| Author | Message | ||
     Filmbuff Junior Artist Username: Filmbuff Post Number: 430 Registered: 11-2011 Posted From: 59.92.148.26 Rating: N/A |
There was so much to love in the movie, but not sufficient to make it a winner. | ||
| Gotcha Side Hero Username: Gotcha Post Number: 9087 Registered: 02-2008 Posted From: 99.172.51.81 Rating: N/A |
Cinema ivala chusta so didnt read the review This real estate is for sale. | ||
| Getafix Hero Username: Getafix Post Number: 10359 Registered: 02-2008 Posted From: 159.127.66.112 Rating: N/A |
nice review! | ||
| Filmbuff Junior Artist Username: Filmbuff Post Number: 429 Registered: 11-2011 Posted From: 209.131.62.115 Rating: |
I must admit at the outset that I am a big Nolan fan, not exactly a fanboy who sends out death threats at the slightest hint of a negative review because I myself might be giving out one right now. TDKR takes off 8 years after Dark Knight ended, where the city is experiencing great prosperity and reduction in crime, thanks to Harvey Dent who enacted the laws leading to Gotham’s prosperity. The public believes the ruse from the Dark Knight that the Batman has disappeared after killing Harvey Dent. Commissioner Gordon however fears that underneath the overt peace and prosperity there are rumblings of discontent. Bruce Wayne is leading the life of a recluse a la Howard Hughes without the drugs and the damsels. The only damsel who enters his private chambers is Catwoman who has motives of her own in robbing from Bruce Wayne and helping a group of mercenaries led by a cross between Hannibal Lecter and Darth Vader, called Bane. Bane and his gang slowly take over the city, blasting through the stock exchange, taking the police hostage in the underground pipelines and sewers and spreading their message of anarchy. Bane’s aim is to return the city to their citizens, sounding like a Tea Party stump speech. There are enough scenes here that give goose bumps and got an ovation at the theatre. The ending is sufficiently rousing and sets a route to a future reboot. That is the story in a nutshell without giving any spoilers. The overall mood that Nolan infused into the prior Batman movies continues. There is an atmosphere of gloom but I thought that here the gloom was less about Gotham than about the tortured protagonists. The city was darker and the residents murkier in the prior movies. Gotham is definitely under siege but it does not come under despair as in Dark Knight or even Batman Begins. One burden that TDKR carries is obviously the legacy of the masterpiece second part of the trilogy – Dark Knight and the sadistic villainy of Joker. Dark Knight got it absolutely spot on in its balance between the brooding and the brawling. But here, in TDKR, there is too much brooding and too less of the latter. There is a lot of grave digging and exhumation of the souls going around. In fact, even Batman Begins had more action sequences and set pieces than this one. That is the major disappointment of the movie. There is not just enough action for a superhero movie, you long to see some more of the Bat and the bike. I was not able to draw a line through the capitalist greed that is depicted and Bane’s anarchic movements which seemed unrelated to the former. Is Bane a victim of the capitalist system or a proponent of it through his every-citizen-for-himself beliefs. The class or ideological warfare is not clear here unlike the Dark Knight where there was a moral warfare on. Dark Knight explored the villainy in each of us through the devices of the manic sadism of Joker. Even with the abominable physicality of Bane, Nolan could have come up with something grander than bombing the city and resorting to ticking nuclear bombs which is so 70s Indian pulp. The weakness is compounded by the lack of menace in Bane who wears a mask throughout the movie making him rather one dimensional physical brute. He is very much like an old Indian movie bouncer like Bob Christo who talks too much without killing the hero. Luckily the movie had subtitles, otherwise I would have found it difficult to understand Bane’s utterances. In fact, the writing which is usually Nolan’s strong point, is the weak link here and there is not much we see of the city or the characters outside the main few. Nolan spends more time fleshing out the main characters and exploring their backgrounds, sometimes tediously. For a large part of the movie, Batman is not even present in the movie, he is either lurking in his mansion or in Bane’s vice. The movie weaves in multiple strands that connect the first two Batmans – the League of Shadows, the legacy of Harvey Dent etc. Most of these are there to complete the circle and give a proper ending to the trilogy but just make the proceedings meandering. Anne Hathaway did a much better job than I expected. Christian Bale, because of the fact that he rarely wears his costume here, actually gets a good lengthy role and does an awesome job as always. Finally, TDKR is a less than satisfying conclusion to the Batman epic. Nolan’s moorings are right, he is the best if not the only big budget auteur out there. But the script, his own, lets him down with its confusing treatment. He does not achieve the grand ending that the trilogy deserved. |
