Tag Archives: movie review

July 25, 2012 · 5:45 am

The Dark Knight Trips, Falls, and Can’t Get Up (Movie Review)


The Dark Knight Rises

Action, Adventure, Fantasy Based on the DC Comics Character; U.S.; 2012; 164 minutes; directed by Christopher Nolan

Medium:  Currently in Theaters

Rating:  2.0 bat droppings (5-bat dropping system)

The Dark Knight Rises

First there was the superlative Batman Begins (2005, 4.5 Stars)—the best comic book-based movie ever produced bar none.

Batman Begins

Then Christopher Nolan managed to do something few accomplish in a sequel.  He topped himself and made a genre-defining motion picture that has set the standard for everything that follows—The Dark Knight (2008, 5.0 Stars—yeah, it’s really that good).

The Dark Knight

And that’s really the shame of it all in a nutshell.  Mr. Nolan set the bar so high with the third of the Dark Knight trilogy that anything short of perfection would be perceived as a dull thud of bat guano on the pavement in the shadow of the Wayne Enterprises Building.  And what a heaping, steaming pile this movie is.

The first two films had a laser-like focus, the first on the development of Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) and his eventual and reluctant transformation into his dark alter ego—The Batman.  The primary villain in this almost operatic melodrama is Ra’s al Ghul (Liam Neeson), Bruce Wayne’s mentor in the blackest of martial arts  and teacher of skills more fitting an assassin.

It is the second in the series (The Dark Knight), however, that is and probably will remain for decades to come the benchmark for  movies based upon comic book heroes.  Heath Ledger’s Joker  is in my opinion the most evil character in cinematic history.  And every time you think you’ve finally got a handle on how evil and depraved this character is, he get even more evil and depraved.

But Heath Ledger’s incredible acting as a mere device in this second film—a means to an end.  For The Dark Knight is not so much a Batman movie as it was a cautionary tale of post 9/11 excess.  The message here is, if something is truly and incomprehensibly evil, it will eventually corrupt good until the two become indistinguishable.

And this is where The Dark Knight Rises gets tripped up, as it were, and falls flat on its face.  The underlying message here is contradictory to the tale that preceded it, contradictory to the point of incoherence.

Batman’s nemesis this time is Bane (Tom Hardy), a character who (like the Joker and Ra’s al Ghul before him) wants to destroy Gotham City . . . but not before turning the citizens of Gotham upon each other.  If it’s been done twice before, you’d better come up with something really novel the third time around.  Alas, Christopher Nolan does not.  And whereas the Joker was totally unpredictable in his evil, Bane is not.  Bane is pretty much an open book from the beginning, save for his deepest, innermost motivations, which are saved for the climactic battle near the end of the picture.

It is Bane’s predictability that makes him far less menacing than the Joker, even if the extent of the disaster he has planned for Gotham is more heinous.  Overall, the sense of dread facing Gotham over a three-plus-month period (no wonder the film runs nearly three excruciatingly painful hours) just starts to wear down the viewer to where I no longer cared.  The whole setup was dull, plodding, and interminable.

If you’re still inclined to watch this film, it is imperative that you view the preceding two or you’ll become irretrievably lost in the ensuing mayhem and the cascading litany of characters and references that rain down upon the audience like a monsoon downpour on the Indian subcontinent.

If not for the ending, I’d be giving this pile of bat guano 1.5 droppings, but the melding of all the elements in the last few minutes salvaged half a dropping for its inventiveness, if nothing else.

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July 9, 2012 · 5:43 am

Oh, What a Tangled Webb We Weave (Movie Review)


The Amazing Spider-Man

Action, SciFi-Fantasy, Based on the Marvel Comics Character; U.S.; 2012; 137 minutes; directed by Marc Webb (I’m not kidding about that!)

Medium:  Currently in Theaters

Rating:  4.5 ensnared flies (5-fly system)

I went into this movie expecting to get caught up in an intricate web of,  “Pales in comparison to,” the Sam Raimi-directed Spider-Man trilogy starring Toby Maguire and Kirsten Dunst.  Instead, I discovered an interesting tale that stood much taller—on all eight legs—than any of its predecessors.  I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve been a bit harsh on Marvel-based movies of late—Thor  (3.0), X-Men: First Class (3.5), Captain America: The First Avenger (3.5), and The Avengers (a far from enthusiastic 4.0).  So, I wasn’t expecting much here.  But this movie really sank its chelicerae into me.  Not only that, but my comic book character-adverse wife positively loved this film as well—no small feat if you know my Ursula.

First, the actors in this movie could actually act.  Don’t get me wrong—Toby Maguire was okay, but he was never in danger of ensnaring an Oscar.  Kirsten Dunst, on the other hand, displayed all the emotional range of an arachnid.

In comparison, Andrew Garfield’s Peter Parker (a.k.a., Spider-Man) made you feel the tragedies in his life, the loneliness of being the class science nerd, and the ache in his heart as he admired from afar the infatuation of his life.  And Emma Stone’s Gwen Stacy—Peter Parker’s first love—didn’t just Dunst her way through the role; she owned it from her very opening scene to that faint hint of a knowing smile at the very end just before the credits.

Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy

This first of a new trilogy holds much closer to the original comics, as well.  This Peter Parker is in high school, where he belongs, rather than college.  His web-slinging abilities come not from his newly acquired spider powers, but rather from innate genius and finely tuned mechanical skills through his invention of “web-shooters “.  And, of course, Gwen Stacy rather than Mary Jane “MJ” Watson was Peter’s first true love (although in the comics they did not meet until after Peter graduated from high school and entered college).  True fans should appreciate this adherence to the original Spider-Man canon.

Web Shooters

As with most “origination” stories, this movie spends the vast majority of its time setting up the characters and their motivations . . . and that’s a good thing.  From my previous Marvel-based movie review, you know I appreciate substance over pyrotechnics and computer-generated whiz-bang visuals, and this story caters to the thinking audience on all fronts.  Yes, there’s a bit too much CGI, but you can’t even get through a comedy nowadays without that being the case.  But, overall, this is about the story, not about the gee-whiz—and that alone makes the two hours and seventeen minutes of sitting in a darkened theater seem like far less.

Oh, and don’t head for the exits when the credits roll.  As has become the norm with Marvel-based movies of late, there is an introductory clue as to what is coming in the sequel.  Hint:  There’s a reason why the antagonist (Rhys Ifans as Dr. Curt Connors/The Lizard) in this movie works for OsCorp and Norman Osborn, and why those references are dropped about the movie like dusty cobwebs in a neglected corner of the ceiling of a deserted shack.  Do I see a Green Goblin in the future?  You bet I do.

Rhys Ifans—appropriately menacing as Dr. Curt Connors. “The Lizard”

Let’s hope this team keeps up the good work in the two planned follow-through pictures.  Alas, if recent Hollywood history is any indication, if they can pull that off in the sequels then they will indeed have performed a superhuman feat worthy of a comic book superhero.  There is, after all, a lot of character development still pending.  For one thing, much of this Peter Parker’s motivations revolve around the mysterious disappearance years before of both his father and mother . . . and that remains unresolved at the end of this installment.  Another clue to the upcoming—Richard Parker, Peter’s father, also worked of Oscorp and Norman Osborn.

By the way, you simply have got to admire the producers of a movie about a web-slinging teenager with spider-like powers who have the sense of humor to hire as a director someone with the last name of Webb.

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