The Dark Knight Rises

Audiences for Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy fall into roughly three camps.  There are the devoted/rabid fans, the casual fan that likes blockbusters that aren't always vapid, and those that just can't get past Christian Bale's "Batman Voice."  After seeing The Dark Knight Rises, I'm reasonably sure that this film won't be changing anyone's mind about the series as a whole.  But what about this last chapter, specifically?


The Dark Knight Rises picks up eight years after the end of The Dark Knight.  Does that mean you need to watch The Dark Knight to understand what's going on here?  Well, it doesn't hurt and it gives you an excuse to see Heath Ledger's Joker again, but it's not necessary; it does help the beginning make more sense, though.  Gotham City, once a hellhole of crime and corruption, has now become a safe city, thanks to legislation passed after TDK.  Batman, once a staple in the city's grimy streets, has not been seen since and remains a suspect in a murder he did not commit.  But, other than that, things are just fine.  Instead of spending his evenings with thugs trying to kill him, Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) has opted to go the Howard Hughes route, avoiding human contact in his mansion and feeling sorry for himself.

He'd put the suit on, but he doesn't want to devalue it by removing the original packaging

Meanwhile, a series of seemingly unconnected crimes and shady business activities prove to be the work of a single mastermind: Bane (Tom Hardy).  Bane claims to be the heir of Ra's Al Ghul (Liam Neeson) and the leader of the League of Shadows.  What does that mean to folks that haven't seen or don't remember Batman Begins?  Bane wants to destroy Gotham City and the dude has, like, ninjas on his side.  Or random street thugs.  Whatever.  Oh, and this time, it's personal --- Batman (more or less) killed Ra's, so Bane is gunning for the Bat.  But first, Bane wants Batman to suffer.  All the advantages Batman has had in the past --- his brains, his brawn, his skill, and his money --- are negated as Bane either removes them from the equation or one-ups Bats.  AND Bane holds the entire city hostage with a fusion bomb.

AND Bane insists on leading when they dance

Things look pretty bleak.  Then again, you have to fall before you can rise, I guess.

The recognizable cast in The Dark Knight Rises swells from past entries, but I generally liked the focus on the core plot and not the characters.  Once again, Christian Bale is Batman/Bruce Wayne.  I think Bale did another great job embodying the odd personality of Bruce Wayne; he conveys the mix of privilege and riches with determination and psychosis quite well.  I've never been crazy about his "Batman Voice," but I generally like his portrayal of the Bat.  Anne Hathaway has a sizable supporting role as Selina Kyle (NOT Catwoman) and she was far better than I had expected.  It's not that I doubted Hathaway's acting skills, but I didn't buy into her costume in the promotional footage.

As it turns out, I actually didn't mind the costume at all, in the context of the film, and I liked the quasi-femme fatale qualities of her character.  However, Batman is the greatest superhero because he has the greatest villains, and TDKR had a lot to live up to after Ledger's Oscar-winning performance in the last film.  I wouldn't say that Tom Hardy's Bane steps entirely out of that shadow, but he was pretty damn awesome.  The character design was very cool and Hardy managed to be both physically intimidating and a believable mastermind.  You can argue that Bane sounded like someone doing a Sean Connery impression through a broken vocoder --- and you would be correct --- but I enjoyed the dialogue I understood (roughly 60%) enough to not mind the bits I missed, kind of like my attitude toward Brad Pitt's accent in Snatch.

Sadly, Bane never says "Man talk, baby" in his Robo-Connery voice

Joseph Gordon-Levitt shows up to play a beat cop that sees value in the moral space between Batman and Commissioner Gordon.  Marion Cotillard also has a small, key part.  While neither of these actors stole their scenes, their parts were clearly there to fill thematic purposes, and they played them well.  As for how necessary their characters were...well, if you're going to include them and not make the story as a whole suffer, then this is the way to do it.  Gary Oldman returns as Commissioner Gordon and I thought this was his best work with the character yet.  Morgan Freeman also returned, although in a greatly diminished capacity.  Similarly, Michael Caine once again played Bruce Wayne's faithful butler, Alfred, but he isn't in very much of the film at all.  There are a few other noteworthy bit parts --- Matthew Modine is a useless cop, Liam Neeson briefly reprises Ra's Al Ghul, the guy whose face was digitally removed in The Social Network (Josh Pence) played a young Ra's, and Cillian Murphy returns because...well, just because.

However, the acting in a superhero movie is really secondary to the spectacle.  As much as I enjoyed Tom Hardy here --- and I did, quite a lot --- this is a Big Movie, made for IMAX, and it shows.  The largely practical effects in The Dark Knight Rises were excellent.  The opening scene with the plane being destroyed and the shots of the bridges being blown were my personal favorite visual moments (aside from Bane tossing aside the broken Batman mask), and that ignores the vastly improved Bat-cycle and Bat-plane scenes.

Where do you park that thing?

The action scenes are solid and large in scope, but this series has never been about intricate fight scenes as much as it has been about Batman being a scary bastard.  But with Bane outdoing Batman, does that really work this time?

"I'm not internationally know, but I'm known to rock the microphone"

Director Christopher Nolan did a great job bringing this trilogy to a close.  It ties in with Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, but has an identity of its own.  The camerawork is good, the big scenes feel huuuge, and this epic sequel managed to hold onto that epic feeling throughout.  As a comic nerd, I appreciated the choices made with a lot of the characters and I was impressed with how many classic Batman ideas were included in this story without it feeling disjointed or suffering from the (lower case "b") bane of superhero sequels: too many villains.  More than anything else, Nolan crafted a tale that is as realistic as a Batman movie can be and actually concludes logical character arcs.  Is this as good as the excellent (but flawed) The Dark Knight?  Maybe not quite, but it's damn close.

Here's the biggest problem with the film, though: there isn't a lot of Batman in this Batman movie.  This is a great story about Bruce Wayne, the man inside the suit, but it is not the quintessential Batman movie.  That's fine by me and was obviously a conscious choice by the filmmakers, but it feels like a bit of a missed opportunity.  Yes, Bruce Wayne overcomes personal and physical obstacles in his quest for victory, but there are not nearly as many moments here where the Batman seems truly bad-ass.  You can also make a valid argument that time was an enemy in this film, specifically its liberal use.  The time gap between TDK and TDKR is fine, for the most part, but it raises some interesting questions.  For starters, just how low was Alfred willing to see Wayne sink before telling him about that letter?  The best detective in the city, Gordon, never tried to identify Batman?  Even a rookie could (and did) figure that out --- just look for the guy who can afford all those wonderful toys.

"This Batmobile piece reads 'Property of Wayne Enterprises.'  Hmm..."

And the convenience of the fusion bomb's countdown nearly matching Wayne's recovery period was a bit much.  And how did a penniless Bruce Wayne get from Hell's Toilet, Middleeasternistan, to the US, much less inside the isolated Gotham?  And if removing his mask puts Bane in unbearable agony, how does he manage to maintain such a perfectly smooth shaved head?

A: he has a mohawk ponytail underneath the center strap

So, no, it's not perfect.  Hell, it's not even that fun to watch; it is 2:44 of gritty angst.  It is, however, a fantastic end to a trilogy.   It could have been better if we saw Batman outsmart Bane instead of just punching him in the face, but the scope was so epic that I didn't mind the second Death Star that Batman solved his problems by punching harder.  I will go so far as to say that The Dark Knight Rises is the single best movie to date that features Batman.  I may like The Dark Knight a little better, but the flaws are fewer and less important in this film.  This is also one of the few trilogy endings that actually delivered; I would put this above Return of the Jedi, but below Return of the King and Slap Shot 3: The Junior League. 

To put it another way, The Dark Knight Rises might not have a lot of Batman in it, but it gets to the core of what makes Batman great; Batman is the single greatest superhero for many reasons, but his legacy, influence, and punk rock DIY attitude toward justice shine through here.  In the hands of just about any other filmmakers, the last few scenes of this movie might have come across as a cheap teaser for the next sequel.  Instead, Nolan & Co. closed the Bruce Wayne chapter appropriately, even if the story still goes on.  This unexpectedly became less about Bruce Wayne as Batman and more about Batman as an abstract idea.  I wasn't expecting that, and I found that approach very satisfying from a film and comic nerd perspective.

And if you really just can't get past Bale's "Batman Voice," enjoy this clip from Attack of the Show.  I think it captures the ridiculousness of The Voice rather well.

The A-Team

Let's be honest...there was never a plan A, either.

My recollection of The A-Team television show is pretty vague, at best.  Knowing my parents, we probably didn't watch it, just because it was "beyond stupid."  I lost yet another valuable chapter of my childhood education and wasted it on reading using my imagination.  When will parents learn the error of their ways?  As I've aged, I have encountered a few random viewings of the television show, and wow...it's pretty rigoddamdiculous.  When this movie was announced, I was a little excited, because I do enjoy the occasional stupid action movie.  But then I saw the movie trailer.

Did that just show them carrying on a dogfight from a parachuting tank?  That is beyond ridiculous.  It's worse than stupid.  This is Ernest Goes to Rob Schneider's House Dumb: The Movie.  I didn't think I could bear to watch anything that stupid, and that is saying something, considering what I have reviewed.  But of course I couldn't stay away for long --- it looks so promising fun stupid!

The beginning of this movie is basically how the band comes together in the first place.  On a mission to do...something...to a corrupt Mexican general, Hannibal (Liam Neeson) and Face (Bradley Cooper) team up with a random mohawked black dude, B.A. (Quinton "Rampage" Jackson), and a crazy pilot, Murdock (Sharlto Copely, from District 9), to escape the mean general and blow him to Hell.  Why did their leader, Hannibal, choose these two strangers?  Because they were US Rangers, dammit!  "Eight years and eighty successful missions later," the group is known as a talented, if eccentric, group that specializes in impossible covert operations.  When CIA Agent Lynch (Patrick Wilson) tells Hannibal about some key counterfeiting plates that are making their way out of Iraq, Hannibal asks his friend, General Morrison (Gerald McRaney) for the go-ahead, and he gets a reluctant okay for an off-the-books mission.  Meanwhile, Captain Sosa (Jessica Biel) of the Department of Defense, wants the A-Team to butt out because...um...she wants to do it?  I don't know.  Oh, and there are some private security guys (obviously, a Blackwater analogue) there, too, lead by Pike (Brian Bloom), who is a meanie jerk-face.  The A-Team pulls off the job, but right before they can celebrate, General Morrison, the counterfeit plates, and a billion dollars in counterfeit money are blown up.  The Team has been framed!  They are all arrested and shipped to separate maximum security prisons and sentenced to ten years and a dishonorable discharge from the military.  How will they ever clear their names?  Well, according to Hannibal, "Give me a minute, I'm good. Give me an hour, I'm great. Give me six months, I'm unbeatable."  It is now six months after The A-Team was imprisoned.  It's time to be unbeatable and undoubtedly unbelievable.

There is no denying that this is a stupid movie.  If you need proof, B.A. has "Pity" and "Fool" tattooed on his knuckles.  If you want more proof, Murdock seasons his steak with antifreeze.  If you really, really, really need more proof, this movie has a scene where they play the shell game --- with a crane.  If you're okay with that, then you probably won't have any problems with this film.  If any of those examples gave you a nosebleed, just pinch your nose and sit this one out.

The acting in The A-Team is actually pretty enjoyable.  Quinton "Rampage" Jackson is still more of a MMA fighter than an actor, but aside from him, the cast is pretty solid.  Liam Neeson is more talented than the script shows, but he played up to the goofiness well.  I think it's pretty funny that he dyed his hair to look like Hannibal from the TV show, but when he disguises himself, he dyes his hair to look like Liam Neeson.  This is the first big role that Bradley Cooper signed on for after the surprise success of The Hangover.  I haven't really liked him much so far, but he was occasionally decent as Face.  I also enjoyed Sharlto Copely as the resident crazy character.  He wasn't fantastic, but he was certainly good enough for a movie like this.  I would like to point out that I am grading on a curve for these actors because of how stupid the movie is; their performances would have been awful in a more serious or comedic movie, but they're just about right for this mess.  The rest of the supporting cast was just there to be stooges that the A-Team makes look stupid, so I'm going to give Jessica Biel's per-faux-mence and Patrick Wilson's Josh Lucas impression free passes. 

This film was directed by Joe Carnahan, who you might recognize from his work on Smokin' Aces.  The A-Team isn't as absolutely random as that movie, but his quick camera cuts are still recognizable.  He captured things going boom pretty well and I thought the action scenes made as much sense as they did on the TV show.  I wouldn't say he did a good job, but it could have been much worse.

That actually sums up my feelings about this movie.  It could have been much worse.  I've heard people defend The A-Team by saying that it was true to the show, but that's the wrong stance to take.  The movie adaptation of any television show should always be better than a typical episode.  Yes, the explosions were bigger this time, and the automatic weapons managed to hit things that weren't just the tires of vehicles.  But the plot was bad, even by television standards.  I was surprised that the plot actually sets up the movie as a prequel of sorts to the show; this is the story of how these men became mercenaries, instead of them helping the helpless.  This is a dumb action movie that was decently fun.  It's better than I expected, but not as much fun as I had hoped.  Is it actually good?  Well, there are lots of explosions, lots of catch phrases, and more than enough action scenes.  If stupid fun doesn't bother you, then The A-Team should get (wait for it...) a C+.  I'd give it an A, but it's way too crappy for that.

Clash of the Titans (2010)

Judging from the title, you might think that this would be a movie about the Greco-Roman gods battling their parents, the Titans.  You might think that this film would feature epic battles and deal with the Freudian ideas of how children must usurp their parents in order to come into their own.  You might be a big, stupid moron.

This film is a remake of the campy 1981 movie of the same name.  Sadly, the stop motion effects of the original are replaced with actual special effects this time around (although the robotic owl from the original makes a cameo).  So, if this movie isn't about battling the Titans of Greek mythology, then what is it about?  The king and queen of Argos decide to topple their ridiculously enormous statue of Zeus, claiming that they need not worship the gods because now is the time of man.  Why anyone would do this when gods are known to walk the earth and smite mortals is beyond me.  Not surprisingly, Zeus (played by Liam Neeson) sends his brother, Hades (Ralph Fiennes), to spread some Hellenic-style smiting across the isle of Argos.  Hades does his damage and threatens to have his pet monster, the kraken, wipe Argos off the map unless Argos' princess is sacrificed to the gods.  Who will save Argos?  That would be Perseus, played by Sam Worthington.  Perseus' family was killed in Hades' attack, but it's all good; Perseus learns that he is a demigod and that Zeus is his father.  Perseus and a band of Argos' best warriors then decide to find a way to kill the kraken.  To do this, the crew must visit some witches, who send them to the underworld to kill (Or is that re-kill?  She's in the underworld already, right?  No!  Must...stop...thinking...) Medusa.  The idea is to cut her head off because any mortal (even a monster) that looks in her eyes will turn to stone.  Along the way, the men team up with a djinn, a warlock-like thing whose skin appears to be made of a cross between granite and tree bark.  They fight several giant scorpions and end up riding the rest across a desert, like camels.  In the end, we get what is promised:

***SPOILER ALERT***

the kraken turns to stone when it sees Medusa's head.  Consider yourself spoiled.

Huh.  How about that?  Yep.  It's a bit of an anticlimax.  You've got to give credit where it's due, though; you learn that Medusa's head can kill the kraken early in the film and it sure does.  Mission accomplished.  Who needs drama, anyway?  The plot fails to follow through with a lot of decent ideas here.  The hero has to kill a huge monster?  Awesome.  Instead of killing the monster just by showing up with the right tool, I would have rather...I don't know...had the monster eat the hero and have the hero cut his way out of the monster's chest?  That would have been cooler.  I would have had the witches be more threatening; they were only a cool-looking nuisance.  The giant scorpions were okay, but I had trouble figuring out who was fighting what scorpion; these were the most confusingly edited action scenes since Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.  I pay attention when I watch a movie, and if I can't tell how many giant monsters are in a scene, there's a problem.  The subplot with the sacrifice of Argos' princess could have been decent in a different movie, but it's just filler here.  Of course, I don't envy the writer who has to justify destroying a populated island over sacrificing one person, so I see why they left the subject mostly untouched.

The characters were equally frustrating.  Sam Worthington has yet to prove himself as an actor, despite leading roles in Avatar and Terminator: Salvation.  He plays the same basic character over and over again.  I know, he's not the only actor that does this, but I don't think Randy Quaid is a great example for young actors to strive toward.  Liam Neeson is okay, I guess, as Zeus; it's hard to judge Zeus as a character because the mythological god was all over the place, in terms of logic and attitude.  In this movie, he's alternately a doting father and an attention-starved god.  Ralph Fiennes really irritated me as Hades at first because he whispered all his lines; this served a plot-related purpose, so I'll let it slide this time.  His forehead dandruff was unnecessary, though.  The other gods barely got speaking parts, including Danny Huston as Poseidon.  This movie is all about throwing recognizable actors at you and not giving them time or space to act.  Jason Flemyng is a somewhat effective man-monster who spends most of his time running away from Perseus.  Nicholas Hoult (the weird kid from About a Boy) proves that ugly child actors can actually grow up to be reasonably handsome...and that's about all he does here.  Gemma Arterton pretty much reprises her role from Quantum of Solace as a pretty face with no character.  Mads Mikkelsen is the only standout here, and he just did a decent job as the resident military expert, but somebody had to look good against the cardboard cutouts this script provided. 


And yet...it's a special effects movie.  Do we really watch these with the same expectations as a Charlie Kaufman-scripted film?  The answer is that we should, but we don't.  Sometimes, effects are good and fun enough to let us turn our brains off and bathe in the screen's warm glow.  The effects in Clash of the Titans aren't good enough to make up for its many shortcomings, but they are pretty good.  The character designs on the kraken, the witches, the djinn, and Hades' flying bat creatures are all great.  I don't know how many of the locations were shot in front of a green screen (the movie was allegedly shot mostly in Whales), but the panoramic shots of Pereus and company descending into the underworld were awesome.  The strange thing about the effects is that they don't seem to be enhanced by 3D.  I realize that these 3D parts were thrown in at the last minute after seeing how well Avatar did in theaters, but I expected them to be...well, not crappy.  In fact, the 3D effects were the worst in the film; it seems like they were forced to go 3D, but didn't have the time or budget to do it right, so they just did it fast.

Overall, the plot wasn't great and the actors just showed up.  Neither was terrible, though.  The effects were good enough to make this film visually appealing, but the real star was the character design for the creatures.  Is that enough to recommend a movie?  Tough call.