Starring: Christian Bale, Tom Hardy, Gary Oldman, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Anne Hathaway, Michael Caine
Directed by: Christopher Nolan
Written by: Christopher Nolan, Jonathan Nolan
Genre(s): Action, Comic Book (KA-POW!)
NO SPOILERS HERE!
Congrats to director Christopher Nolan on demonstrating to Hollywood on how to produce sequels the correct way.
Since I only go to the movie theater about ten times a year, I like to make it worthwhile. THE DARK KNIGHT RISES, with Christian Bale reprising his role as Batman in the Dark Knight trilogy directed by Christopher Nolan, was at the top of my list to see this year… and it did not disappoint.
Determining how good/great this movie is a matter of relativity and expectation. If you see this movie thinking it will be the greatest comic book movie ever made, you might be disappointed. THE DARK KNIGHT (2008) was far superior.
This may be unfair to say since THE DARK KNIGHT was one of greatest movies made during the past twenty years that I’ve seen, as well as in my top ten favorite movies of all time. Furthermore, Heather Ledger’s Joker was one the best uber villains ever to be portrayed on film.
THE DARK KNIGHT RISES does not achieve this level of greatness, but it offered a solid and fantastic conclusion to this trilogy. In fact this trilogy as a whole has to be included in the top five trilogies of all time.
Getting back to how good/great this movie was, THE DARK KNIGHT RISES was far superior than THE AVENGERS (2012) for many, many reasons. The difference between these two movies is (k)night and day. THE DARK KNIGHT RISES was layered with characters and subplots grounded in humanity, while THE AVENGERS was trivial and meaningless in regards to plot and lacked suspense. (See my previous posts for more details and comments.)
By no means THE DARK KNIGHT RISES was a perfect movie. I would have liked it to been edited down to maybe two (2) hours or two (2) hours fifteen (15) minutes. By cutting out thirty (30) minutes, this may have helped to smooth over some uneven parts and raise the emotional impact of the over all experience.
Some nice surprises included how much I liked Anne Hathaway’s and Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s performances. Despite how action packed (and how loud this movie was), THE DARK KNIGHT RISES was essentially an actors’ movie — many good scenes written to give actors a chance to act and move the story forward. The supporting cast also included Tom Hardy, Gary Oldman, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman and Marion Cotillard which all helped to make this movie memorable.
Last but not least, I do have to mention Hans Zimmer’s musical score — beautiful and powerful. He’s one of my favorite composers working in Hollywood today. This soundtrack will be one I’ll be adding to my collection soon. Bravo!
THE DARK KNIGHT RISES Trailer #3
