The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

I don’t even know how to go about starting this review.  Having just watched it, I feel both emotionally and mentally exhausted while at the same time thrilled and ecstatic over what I’ve just borne witness to.  The Christopher Nolan Batman Trilogy is one of the greatest accomplishments in cinema history, not just for a comic book movie, because as I stated in my Avengers review, the Nolan Batman movies are above just being classified as comic book movies.  Despite attempting to avoid any and all spoilers for The Dark Knight Rises, I had read a Cracked article last year that had mentally prepared me for anything Nolan might have in store for us.  At least I thought it had.

When we last left Batman (Christian Bale) at the end of The Dark Knight, he had told Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) to lay the blame for Harvey Dent’s death at the hands of Batman, thus giving Dent a martyr-like status in the eyes of the citizens of Gotham City.  Between Dark Knight and this film, eight years have passed and Gordon has used The Dent Act to clean up Gotham with his police forces, as Batman retired to his secret identity of Bruce Wayne rather than be hunted.  Wayne has become a recluse, appearing to only communicate with his butler Alfred (Michael Caine) in regards to affairs of the outside world.  When an attractive cat burglar named Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway) makes off with a Wayne family heirloom, something is awakened in Bruce and he begins to come alive again.  All the while, a cerebral and brutal villain by the name of Bane (Tom Hardy) concocts a plan to bring the city of Gotham to its knees.  Then there’s also Officer John Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a hotheaded young man who comes to the attention of both Wayne and Gordon.

That’s as vague as I can get without giving away any surprises in the plot, but also identifying the major players.  As with many Nolan films, he brings back a lot of familiar faces in his casting, and just take a look at all the tags if you want to see identifiable names jump out at you.  A couple of them are minor spoilers, but not really surprises at all.  While I’m writing this review, I’m taking time to read the Wiki entry for Dark Knight Rises and it says numerous times that Nolan was unsure about coming back for a third film.  Nolan might just be a great actor himself, because there are certain aspects of the story that would suggest just the opposite: that Nolan had been planning the entire Trilogy from the very first film.

There are few movie trilogies that I have given perfect marks to all of the installments.  The Toy Story Trilogy is the only one I can think of off the top of my head, and now even that is going to fall by the wayside since apparently Toy Story 4 has been announced to be in production.  The Batman Trilogy is exactly that.  Nolan won’t come back to make a fourth film, neither will Bale, neither will any of the principles.  Even the way Rises ends should not fill people with hope for that to happen.

Everything in Rises is excellent in my eyes.  From the casting, the acting, the set pieces, the direction, the writing (minus a couple little things that I won’t go into here, and may just be inconsequential in future re-watchings), the action, all breathtakingly great.  During the opening sequence I was legitimately catching my breath, wondering if my nerves could handle the end of this storied franchise.  The sheer menace that Bane brings with him is astonishingly well-executed, and Hardy doesn’t let the mask control his acting.  Hathaway is probably the best Catwoman/Selina Kyle ever, because she’s not used as just a vehicle for puns.  Bale and his familiar cast mates deliver exactly what they did in the first two films, sheer awesomeness.

Better film critics than me will write more detailed reviews than I did, because mine just seems to be what ultimately can only be construed as nothing more than a Thank You note to Christopher Nolan and the team he put together for these three films.

5 / 5

The Dark Knight (2008)

With The Dark Knight Rises releasing in less than two months, I figured the best way to get more hits would be to actually have a Dark Knight review up, and my old one went into far greater detail than a new one of mine would, so here it is:

The Dark Knight begins around six months after the events in Batman Begins, with Batman (Christian Bale) finally taking care of most of the criminal trash from Begins.  There’s a new District Attorney in town by the name of Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), and he’s being proclaimed as Gotham City’s white knight, bound and determined to clean up the police force and the streets.  The newest terror enveloping the city comes in the form of a killer clown, a rampaging murderous criminal that pisses off the established mafia as much as he terrifies the citizenry.  The Joker (Heath Ledger) has been waging a humanistic war on the morality of Batman’s vigilantism, while further plunging the city into a desperate state of decay.  Or I could just describe it as “Batman.  The Joker.  Two-Face.  It’s not Batman Forever.” and that should be enough to give even the most jaded fanboy a shiver of anticipation.

What director Christopher Nolan crafts in two and a half hours is, in a word, breathtaking.  He gives us amazing action sequences and thoughtful meditations on what makes a hero a hero.  Some of those meditations might actually be too thoughtful for the megaplex crowd, since most comic book blockbusters aren’t really known for being too cerebral.  As well, it’s not the most colourful of movies, and while I appreciate the dark look and tones of the film, it makes for some confusing and occasionally muddled fight scenes (thankfully viewing it on Blu-Ray cleans it all up).

Christian Bale continues to be able to deliver two separate and believable performances as both Batman and his secret identity, millionaire playboy Bruce Wayne.  Maggie Gyllenhaal takes over the part of Rachel Dawes that Katie Holmes previously portrayed, and well, it’s essentially a damsel-in-distress role, what with Rachel becoming the girlfriend of Harvey Dent and the transformation of Dent into Two-Face looming over the whole relationship.  I really hope no one is spoiled by the fact that Harvey Dent actually turns into Two-Face, and oh by the way, Aaron Eckhart deserves some high praise as well for the grey areas he put into his portrayal of Dent / Two-Face.  He’s transformed but he doesn’t suddenly become insane, just righteously pissed off.

Michael Caine as Alfred and Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox are two supporting players you never have to worry about and they performed admirably well, hitting all the right notes for their father figure character types.  Speaking of father figures, Gary Oldman is even more perfect as Jim Gordon than he was in Begins, and I don’t think enough things are being said about his performance since most of the audience only wants to see the freak show.

If you’re wondering whether or not the advance billing for Heath Ledger’s performance lives up to the product on the screen, well no matter how amazing you thought it may be, it will most likely surpass those levels.  Ledger’s fearless portrayal of the Clown Prince of Crime is one of the most nerve-twitching, eye-catching, depraved and darkly hilarious acting displays in recent memory.  The previous year had Javier Bardem as Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men, and even Chigurh would be a little off-put by Ledger’s Joker.  There is little doubt in my mind that come next March, Heath Ledger will be awarded a posthumous Oscar for his part in The Dark Knight (and of course he was).

I’ve tried not to get myself all excited for movies these days, as too many disappointments have dampened many of my old fanboy tendencies.  The Dark Knight was the one exception, and I have to say that it lived up to the hype.  As an old school comic book fan and as a movie czar, I can appreciate it on both levels.  Christopher Nolan could spend the rest of his career making Batman movies and I doubt that I’d ever be disappointed by them.

5 / 5

Memento (2000)

Full confession here: this is only the second time I’ve watched Memento.  It has been over a decade since I first watched it, and I sort of planned that way.  I wanted to have only the vaguest of recollections when I watched it for the second time, so it could be new to me again and that I could experience the mystery of it all over again.  And it worked, to a point.  I started remembering little details, but for the most part I just sat back in awe at what a tremendous filmmaker director Christopher Nolan has been for his entire career.

If you don’t know the plot line for Memento, well it concerns Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce), a man who suffers from short term memory loss.  There was an incident, and since that incident, he has been unable to form new memories.  You can talk to him for an hour and then see him the next day and he’ll have no recollection of that conversation.  Shelby is searching for the man that killed his wife (Jorja Fox), and since he can’t remember the facts he discovers, he develops a system of notes and tattoos to fill in the cavernous gaps in his memory.

The film is shown both in and out of chronological order, almost similar to what Irréversible did, minus the horrible 10-minute long rape scene.  If you haven’t seen it yet, any clues I drop here will potentially lead to the movie having less of an impact on you.  It is a masterful film, and one that I would say benefits from multiple viewings if I had not just taken a decade long break from watching it again.  Nolan gives us many clues throughout the movie, and it certainly invites a person to pay close attention to the details.  Pearce is off the charts excellent in his performance, and the movie itself should be required viewing for everyone that are sick of films that are basically commercials and don’t challenge you in the least.

5 / 5

Insomnia (2002)

I have suffered from insomnia all of my life.  Until a couple of years ago, I just classed it as insomnia, but then I Wiki’d it and I self-diagnosed myself as having something called Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome.  Basically, if it’s before midnight when I try to go to sleep, I’m going to toss and turn until then anyways, so I tend to keep late hours.  Unless I’m drop dead exhausted, I can’t fall asleep before then, so I don’t even bother trying.  Then there are the nights where I just can’t fall asleep, and those nights are the worst.  I know I have to get up at an early hour for work, but my brain will not go into that sleep cycle.  This is especially worse on nights when I haven’t had any alcohol.  I’m trying to find a way to segue from my own insomnia to talking about the film Insomnia but I’m just not getting there, it’s just a journal entry on my own misery, the bleakness that I feel when I can’t just go the fuck to sleep.  THERE, I found the segue way!

The film Insomnia takes place in a place called Nightmute, Alaska which goes through months-long periods of daylight or darkness, depending on the time of year.  Now sleeping at night is mostly a psychological thing, since we’ve been trained all our life to sleep when it gets dark out, that is when we sleep.  It’s not a required sleeping time period or anything, it’s just how we all function for the most part.  Sure, there are people out there that are on graveyard shifts that have to function oppositely, but there’s a bit of an acclimation period for that.  We humans can adapt to pretty much anything.  It’s an important plot detail, as Will Dormer (Al Pacino) is an LA detective brought up to Nightmute to help solve a recent murder, and he never gets a wink of sleep in the week long period of the movie.

Sleep deprivation is extremely damaging, as our brains need time to rest and decompress, which is why if you stay awake long enough, your dreams will start to invade your waking moments.  Or hallucinations, whatever you want to call them.  Holy shit, let me talk about the movie here.  It’s another masterful Christopher Nolan-directed film, and it expertly builds tension through Dormer’s desperation for solving the murder and to just get some shut eye.  There are other external forces at work, but you should really watch the film and discover them for yourselves.  I’m of the contention that Nolan is the greatest living director right now, and he’s one of the few that I will happily plunk down money for.

This movie might move a bit too slow for some audiences, but it’s an effective tool in building the tension and it’s an excellent movie all around.  Gorgeous cinematography, and I’m definitely going to have to pick it up on Blu-Ray someday.

4.5 / 5

The Prestige (2006)

I wrote this review up a few years back, and the movie still holds up the exact same way for me, so here’s that review with slight edits.

When The Prestige first started playing, I was immediately worried that Christopher Nolan was going back to the Memento well, starting a movie with the ending and so forth. My fears were put to rest soon enough, as I grew familiar with the non-linear story structure and immersed myself into the magical world Nolan crafted for this film. Essentially the movie is all about the obsession two magicians have with besting the other in their chosen field. Former partners Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman) and Alfred Borden (Christian Bale) head off in different directions after breaking away from magician ringleader Cutter (Michael Caine). Angier is a natural showman and while his tricks aren’t of the cutting edge variety, he’s a far better entertainer than Borden is at first. Borden’s got a few tricks up his sleeve though, one of which completely mystifies Angier to the point of stealing it and adapting it for his own show.

That’s all the backstory you get. The rest is shrouded in mystery for now… unless you’ve seen the movie of course. Let’s get it out of the way now, yes, it’s Batman vs. Wolverine. Christian Bale brings his trademark A game to the part of Borden, giving him a shady feel to the point where you wonder just how far he’ll go to triumph over Angier. It makes you wonder exactly what you were witness to in that first big scene, the real ending or a variation on it. Jackman is fairly decent as the relatively upper crust magician, though at no point in the movie are you sure whom you should be rooting for.

As you may have read elsewhere, the twist is somewhat predictable but in a fairly good way. It’s not a cheat by any means, there were hints dropped throughout the movie and it bears mentioning that this movie demands a second viewing.  There are wonderful performances throughout, the story is fantastic, the supporting cast is excellent and David Bowie is tremendous in his small part. The movie looks gorgeous, capturing the perfect moods for every scene.  The one thing I didn’t like was the constant one-up-manship that reached a ridiculous level late in the movie. Yeah, I get that they’re both smart and cunning, but apparently not smart enough to allow the same trick to be played on each other.

4.5 / 5