I know many people waited for the newest installment of the Batman movie franchise to be released. They stood in line at midnight showings the first night it was released and unfortunately some died trying to see it. Sadly, I need to report the movie sucks. It stinks out loud. If it were not for 1997's Batman and Robin this would have been the worst Batman movie EVER! Including the Adam West one's from the 60's. I know what I just said, all the fan boys and girls out there are in shock and pissed off. I may have well told a Priest that the Pope was gay and had made several man on man pornos. While I am not trying to change anyones opinion of the movie I am just going to try and point out things that were either horrible, wrong, boring, stupid, or just I didn't like. As I said people are entitled to their opinions be it positive or negative. I know that and I respect it. But just like the people who say they liked the ending of LOST, the people that liked TDKR are just wrong! Before giving my lists I have to give a footnote here, if your idea of a good movie is a shitload of special effects and a lot of noise then we differ on what makes a good movie and my points won't make much sense to you. This was not just an opportunity for Christopher Nolan to feature a bunch of special effects and explosions on the big screen so if that's what you thought were the best parts of TDKR I can save you some time and tell you to stop reading now because your definition of a "great" movie is so different than mine there is no way we will be able to relate to each other. I wish someone had told me that before I bought my ticket. Now then, here the is my list of reasons why this movie SUCKED!
Let's start at the beginning of the film where everything just seems thrown together so we "get the idea"; ten years has passed since the end of The Dark Knight. Thanks to Batman taking all of the blame for the criminal acts Harvey Dent committed, Gotham implements the Dent Act that makes Gotham's streets safer. The city doesn't need a Batman anymore. Bruce Wayne is hardly seen in public. Right here I have a problem because Bruce Wayne is now an old man who walks with a cane? If Bruce's body was falling apart Bruce would have made sure he had a successor. None of this letting Batman be gone. Bruce knows the world needs a Batman even if it's not him. We know he knows this with the ending of the film. The opening of the movie having Batman deserting Gotham was a bad, bad move. Gotham is EVERYTHING to Batman.
Batman is known as the worlds' greatest detective. Yet he just bursts forward into a fight with Bane without a "Plan B". Knowing the superior strength and fighting skills that Bane had, why was Batman not more prepared to go into battle with Bane? Obviously he must not have just underestimated Bane. So where were his contingency plans? Batman can take down Superman if he wants to. Horrible script writing. Later, they turned Batman into a sissy when he couldn't finish off Bane in the second fight and it was Catwoman who came to the rescue and blasted Bane with the guns from the BatPod.
Yes I know the movies are different than the comics so of course John Blake isn't supposed to be Timothy Drake who is Robin in the comics but we all kinda know he is Robin, right? I mean at the end of the movie the woman even calls him by his birth name which is Robin. Which brings me to the point of how hard do they need to hit us over the head with the obvious hammer? As they were drilling it into our heads that the child who escaped the well must have been Bane did you actually believe the child was going to be Bane? After seeing the child's protector battle with all the other inmates in the pit did you still think the child would one day grow up to be Bane or did you notice the fighting style and know that Bane was in fact the child's protector?
The movie is a mess and it's awkward. Nobody seems to care either. Where are the outstanding characters? Where's the great performances we saw in the last film with Heath Ledger as the Joker? Nobody stands out to me this time. Is Tom Hardy as Bane supposed to be the best this film has to offer? A character I can't understand about 75% of the time? Really? Who did the audio for this thing Marlee Matllin? Then you put Bane onscreen with Batman with Bale's horrible Batman voice and I don't know what the two are saying to each other most of the scenes they are in. Bane's voice sounds like a cross between Rick Moranis' Dark Helmet from Spaceballs and Darth Vader. Throw in a little Sean Connery and you have Bane's voice. Maybe add a little Patrick Stewart for extra spice. The character of Bane should be an interesting one but he turns into a mysterious evil entity that stands behind a voice and a mask. Yeah, OK, sort of like how Darth Vader was portrayed. We know Darth Vader and Bane is no Darth Vader. When Bane wasn't being a marble mouthed mess, his voice seemed as though it was a mockery of what the villains voice should have sounded like. His voice seems to be a mockery of what a villains voice should be.
How did Bruce get out of the pit and back to Gotham? How did he get back into Gotham without being seen? How did Bane actually get the military and the government to do what he said? There's absolutely no way the United States allows Bane and a bunch of janitors to take over a city and do absolutely nothing about it. Nuclear bomb or not, it just doesn't happen that way. Not in any reality. Then there is a bomb about to rot out and go off in a minute but hold up let me make out with Catwoman for a bit. That's what you call having your priorities in place during a potentially cataclysmic moment in time. Who writes this crap?
Why are we given little to no back-story on Selina Kyle are we just expected to know it if we are seeing the movie? Then we move to the other woman in the film where we are supposed to be shocked by the betrayal that Batman was victim of by a woman Bruce had an emotionless one night stand with? I didn't feel it.
Batman appears twice in the movie. Not in two scenes but in two parts of the movie. It's a Batman movie, why wasn't Batman in the movie more or longer? When Batman does finally show up in the movie for the first time it isn't to some grand fanfare and wonderful arrival, it's midway during a chase scene when he enters the fray and it's not and "OHHHH, it's Batman!" moment. It's more of a "Hey, check it out, there's Batman over there." moment. Very anticlimactic. To go one better with the point, some of the best scenes the movie has to offer comes during the moments when Christian Bale isn't even on the screen.
Speaking of Bale, it's not a big surprise to people who know me that I absolutely cannot stand him playing Batman. I am a huge Batman fan. Been a big fan since before Michael Keaton even put on the cape and cowl. Got the tattoo to prove my love for The Bat. What is the deal with Bale's huge eye veins bulging out of his face? What was the skin tag on the side of his nose? My god the man was a mess. I know he's supposed to be a beaten and broken man but damn he has never been able to pull off this character. This is, of course my opinion about this movie. He was quite good in American Psycho. See, I can be positive sometimes.
So, TDKR: Too long! Too boring! Cliched, melodramatic, unimaginative, oh my fucking god just get out of the pit already. 20 minutes devoted to getting out of that goddamn pit. See that's just how bad the movie was, it actually pisses me off!
This movie further proves my point of how DC Comics and Marvel Comics differ. Marvel makes horrendous comics but the movies based on them, IE: Spiderman, Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, and The Avengers are all good or better. With the exception of the first Ghost Rider movie that I couldn't stand either. Dc Comics are good comic books all around for the most part. The movies: Batman, Superman, Green Lantern; are usually a little lacking. The rarity that is "The Dark Knight", which I liked a lot, the movie before TDKR, is exactly that, a rarity. Perhaps it's just that I really miss Heath Ledger.
TDKR is nothing more than mass-marketed, infantile claptrap for the unsophisticated and the undemanding. It’s perhaps acceptable amusement for children that need their moral tones and themes severely simplified, but if you’re over the age of sixteen and consider this artful commentary on the human experience…well, let’s just say you have a lot more to worry about than bitching about some dude telling you that a movie you like isn’t that any good.
Thanks for reading.
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