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

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)

Much like the movie Munich, I sat through much of this film knowing that it was quite good, but not something that I would want to re-watch time and time again.  It’s not that the subject matter was too heavy, the pacing ponderous, or anything negative.  It was just that it was something that I personally wouldn’t benefit from viewing multiple times.  I’m not a filmmaker though, just a critic, and I would highly recommend it for someone looking to get into the industry as a near masterpiece of intrigue and the intelligence genre.

I have never read a John le Carré novel at any point in my life, but I imagine I wouldn’t enjoy it as there is just so much going on, so many characters and motivations to keep track of.  I have a hard enough time trying to figure out what the hell is going on during “Game of Thrones”.  Director Tomas Alfredson does a tremendous job with all these plot lines and characters, though with all that juggling, there’s a loss of emotional connectivity.  While George Smiley (Gary Oldman in a rightfully Oscar-nominated performance) digs up all this information, very little of it seemed to resonate with me on an emotional level, other than Ricki Tarr’s (Tom Hardy) feelings for Irina (Svetlana Khodchenkova) because that’s a real human feeling.  Everything else just seemed to be atoms, important yes, but ultimately something that we all overlook.

I highly enjoyed the film, and there are numerous great acting performances to carry the film, but ultimately it feels as though anyone could have performed in most of the roles.  Did Ciarán Hinds even have a line of dialogue in the entire film?  Mark Strong hasn’t been this watchable in a movie since Kick-Ass, and I have to fault the casting directors of other movies for that.  The man is a great actor, underrated for sure.  All in all, a solid and watchable film, but avoid multi-tasking while watching it to maximize your enjoyment of it and to figure out just what the hell is going on.

4.5 / 5

Warrior (2011)

It’s not too often that I finish watching a movie and almost immediately want to watch it over again.  It’s not too often that I watch a movie and immediately praise it as my probable movie of the year.  I’ve watched nine movies this year that I have rated full marks, five out of five, perfect, would watch again.  Funnily enough, one of them was The Fighter, and that’s the easiest comparison to make, that Warrior evokes many of the same themes and such, but if I’m being completely honest, I think Warrior‘s the better movie.  Five point one.

The funny thing is, it’s a movie rife with sports movie clichés, about a sport that I don’t have more than a passing knowledge of, with a predictable finale that I called within the first twenty or so minutes.  And I loved it.  If I’m permitted – and why the hell wouldn’t I be, it’s my blog – I’m going to reference pro wrestling here.  The best comparison I have for it would probably be the 1990 Royal Rumble.  Hulk Hogan and The Ultimate Warrior (unrelated to this movie) were entrants in it, and the match was perfectly booked to have them both in the ring against each other for the first time.  Oh also, SPOILER ALERT if you thought pro wrestling was real.

I’m not even going to tell you about the story, because relating the characters to you will just make you piece together the story yourself.  Watch this movie.  It has Tom Hardy at his most TOM HARDIEST.  Noah Emmerich does his trademark “you know, I enjoy being the asshole of the project” performance.  Former wrestler (haha if you think TNA counts) Kurt Angle is in it, ironically as a Russian Olympian gold medalist (Angle won a gold in ’96 for U S A).  Nick Nolte!  Joel Edgerton who was excellent with his less than twenty minutes of screen time in Animal Kingdom.

Look, this isn’t me being a wrestling fanboy biased film reviewer.  Warrior – right now – is my choice for my movie of the year, not just 2011 movie of the year.  Out of the nearly 365 movies I’ve watched so far, none of them touched me as much as this one.  As of this writing, I only have eight more movies to watch to complete my goal.  There would have to be one hell of a movie in that eight to dethrone Warrior at this point.

5 / 5