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| courtesy of Cynthia Blackston from Flickr |
Well, after the Scarborough Ribfest, the remaining Anime Court members and I decided to go for the big ticket: "The Dark Knight Rises". So, The King, The Bishop, The Rook and The Mathematician and I drove over to Scarborough Town Centre to catch the final movie in the trilogy.
To be honest, my expectations had not been that high for this one. Not because I had expected it to be a flop, but "The Dark Knight"raised the bar so high a few years ago that I just couldn't see this sequel being able to even be on the same level, let alone surpass it. And sure enough, "The Dark Knight Rises"isn't as good as the second movie. I found it entertaining enough, so it remains residing on a level between "The Dark Knight"and "Batman Begins"....luckily this last sequel is lodged closer to the second movie than it is to the first movie. I'm still not totally sold on "Batman Begins".
What I did enjoy about it were the inter-character relationships. There were the feelings of camaraderie, betrayal, heartbreak and respect amongst the human and not-so-human knots that have woven this complicated web. And sadly, in one major relationship, the string (and the heart) breaks for most of the movie. I enjoyed the banter between Bruce and Selina along with John Blake's lynchpin connection with pretty much everyone. And the ending is undeniably sweet and happy...probably a source of some debate. And of course, what's a Batman movie without some kickass transportation?
What I didn't like about it was the surprising clunkiness of editing in a number of the scenes which resulted in some fairly Tumbler-sized plotholes: Blake figuring out who Batman really is....pre-movie? That overlong captivity in the Pit, and how Bruce manages to find his way into the siege that is Gotham City....among other scenes. There was an overall feeling in parts of patchwork quilting that never struck me at all when I saw the second movie. And generally, there was the genuine concern that this movie was about to collapse under the weight of its own mythology and expectations....much like Batman and Gotham City during their darkest hours. That is what happened with the "Star Wars"prequels...at points, I thought the whole Batman thing was gonna end up being too mythic. And despite the reports that Bane's vocal problems had been cleaned up...I was still straining to understand what he was mumbling about. Between his electronic garble and Batman's bass-end growling, the war for Gotham could've ended up even longer just because of the lack of communication.
But Chris Nolan held it together long enough to get us to the end without dissatisfying most of us. And I'm sure both he and Christian Bale are sighing some relief that it's now all over. All I'm hoping is that it will be many many years before someone decides to start up another franchise with The Caped Crusader (et tu, Spiderman?). But there may be a teensy-weensy chance that Anne Hathaway may inherit her own superhero/supervillain set of movies. Joseph Gordon-Levitt? Nah.
