The Dark Knight Rises **WITH SPOILERS**

I loved it, but I won't deny that the movie had fundamental problems. Not nitpicky problems of logic or whatever, but structural problems and storytelling problems, e.g. flat Robin character and the ways that the Bane's ending, both the "twist" AND his death, completely undercut his character for the sake of a cheap "gotcha!". It's certainly no unimpeachable classic. "Internet whiners"? The internet has given rise and voice to WAY more "indiscriminating internet praise" than "whiny internet bitching". I'm way more grossed out by the new positivity than the new negativity that is all a result of the geeks taking over the world; look at San Diego "Comic" Con, where thousands of people with no taste are paying a lot of money to be advertised to and to then enthusiastically gush about and help advertise steaming piles of shit.

You're right that people would diss The Godfather, but that's only because audiences have gotten demonstrably more tasteless, NOT because they'd nitpick its logic (or rather, they might nitpick its logic in order to justify their awful taste, because nitpicking logic holes is the only way that geeks know how to criticize movies).

Whiny internet bitching has pretty much killed the movies. NOTHING is safe from complainers anymore, and the ability to broadcast a bunch of whining to the world via the Internet has amplified it to the point where people can't just sit down and enjoy a movie on its own merits.

Can't argue with that. That's what I been about since Day One.

EDIT:

Seriously, this kind of hypercritical overanalysis of internal logic doesn't make any sense, and if you go back through ANY movie you can point out all these things that are contrivances to make a story work or things that abraid against "real world" logic. Any time you ask "why didn't X happen" in a movie or you're scoffing that something isn't realistic enough, you've got to check the context and what the intent of the filmmaker is.

Cool. Totally with you on that one.

I just have this nagging tendency to judge popcorn movies based on how much I didn't think that kind of thing. I only won't think about it if you deliver a movie good enough to force me not to. TDKR didn't do it.

Sorry.

Michael Barnes wrote: But people still pony up with the bucks, even after bitching. It's the same thing with video games. People bitch bitch bitch but then still hand over their money and set a precedent for what sells.

Speak for yourself, man. I haven't seen a superhero movie since the last one of these, because I expected something good from Nolan. In my opinion, he almost delivered it, but fell short. I have zero interest in the Marvel shovelfest, because I don't really give a shit about those characters or their world. So I don't watch em. I don't even steal them and then watch them, because honestly my three hours is more important than the ten bucks. And really, you're relying on a popularity argument?

I went into this movie ready to really enjoy it, and the bullshit five months thing just dropped me right out into a seat with sticky floors and some shit happening on a screen.

I don't think this is hypercritical overanalysis on the order of "where's the other replicant?" or "but the tensile strength of steel is..." This is a thousand guys trapped in a sewer for five months while two super-geniuses stand around on top of them with a bomb, for no reason whatsoever. Why five months? Because that's how long it takes Batman to get better and kick their asses, that's why.

Seriously, that's the slowest crotch-laser deathtrap ever. EVER.

I also never felt at all invested in Bane's motivations, and Dragonstout nailed how his character got completely jacked around for a twist ending. I really felt all the characterization was flailing in mud for most of the movie, with very little to sustain the energy of the film. The stadium scene was brilliant, but after that the movie seriously goes off into the weeds for a long time, with nothing to show for it.

For whoever really liked it, that's fine. I'd love to hear some more about the things you enjoyed. Dismissing all criticism as "whiny Internet bitching" is total bullshit though. That movie has some flaws, they all do. The ones I see in this one bug me, and prevent my total enjoyment of it. That's all.

Michael Barnes wrote: Seriously, this kind of hypercritical overanalysis of internal logic doesn't make any sense, and if you go back through ANY movie you can point out all these things that are contrivances to make a story work or things that abraid against "real world" logic.

Well yes. And it has always been this way. But the key point is whether or not the film distracts you sufficiently with other things - character, pace, story, special effects, whatever - to make you not care.

I went to see Speilberg's remake of War of the Worlds at the cinema and loved it. It was exhilarating and really scary. Next morning, as I often do, I checked out the critical reaction to it and was surprised to find it largely negative. Why? Because it's riddled with enormous plot holes. Huge, vast, gaping chasms of holes that could swallow small towns. But when I was watching it I didn't notice one because I was simply too engrossed in the film. And having been so engrossed in the film, knowing the plot holes didn't spoil my enjoyment of it a second time.

That's the level of suspension of disbelief a great film needs to achieve to win over the audience. Batman Begins did it. So did Dark Knight. Dark Knight Rises failed - it lost the attention of me and, it seems, a lot of other people through a combination of the size of the silliness it was trying to pedal and a lack of compulsion. That's got nothing, nothing at all to do with "internet whining".

Not Sure wrote: I'm going back to my policy of not watching comic book movies anymore. Even when they're at their best, they're still just sort of depressing to me.

Hold out for the Dredd film next month. It is, after all, based on the only comic worth reading!

I like over analyzing the piss out of a movie, especially one I really like. When someone translates words into something visual on a stage or screen, that translation almost always gets me talking. It's probably the English Lit major in me.

Especially when it comes to pop culture, there is often an expectation to stay "true to the characters." Probably the angriest I ever got while watching a film was watching the first Tom Cruise Mission Impossible movie. Cruise turned what I knew as MI completely on its head, and I felt cheated. Interestingly enough, I begrudgingly watched Ghost Protocol with no expectations whatsoever and enjoyed the movie.

When you watch a movie, you enter into an unspoken contract to buy into what the filmmakers want you to see. Filmmaking is a very fascistic art form. You direct the eye and frame what YOU think is important for someone to see. Movies are like keyholes, and everything you see and hear in that keyhole is selected for you. When you watch a movie, you enter into an unspoken contract to accept what the filmmakers are showing you through that keyhole.

I do understand you guys that are saying that there are points at which you were taken out of the contract. I get it, and I can nod and say "sure, I can see that". But some of it is more a personal issue than an issue with the craft of the film.

It's important to distinguish between critical failing and personal dislikes. There are PLENTY of things in any film the size, scope, and scale of DKR that fall into either or both categories.

For example, at a script level, I thought the writing was actually quite crap in a couple of spots. The arrangement of the reveal that Bane was the protector in the pit was a mess. The dude explaning EVERYTHING about the Clean Slate in the middle of a fight was unbelievably amateurish. The Clean Slate thing was a TERRIBLE motivation for Selina anyway. The writers of all three of these films can't write a one-liner worth a smirk (apart from the "like a submarine, Mr. Wayne" line, that I love). The passage of time should have been more evident. Some contrivances strained against normal dramatic conventions. These things are both critical failures and personal dislikes. The lines are blurry.

But those kinds of issues aren't the "why did" and "why didn't" things that I have an issue with. Sure, if you check out of a film's fictive environment because of something that's a problem...but if it's a personal issue and not a critical issue that changes the dynamic.

Michael Barnes wrote: The dude explaning EVERYTHING about the Clean Slate in the middle of a fight was unbelievably amateurish. The Clean Slate thing was a TERRIBLE motivation for Selina anyway.

I understand the difference between personal taste and plot flaws, and I am not invested enough in Batman culture to pick it apart like some. But sometimes the movie did seem to contradict itself. The Clean Slate thing drove me nuts. ESPECIALLY when Blake just plops down a War and Peace type criminal folder right in front of Selina Kyle. How the hell would wiping the computer files clean help in that case?

Michael Barnes wrote: When you watch a movie, you enter into an unspoken contract to buy into what the filmmakers want you to see.

Sure. And their side of the contract is to maintain that. We're both out on a tightrope together.

But those kinds of issues aren't the "why did" and "why didn't" things that I have an issue with. Sure, if you check out of a film's fictive environment because of something that's a problem...but if it's a personal issue and not a critical issue that changes the dynamic.

I agree that stuff like the rope jump is nit-pickery. I certainly get the point of that scene. That didn't bug me in the theater at all, and in truth it still doesn't.

I don't think the cops in the sewers or the total lack of motivation to stand around in Gotham for five months holding a bomb trigger when the bomb is counting down is a personal issue. I think that's a serious writing gaffe. There is simply no reason for that, other than it would have been even less believable for Batman to regrow his spine in five days instead of five months.

That's a serious structural plot flaw to me, not a minor quibble. Can anyone give a remotely plausible explanation of Bane's and (obviously, because she pulls the strings) Talia's reasoning there? I don't think even typical villain hubris can be maintained for that long. They make some speeches, then five months go by. You want to blow up Gotham? Blow it up. You want to escape and then blow it up? Sure, do that. Why wait five months for a suicide bombing? There's no sense there. No motivation, no explanation, no nothing. Exit illusion.

It all builds on one bad script decision. Why are the cops impossibly trapped for five months? Because that's how long the story arc is. Why is it that long? Because Batman is fucked up. What do the villains do during that time? Basically nothing. Why is this bullshit still in the plot? Because some guy with a luchador mask and the same name did something in a comic twenty years ago, so we'll tank the entire movie's plausibility to name-check it for geek cred.

I'm sure it was some horrible committee mandated choice.

They should have written out the back-breaking along with the luchador mask and the Venom super-steroid drip to the brain, the movie might have clipped right along.

NotSure wins the thread. The cops in the sewer is extremely convenient and easy. It's lazy writing. It breaks suspension of disbelief for SOME.

Suspension of Disbelief is a finicky beast. It's amazing how cars turning into robots does not break suspension of disbelief for me (I'm totally buying that this is actually happening in front of me, no joke) but the second one of those robots starts breakdancing, I am sitting in a movie theatre wondering what else I could have done tonite.

Dark Knight Rises didn't break suspension of disbelief for me and I don't know why. But I can totally understand how some people can't swallow what I managed to that night.

If interested more on DKR issues.

www.zergnet.com/news/27052/15-things-tha...he-dark-knight-rises

NOTE: While it never happened before on this site page 3 of that article triggered as a possible attack page. I think Firefox decided the page was harmful, not my AV software.

ZMan wrote: If interested more on DKR issues.

www.zergnet.com/news/27052/15-things-tha...he-dark-knight-rises

NOTE: While it never happened before on this site page 3 of that article triggered as a possible attack page. I think Firefox decided the page was harmful, not my AV software.

Chrome is telling me the whole slashfilm site that most of those links go to is a very bad idea.

Shame, as I wouldn't mind reading the article.

I think Talia was planning to escape all along. She tells Bane he'll have to stay behind to make sure Batman dies...until then, I'm pretty sure they were going to escape together at the last minute. That's how I took it, anyway.

As for why waiting, it seemed to me their plan was terror. Turn a major city into a chaotic anarch state with "hang 'em high" justice performed by the criminal and the insane, while the poor loot, beat up, and kill the rich. One of the largest cities in the world totally in the hands of this group of terrorists. "Make one move, and we blow it up."

Parade the city's terror and chaos on the nightly news for five months. Then, once that becomes the normalcy, you blow it up anyway, just for another level of terror and power. And if they can hold Gotham--a massive city with a self-appointed protector--for five months in the palm of their hands and then blow it up on a whim, they can do it to any city, any time.

When you watch a movie, you enter into an unspoken contract to buy into what the filmmakers want you to see. Filmmaking is a very fascistic art form. You direct the eye and frame what YOU think is important for someone to see. Movies are like keyholes, and everything you see and hear in that keyhole is selected for you. When you watch a movie, you enter into an unspoken contract to accept what the filmmakers are showing you through that keyhole.

I enter into a contract to treat the movie with the exact level of seriousness that the filmmakers do. Nolan takes his vision of Batman seriously, so if he does something silly, or too far-fetched, no passes will be issued on the basis of "Dude, it's a movie about a guy in a bat suit."

It's important to distinguish between critical failing and personal dislikes. There are PLENTY of things in any film the size, scope, and scale of DKR that fall into either or both categories... But those kinds of issues aren't the "why did" and "why didn't" things that I have an issue with. Sure, if you check out of a film's fictive environment because of something that's a problem...but if it's a personal issue and not a critical issue that changes the dynamic.

Except those issues are critical failings.

To be sure, TDK was filled to the gills with ridiculous contrivances that strain the limits of credulity. The Joker was one lucky motherfucker throughout that movie, because there are a million ways any of his schemes could have gone wrong, and a billion easier ways to accomplish what he was after.

But, he was The Joker, and pulling off these meticulously planned, and almost comically circuitous capers is a big part of what that character is. We don't have to ask "why not," and "what if," because we expect that character to go out of his way to make things as needlessly convoluted as possible.

Bane is not The Joker. There is no reason whatsoever for his master plan to be as roundabout as it is. What does Bane need to accomplish his aims? A nuclear bomb. OK, so just give him a damn nuclear bomb. No, instead we have to have Bruce Wayne build a fusion power... thing, introduce a bit character just so he can turn this thing into a bomb, have the bad guys steal all of Wayne's money, take over his company, kidnap the scientist guy, and make the bomb.

That's a lot of expository scenes, and at least two action sequences, that it takes just to get this fantastical gadget to turn into a thoroughly mundane one. This is something you'd expect to see in a James Bond picture, where the entire script is just an excuse to fling the hero around the globe, fighting bad guys and wooing chicks, not in something that's asking to be taken as seriously as this series is.

Even the real film critics, almost all of whom have given the film very favorable reviews, have taken the movie to task for having too much exposition, and not enough Batman. That kind of needlessly complicated plot is what bloated the movie out so much. It is a critical failure.

The reason their plan is so convoluted is because they want to ruin Wayne as well as break Batman. He becomes the engineer of Gotham's demise. They rope-a-dope him with someone he can allegedly trust only to have that person twist the knife and betray him.

Though the League of Shadows wanted Gotham to burn to the ground, their crusade against Bruce Wayne was personal and vindictive. Just showing up and blowing up everything wouldn't do.

And hey, if *you* can get one of the world's wealthiest men and alleged protector of Gotham to spend all that money on building the very thing that will blow Gotham up, hey, fuck it, why not? Icing on the cake.

Which, y'know, all of this shit is actually in the movie.