Aylmer to Zazzoo and Beyond: The Dark Knight

Friday, July 20, 2012

The Dark Knight - Review

Tragedy in Colorado

Condolences and prayers go out to all the victims of this senseless act of violence.

12 Confirmed Dead, 59 injured some reportedly still missing in shooting at a midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises in Aurora, Colorado multiplex. The shooter, reportedly an Ex Medical student, 24 year old James Holmes, is in police custody. He entered an emergency exit door at the front of the theater shortly after the film got underway. He was wearing a gas-mask and began igniting gas canisters, his first shot was at the ceiling and then he open fired on the audience. Mayhem continued as the film played on. The deaths include a six year old child.

"Speaking on behalf of the cast and crew of The Dark Knight Rises, I would like to express our profound sorrow at the senseless tragedy that has befallen the entire Aurora community. I would not presume to know anything about the victims of the shooting but that they were there last night to watch a movie. I believe movies are one of the great American art forms and the shared experience of watching a story unfold on screen is an important and joyful pastime. The movie theatre is my home, and the idea that someone would violate that innocent and hopeful place in such an unbearably savage way is devastating to me. Nothing any of us can say could ever adequately express our feelings for the innocent victims of this appalling crime, but our thoughts are with them and their families."

-Christopher Nolan

News media immediately started politicizing the shootings, claiming (falsely) that Holmes was a member of the Colorado Tea Party even before the shooter's name had been publicly released.

The Dark Knight Rises

(2012)

Action | Adventure | Crime

164 min.

Rated: PG-13 Intense sequences of violence and action, some sensuality and language.

Grade: B-

Director: Christopher Nolan

Writers: Jonathan Nolan (screenplay), Christopher Nolan (screenplay), and 3 more credits »

Stars: Christian Bale, Michael Caine and Gary Oldman | See full cast and crew

Budget: $250 million

It has been eight years since Batman vanished into the night, turning, in that instant, from hero to fugitive. Assuming the blame for the death of D.A. Harvey Dent, the Dark Knight sacrificed everything for what he and Commissioner Gordon both hoped was the greater good. For a time the lie worked, as criminal activity in Gotham City was crushed under the weight of the anti-crime Dent Act. But everything will change with the arrival of a cunning cat burglar with a mysterious agenda. Far more dangerous, however, is the emergence of Bane, a masked terrorist whose ruthless plans for Gotham drive Bruce out of his self-imposed exile. But even if he dons the cape and cowl again, Batman may be no match for Bane.. -- (C) Warner Bros.

This film is gunning for a record opening weekend. It opens with a very wide release, not just a midnight showing on Thursday night/Friday morning but with multiplexes playing it on all of their screens. One Salt Lake area multiplex had midnight showings on all 24 screens. I caught it locally in Ogden after the Trilogy Marathon on their biggest screen (something I don't think I could have endured) when it repeated at 3:35 AM. Even then at that ridiculous hour there was a fairly good audience.

I have never been a super fan of the Batman comics/TV series/movie franchise, and when I first saw the trailers I wasn't that moved to see the film. I just seemed like so much 'over kill'.

The production values are very good. I has a cast of talented actors. It also has a heavy handed score that is irksome, a weak predictable direction and a horrific screenplay. One plus (and probably unintended) was the depiction of how social/redistribution revolutionaries like the 'Occupy' movement become the willing 'useful idiots' of would be dictatorial tyrants.

There are so many annoying elements in the screenplay that it is hard to find a place to start, but let's pick one of the last ones in the film, without giving anything away. With all the high tech toys that Bruce Wayne/Batman possesses...why does he allow the fate of the 12 million Gotham residents that he is trying to protect, to come down to a fist fight with a much bigger and stronger villain (Bane) who has already once beaten the crap out of him. Further, with all the tracking devices, electric power usage records, property tax records etc., etc. how is it that Mr. Wayne's Bat Cave is undetectable, and why are they unable to trace his various bat-vehicles back to the cave.

One has to really suspend one's disbelief to enjoy this story. I had a very hard time doing just that. It is very difficult to understand Bane's dialogue half of the time with his Darth Vader like manipulated voice. Nor can he be stopped with bullets, everyone is simply a bad shot I guess, but you just may be able to destroy him in a fist fight, and Batman, he might be beaten or shot or stabbed and near death but in the blink of an eye he is back to his old strength fighting the dastardly villains...spare me, please. So predictable and mellow-dramatic. It is also too bad that Hollywood felt it necessary to include fornication as one of Batman's super-powers.

On the plus side the cast is peppered with some very fine actors, some of the performances are good (for the genre at least), the costumes, sets and special effects are as good as one would expect from a big budget major studio production. If you are a Batman fan you will most likely enjoy this production.

(All photos property of Warner Brothers)

Plot:
(Courtesy of Wikipedia)

Eight years after the events of The Dark Knight, Gotham City is in a state of peace. Under powers granted by the Dent Act, Commissioner Jim Gordon has nearly eradicated violent and organized crime. However, he still feels guilty about the cover-up of Harvey Dent's crimes. At a function celebrating Dent, he plans to admit to the conspiracy, but decides that the city is not ready to hear the truth. While following a lead in the abduction of a congressman from the function, Gordon's speech falls into the hands of terrorist leader Bane. Gordon is shot in the process, and he promotes patrol officer John Blake to detective, allowing Blake to report directly to him.

As Batman has disappeared from Gotham City, so too has Bruce Wayne, locking himself inside Wayne Manor. Wayne Enterprises is crumbling after he invested in a clean energy project designed to harness fusion power, but shut the project down after learning that the core could be modified to become a nuclear weapon. Both Gordon and Blake- who has deduced Batman's identity- implore Bruce to return as Batman, but Alfred Pennyworth resigns in a failed attempt to dissuade him.

Bane stages an attack on the stock exchange and uses a stolen set of Bruce's fingerprints to place a number of risky investments in his name, bankrupting Bruce and forcing him to relinquish control of Wayne Enterprises. Correctly suspecting that his business rival, John Daggett, has employed Bane to aid in an aggressive take-over of the company, Bruce entrusts businesswoman Miranda Tate to keep full control out of Daggett's hands.

Following a trail left by cat burglar Selina Kyle, Batman confronts Bane, who says that he assumed the leadership of the League of Shadows following the death of Ra's al Ghul. Bane kills Daggett and reveals that he was using Daggett's construction firms to stage a heist on Wayne Enterprises' Applied Science Division. He steals Bruce's arsenal before crippling Batman and detaining him in a prison from which escape is virtually impossible. The other inmates relate the story of the only person to ever successfully escape from the prison, a child driven by necessity and the sheer force of will, said to be the child of .

Bane lures the vast majority of Gotham's police force underground and sets off a chain of explosions across the city, trapping the officers and turning Gotham City into an isolated city-state. Any attempt to leave the city will result in the detonation of the Wayne Enterprises fusion core, which has been converted into a bomb. Addressing the citizens, Bane reveals the cover-up of Dent's death, and releases the prisoners locked up under the Dent Act. The rich and powerful are dragged from their homes and put before a show trial presided over by Jonathan Crane. After an attempt to sneak Special Forces soldiers into the city fails, the government blockades Gotham and the city further regresses into a state of anarchy.

Over the next few months, Bruce recovers from his injuries and retrains himself to be Batman. He successfully escapes Bane's prison to return to Gotham, enlisting Selina, Blake, Miranda, Gordon and Lucius Fox to help liberate the city and stop the fusion bomb before it grows too unstable and explodes. Batman confronts and subdues Bane, but is betrayed by Miranda as she reveals herself to be Talia al Ghul. It was she who escaped the prison as a child, and plans to complete her father's work by destroying Gotham and exact personal vengeance against Bruce for his death. Gordon successfully cuts off the bomb's ability to be remotely detonated while Selina kills Bane, allowing Batman to chase Talia. He tries to force her to take the bomb to the fusion chamber where it can be stabilized, but she remotely floods the chamber. Batman shoots her truck off the road and Talia dies in the resulting crash, confident that the bomb cannot be stopped. Using a helicopter, The Bat developed by Fox, Batman hauls the bomb beyond the city limits, where it detonates over the ocean.

In the aftermath of the explosion, Batman is praised as a sacrificial hero and Bruce is believed dead as a casualty of the riot. As Bruce's estate is divided up, Alfred witnesses Bruce and Selina together alive in a cafe in Italy, while Blake inherits the Batcave.

Detective Blake resigns from the Gotham City Police Department. As he is checking out a secretary asks why he goes by his middle name, John, she tells him she likes his first name...Robin.

Cast: