“Have you ever danced with the Devil in the pale moon light?”-The Joker, TIm Burton’s Batman
It’s the dog days now. I’ve got no vacations with my non-existent kids to discuss. I’m not taking what must surely be the first step toward gay porn by posing in a fireman’s calendar. I also have no experience with drunkenly accosting male strippers. So that leaves me with the Dark Knight Rises. For reasons that are neither here nor there I’ve been resistant to the idea, as if I’m stuck in the mental state I created before viewing Chris Nolan’s Dark Knight conclusion. It’s the same state I plan on being in for the reemergence of Arrested Development.. TDKR and AD are two events that cause me to attempt to lay a tight grip on my expectations and my excitement. I have to walk into the theater telling myself not to expect perfection; it is truly unreasonable to desire that sort of thing in any situation. Did folks walk into the Globe doing the same? Were people giddily awaiting Shakespeare’s next masterpiece and simultaneously attempting to convince themselves to feel the opposite? It creates a strange state of paralyzed jubilation to approach entertainment in this fashion. Of course as soon as the movie starts those feelings melt into amazement.
The Dark Knight Rises is a good film, but more importantly a satisfying one. Satisfaction is what you want from the final installment of any epic film franchise. An ambiguous ending can leave a stink on the whole thing. So I felt good walking out of the theater. It was a nice ending for Bruce Wayne.
A couple of bullet points:
1: I liked Bane’s voice. It made sense to me. Bane is from the Caribbean after all. He’s supposed to sound a little bit like a Jamaican gangster from a Guy Ritchie flick.
5: It’s probably good that Nolan didn’t have to consider what the Joker’s role would be in TDKR. The Joker’s presence in that world would have been far too much to chew. It would have been unbelievably awesome for the viewers, but too much for Nolan to do in one film and maybe even two. The lawless land of Bane’s Gotham would have been the greatest of playgrounds for the Joker.
T: I’d love if they continued with the end story line for Officer John Blake. Joseph Gordon-Levitt was great. I would definitely pay to watch what could happen with his character’s evolution in the world left behind by the end of TDKR. Or hell, make him the next Batman in the inevitable reboot.
3.7824.5: I enjoyed Ann Hathaway as Selina Kyle. Note that she was never called Catwoman at any point. But yeah, I though she handled herself well.
Q. One more thing about the Joker. Tom Hardy did a good job with Bane, who is one of Batman’s most formidable opponents. The Joker, after the Bane experience, is an even more frightening character now, and Ledger’s performance almost more admirable. He was the perfection that caused all that pre-TDKR viewing anxiety.
After walking out of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight with such excitement it was almost a strange experience to walk out calm and pleased. Hell that feeling will come again just as the Caped Crusader will one day return. I feel horrible for the poor schmuck director that volunteers to reboot the Bat.
Who really wants to follow that?
take a leap