them really well in those movies. Too be honest, if they had made some of those huge battles a little shorter or just not a huge war, they probably could have a little more screen time for Freeman, Caine, and Oldman.