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Hmmmm. Good, but definitely not great would be my feeling, which I think is probably what I’d have said about all the entries in this trilogy.
It all looked cool, kicked along and had some great set pieces, a reasonable twist in the plot too. It was pretty much all rosy up until about the half way mark. Able support from Oldman and Hathaway and Tom Hardy was excellent as Bane (I seem to have seen him in a lot of things lately and he always brings some proper intensity to the table, he was awesome in Bronson).
Michael Caine more closely resembles a giant side of ham with every performance, though. Given the huge buildup the resolution was rather anticlimactic, and the hand to hand action seemed somewhat ponderous, unconvincing and hard to make sense of. It seemed shot and edited to obscure everything rather than to make it clear. Worst of all, though, I dunno, for a film that presents itself as a gritty and realistic take on the subject matter it was pretty schmaltzy and predictable in the end, not to mention at times rather silly. The world’s most terrifyingly horrible and awful prison in the world ever in the world didn’t seem that bad. I can sure imagine worse. And a huge phalanx of policemen charging down a big open street at a cordon of ultra-heavily armed and highly trained terrorists ending in a big formless punch-up? Really?
And why is everything so ass-numbingly long these days?
I don’t think any of them were Batman or Gotham films; they were films with Batman in them. Gotham wasn’t Gotham at all, except in the first one (almost). They took a lot of plots from certain Batman stories, but excercised too many characters and the gothic tone of the city.
Just…and very enjoyable waste of time, since I’m still waiting on a proper Batman film series.
JenMo,
This is why the film should have been titled Gotham, rather than The Dark Knight whatever… I heard someone mention Gotham as a possible title years ago and it just would have made more sense.
My two cents: I enjoyed it. Yeah it was full of holes, but damnit, it was Batman. We all knew it would be impossible to top The Dark Knight anyway. It was still better than the majority of super hero movies out there.
I agree about films being unnecessarily long these days. It makes sense for the genre “epic films,” but for most it is excessive. The worst is Judd Apatow comedies that are two and a half hours long.
I remember when the brilliant Terminator 2 was considered long, but that was a movie that had all that fat trimmed off.
Your view of it largely mirrors mine, except I thought Joseph Gorden-Levitt deserved a mention, he was the best thing about the film for mine, it could have been improved by a more ruthless cut, although I am certain the DVD will have an extended directors cut for the fans.
Honesty, while the trilogy was very good, and the first movie was great, when you think back on it 20 years from now, everyone will be about thinking Heath Ledger’s Joker rather than anything that has to do with Batman or Gotham.
Whether that’s good and a tribute to Heath’s Joker, or bad, and a sign that Batman himself was a bit “meh”…
I dunno.
I couldn’t agree more. I may be the only person among my friends who wasn’t a huge fan of this series. I suspect when time passes most folks will fall out of love with the nostalgia of Batman and see this film for what it is. An uneven, plot hole filled silly conclusion that doesn’t abide by the rules it setup for itself.
Joe, I reckon two or three twists in Inception at least, although I have not seen it properly since I went to the cinema, I might be wrong. But it felt definitely a twisted plot. To my humble eyes it did, at least. The majority of people I know over 40 got lost after 30 mins.
And, frankly, thanks to you all for making me sleep sound nicely while you are assuring it is so easy to get your hands on 50 megatons nuclear bombs these days. Makes me wonder why it doesn’t happen more often, though…
I admit I raised an eyebrow when I heard only 5 or 6 megatons, but seeing the ending it kind of made sense…
Regarding suicide bombers, and suicidal tendencies in general… how can we try and put some rational structure on those people minds? If anything, I’d struggle to put myself there, let alone reasoning why they do it. Any of the examples given through the discussion makes me cringe, honestly: how twisted have you got to be? And I think that is why it is a movie. If we use logic, why a nearly 3 meters tall monster creeps through ventilation tunnels in a spaceship to kill 8 members of its crew? Why giving the job to kill ilegal cyborgs in futuristic LA to a guy who is retired, full of issues, outpowered by them and and possibly one of them too…?
This is my sort of breakdown of the series by film
1. Ehh, not that bad
2. Pretty cool/intense
3. I’m confused. Cool parts mixed with stupid parts. Meh?
With the recent Batman films, I am of the opinion that they are all fairly good, but not as amazing as lots of people make out. I suppose it boils down to the majority of crap that comes out of Hollywood and anything that is remotely good being blown up out of all proportion. Of course it’s going to look good next to a crop of rubbish.
My favourite Batman film still has to be the 1989 one with Keaton as Batman and Nicholson as the Joker. The ones that followed were utter garbage mind, but at least that first one was half decent. I preferred Nicholson’s Joker to Ledger’s one mainly because he was a lot more colourful and flamboyant and actually all the more sinister for it.
Not really sure what future Batman films can be made now by other directors and crews that offer something new. I personally think Batman could work quite well as a gritty tv series with live actors. 1 hour episodes to fully tell the tale rather than cramming as much into long stretched out ass-numbing films..
All I can say is I left and said it felt like Batman of The Caribbean 3.
I liked the end when Batman blew up South NJ/Philadelphia.
Personally I thought it was a 6.
I really didn’t care about any of the main characters. Even Batman was getting on my nerves after all his emo-ing during the first 2/3 of the movie. All the great past characters (Batman aside) were slotted into bit parts (Alfred and Fox).
The main bad guy didn’t do much other than stand around striking a pose while garbling his lines.
What few fight scenes there were were pretty meh overall.
A couple scenes were just “ok, that’s just stupid”. The gang of cops with 9mm pistols charging a gang of bad guys with semi/full auto assault rifles scene stands out still in my mind.
Guess I was just hoping for more. Especially after the 2nd one, which was just damn amazing (even without Heath’s fantastic performance, it was still a great movie). Ah well. 2 out of 3 is better than most trilogies of late.
btw, I try to ignore plot failures/silliness in these kinds of movies. They are, after all, based off comic books. If you’re going to get all twitchy over that, you might want to back up and re-evaluate the situation lol.
@set i don’t think that the fact that a movie is based on comic books justifies a weak plot. this kind of argumentation could apply if we would talk about bugs bunny…
Quick list of things that ruined this film for me
-Batman inexplicably escaping the blast radius of a nuclear explosion with a window of 20 seconds.
-Bruce Wayne was a pity case
-Bane dies like a nameless thug. Quick cannon shot followed by a one liner from cat woman? He deserved better.
-We find out in the last 20 minutes that all along the mastermind puppeteer was the unassuming forgettable what’s her name again?
-Batman was in the film for all of 20 minutes
-Alfred leaves. Bruce lets him???!!!
-The fighting: Haymaker, Haymaker, Haymaker, Head Butt, Haymaker…
-How did ‘Robin’ know Bruce was Batman after essentially no history of interaction? Oh, right, by the look on his face..
-How did Bruce get from the deserts of Agrabah, into downtown Gotham? Few details missing in there. Airfare. Passport. Proper travel attire. Sneaking into a city who’s borders are locked down by the military on one side, and a well armed terrorist army on the other. Things of that nature.
-Bane’s man boobs