hopscotchee: gary oldman score: 55.5 rating: pg-13 time: 165 minutes
let's just be honest. 'a fire will rise' is kinda a lame slogan/tag line for your trilogy finale. it's nauseatingly vague - not to mention basic. unfortunately for us, the marketers went with it. but in all fairness to them, the line basically sums up the climatic-value and enjoyment of this film.
following the huge success of the dark knight, christopher nolan's finale to the batman series is instantly in this follow-up-purgatory, meaning it is excepted to exceed the viewers' idea of incredible hype. it's like the classic early 2000s storyline, where the younger sibling has to grow up in the shadow of their older sibling, and the youngster ends up screaming to their parents "i'm not tommy!!" (or insert name of said older sibling, we used lemonade mouth for this example). anyways, the dark knight rises is a classic example of the final movie not meeting expectations. whether this be because of the eminence success that the second film received, leaving anything to come after it inevitably untouchable, or the trilogy's new tainted heaviness after heath ledger's sad passing, the last movie holds little for us to love.
we can automatically point out the elephant (or should we say bat) in the room: the films new time frame. now, each one of nolan's films in this trilly (trilogy) have their own drastically different storylines and plots that span different lengths in time. batman begins had the 40 minute exposition, the dark knight was speeding through story point to story point so much that gordon might've had to give it a ticket, and now the dark knight rises is taking 5 months?!?! like jeez!! that's quite a jostle for the audience. especially when you're gonna put in a 8 year gap between the 2nd and 3rd movie. seriously!! although it's nowhere stated in the movie (or at least no way obviously stated to where it was understandable for the general public), the good ol' summary on IMDb or the wiki page tells you clearly that it's been 8 years since the dark knight. the fact that we have to rely heavily on the flic's information on internet web searches is absolutely shocking when this film is 165 minutes long. for as many info-packets as they stuff into this trilly, they sure could've made room for that little detail. don't you think?? 'cause in result, we are left questioning things like 'why does bruce look old?', 'why does he have a mustache', and 'why is bruce not all batman-ready?'. and for anyone watching this could've included a rant similar to this: "bat got old for no reason. what happened between the last movie to this one?? is he just not the bat anymore?? sure, he can be depressed after (spoiler) his love, RACHEL (said like his scream), died, but we literally ended the dark knight with him running off in true batman-style, being the (secret) hero of gotham!!"
another isswa (issue) we endured was with the acting. in essence, it's a superhero film that prioritizes action-pack sequences over appreciable acting, but what we got was a hot potato mix. for instance, joesph gordon levitt gave us a quality voice crack scream when his character, blake, was (spoiler) ushering the kids to hide in a bus before the bomb went off. additionally, gary oldman gave us some great stunt work - which, sure, is different from delivering his lines and all, but, still, it's an additional great aspect of his acting. we really got to see the urgency and effort commissioner gordon was experiencing. so, yeah, gary!! yet, at the same time, we had to witness the (spoiler) miranda's offensive death scene. she literally closes her eyes (bluntly) and shakes her head to the side. it's like: 1, 2, 3 - miranda is dead. however nothing was more upsetting then bane's voice. EW!! what was it even?? for a bad-apple-superhero-tough-look-at-how-strong-i-am-movie, bane's voice was just laughable. every time he talked, you would forget the seriousness and point of the story and wonder why they went with that voice. it was ew. EW!!
lastly, some knit-picky things. some editing choices made were not the smoothest. especially with the (spoiler) weird flash to black when batman scared a guard-person. it was incidental and had little point to the greater overall story - and it didn't even look or feel cool, if you were to argue that the editing choices were made on coolness rather than purpose. correspondingly, audio and sound in this movie had it's low moments. for example, if you are going to set up the bat-cave to where you don't have an echo, why do we have an echo in bruce's house?? and why only in that one hallway?? we didn't have echoy-wayne-manner in the other movies??
all in all, the dark knight rises was the more sloppy and plot-hole-y batman movie a part of the trilogy. generally speaking though, people still claim this to be the best batman series to be made, and you may also agree with them. for those others, we want to end by gently letting you know that this finale isn't confetti worth or celebratory.
nonetheless, we appreciate those who have followed along with our hopscotch and gone through this trilogy with us.
thanks, gary xox
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