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Non-Review Review: The Dark Knight Rises

Note: Here’s a spoiler-filled, more detailed version of my review of The Dark Knight Rises. If you want a spoiler-light look at the film, click here.

It’s here. Christopher Nolan has defied the law of superhero trilogies, which seemed so natural that it was akin to gravity. The Dark Knight Rises might not be the perfect piece of cinema, but it does perfectly wrap up Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, with enough grace, wit and intelligence to avoid the problems that faced other superhero threequels. While it falls a little short of The Dark Knight, mainly because of what it lacks rather than what it fails at, The Dark Knight Rises manages to make some telling observations about its central character, while proving an epic for our time.

The Dark Knight was the best mainstream film to explore the War on Terror, and The Dark Knight Rises might be the best movie about the social implications of the current economic strife – the philosophy of the “1%.” Finding a way to handle both the political allegory and the central character’s myth in under three hours is no small accomplishment, and Christopher Nolan once again demonstrates why he’s one of the best directors working today. Nobody blends blockbuster scale and aesthetic with sophistication and suspense nearly as well as Nolan.

The Dark Knight Returns?

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The Knight is Darkest: Appeals to Fanboy Sanity…

To celebrate the release of The Dark Knight Rises, July is “Batman month” here at the m0vie blog. Check back daily for comics, movies and television reviews and discussion of the Caped Crusader.

Really?

Really?

I’ve honestly never understood the internet’s problem with divergent opinions. Why are people so deeply threatened by an opinion that differs from their own? Rotten Tomatoes had to shut down their commenting system after a bunch of rabid fanboys took to protesting negative reviews of The Dark Knight Rises. It’s not a new problem. It happened with the release of The Avengers as well. And The Dark Knight. It seems that internet comic book fans are extremely prone to this sort of violently obsessive behaviour. I say this as somebody familiar with comic books and somebody who really loved The Dark Knight Rises: Why?

Why is an opinion different from yours threatening to you?

The long Dark Knight of the soul…

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Non-Review Review: The Dark Knight Rises

If you’ve already seen the film, there’s a more in-depth, spoiler-filled version available here.

It’s here. Christopher Nolan has defied the law of superhero trilogies, which seemed so natural that it was akin to gravity. The Dark Knight Rises might not be the perfect piece of cinema, but it does perfectly wrap up Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, with enough grace, wit and intelligence to avoid the problems that faced other superhero threequels. While it falls a little short of The Dark Knight, mainly because of what it lacks rather than what it fails at, The Dark Knight Rises manages to make some telling observations about its central character, while proving an epic for our time.

The Dark Knight was the best mainstream film to explore the War on Terror, and The Dark Knight Rises might be the best movie about the social implications of the current economic strife – the philosophy of the “1%.” Finding a way to handle both the political allegory and the central character’s myth in under three hours is no small accomplishment, and Christopher Nolan once again demonstrates why he’s one of the best directors working today. Nobody blends blockbuster scale and aesthetic with sophistication and suspense nearly as well as Nolan.

The Dark Knight Returns?

Note: There will be some spoilers in this review. I won’t summarise the plot, but I will discuss some plot points. I won’t spoil any twists, but I may quote some dialogue. Don’t worry, I’ll warn you when I’m digging into the story itself below.

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The Adventures of Batman & Robin – Bane (Review)

To celebrate the release of The Dark Knight Rises, July is “Batman month” here at the m0vie blog. Check back daily for comics, movies and television reviews and discussion of the Caped Crusader.

I figured that, with The Dark Knight Rises being released this week, it was worth taking a look at another portrayal of the film’s villain, Bane. While the character appeared in the dire Batman & Robin, he also featured in an episode of The Adventures of Batman & Robin, the rebranded Batman: The Animated Series. While the portrayal of the villain is undoubtedly much better here than in that awful Joel Schumacher film, there’s still a lot of room for improvement, and a sense that the writers and producers weren’t entirely sure what to do with the character.

No Bane, no gain!

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Do We See Too Much of Film Before It’s Released These Days?

It’s a week before The Dark Knight Rises is released, but I haven’t watched any new footage since the last time I posted a trailer for the film. And boy, has that been more difficult than I make it sound. It seems like every other day there’s a new TV spot or a clip being released. Last December, like The Dark Knight before it, the prologue to the film aired in certain Imax cinemas. Warner Brothers even taking the somewhat unexpected step of releasing the production notes to the public. While Warners and Nolan have actually managed to do a great job keeping the movie under wraps, this level of awareness is hardly uncommon these days. Do we get to see too much of a movie before it’s released these days?

Is too much information the Bane of modern movie-goers?

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The Dark Knight Rises 101: Or, Tell Me About Bane…

Read our in-depth review of the film here.

To help get everybody in the mood for The Dark Knight Rises later this month, I thought it might be worth taking a look at the third film in Christopher Nolan’s “Dark Knight” trilogy, the sequel to both Batman Begins and The Dark Knight.

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New Dark Knight Rises Trailer

Man, it is taking enormous self-restraint not to look at every single one of the TV spots being released for The Dark Knight Rises. With less than a month to go, I think I’m doing quite well, limiting myself to these larger trailers. Anyway, here’s the latest two-minute look at the film. It’s more action-packed than the last couple, and it has a lot more humour. (I’ve always felt that people overplay the seriousness of Nolan’s Batman films – yes, they are quite heavy, but they don’t take themselves too seriously.) And, I feel like an idiot, but I just got that “what are you?” and “I’m Gotham’s reckoning” are a conscious call back to “what are you?” and “I am Batman” from Batman Begins. D’oh.

Not Everything, Not Yet: Nolan’s Dark Knight Rises and the Prospect of Finality

Read our in-depth review of the film here.

It’s a funny thing watching The Dark Knight Rises trailer that was released earlier in the week. It seems that a lot of people had the same response that I did. Colleagues in work, friends and family members, all looked at the trailer for the third in Nolan’s trilogy that began with Batman Begins and seemed to have the same observation. “I think he might kill Batman,” a lot of people remarked on viewing the teaser for the film. Given how safe most major studio productions are, especially those that are part of a cash-cow franchise, it’s amazing that the possibility even exists at all, hovering faintly over the film.

Broken bat…

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The Dark Knight Rises Trailer…

It’s officially on-line. The trailer of The Dark Knight Rises has, after a weekend of bootlegging, been officially released. It looks impressive, and gives us our first sense of anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle. If the theme is to reflect the recession (as much as The Dark Knight could have been said to reflect the war on terror), I imagine Selina will be quite important to the story. We’ve seen a lot of Bane, and there’s relatively little of him here. And, is that a bearded younger Bruce (back in his League of Shadows days) being told that the chant means “rise?” But enough crazy theories for now. I’ll have more of them later in the week.

In the mean time, enjoy. For more analysis, click here.

The Caped Social Crusader: The Dark Knight Rises and Batman’s History of Class Warfare…

With the leaked second trailer for The Dark Knight Rises, showing in theatres in front of Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, it seems like we have a theme for the movie, something to connect Nolan’s final Batman film to the terrorism and liberty metaphor that underscored The Dark Knight. Giving our first real look at Selina Kyle, who I sense might be far more important to the film than Bane himself, despite her relative lack of exposure, it seems that the film will play into the sort of resentment and class divide forming in global society – the type of movement spawning the “Occupy Wall Street” and the “We are the 99%” campaigns. “You think this’ll last,” Selina taunts Bruce, in a scene that conjures Tim Burton’s underrated Batman Returns. “There’s a storm coming Mr. Wayne. You and your friends better batten down the hatches. Cause when it hits the city you are all gonna wonder how you could live so large and leave so little for the rest of us.”

It seems like a fascinating avenue for Nolan to explore, especially given that Batman is one of the “1%”himself. Still, it’s an angle rich for exploitation and with considerable history behind it.

The Bane of the upper classes?

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