Incredible movie the only flaws were that one of the preview trailers was for another Superman movie without showing a villain I'd care about and that the first act is a little dull but necessary in a good way, you're glued to your seat the second Batman fights Bane in the sewers.. It's funny how between this and the Avengers that comic movies are reminding everybody how the fuck good cinematography should work.
This movie was really cool. It didn't have the amazing Joker performance of the Dark Knight to make it SPELLBOUNDING like that movie, but the cleverness of the writing and enrapturing quality of the constant motion of the plot is very similar to that of the Dark Knight. Everything amazed and delighted me except for a handful of tiny sour grapes.
I don't really want to get into a slap-fight about what makes the best Joker(Heath was great but I don't buy into THE BEST EVER because I'm so gay for the Batman cartoons it is unreal) but if the Bane guy couldn't top Heath's Joker then he at least equaled it or pulled a tight second place. A lot of things that might otherwise be hackneyed or annoying were done really well(the altered voice, the pauses when speaking, the no-nonsense hyper-efficiency Bane is known for, the subtle berserking effect when his mask was damaged.) I was delighted every time the villain was on screen which is basically the Villain Litmus Test. The best part of the movie for me was both Batman vs Bane fights.
The doomsday device was a little lame for me. I mean come on, it even had a big cartoon timer on it for fuck's sake
Plots gotta plot but it did stick out like a sore thumb in the first act when they mention "investing half your fortune in a hope for humanity and mothballing it" and all that shit. It also rang really fucking hollow when surprise, the second Wayne lets somebody see the reactor it's stolen to be used as a nuke just as he feared. But comics.
My real name IS ROBIN.................... What? Come on you can do better than that man, that's pretty fucking weak.
It wasn't perfect but I give a lot of respect for not revealing that until the epilogue of a three hour movie.
I can't, there's no auto pilot... I mean, there is... PSYCHE! Thinking back on this, I get it; he needed Gotham to think he was dead so he could actually retire. But at the time I was like "...What was the point of that?"
Also stuck out but forgivable if we give benefit of the doubt. Course Bruce couldn't code the auto-pilot, he got thrown in super jail.
Batman and Bane fighting always looked pretty awesome without ever being over the top or anything... but why was the fight coreography and just general in fight acting of Bane's goons so bad in a lot of spots? When Batman saves Robin from the guys that are going to shoot him, they seriously wait their turn and fight him one at a time all fake looking and Batman never takes any of them down in a convincing fashion in my opinion. Later the cops attack a guy on the back of a technical and he literally just stands there, both emotionless and unmoving like he's a dummy or something while they jump on the truck and kick him away from his machine gun. Throughout the whole movie a lot of them just never showed any emotion like they were fighting or anything pretty much just look like they are waiting to get punched or kneed or whatever. It was a little distracting. Thankfully there's not that many fist fights really and Batman fighting Bane is actually well acted by both of them, but like Christ, could you hire ACTORS to play the goons next time and not like I dunno, Mexican day labourers.
AHAHAHAHAHA I'm glad I'm not the only one that felt this way. I know that Batman fails the reality test really hard if anybody trained with a firearm actually points and shoots at him with anything resembling accuracy but I was really hoping they'd cover that up either Arkham style(intense combat, but I guess that'd ruin this series' style) or like, Sherlock Holmes style(disable the shit that kills you before you fight them goons.) Batman really didn't use many gadgets this movie compared to vehicles, maybe they were aware of this when that goofy rookie cop shoots Batman's electrode gun before he can really use it.
You could also use the Cop Rush at the end as an example. You have 1,000 convicts with assault rifles firing at a crowd and they're hitting the ground in front of them? Sorry dudes but with that many bullet hoses you'd end up with 3,000 dead cops. Maybe the guys in back get to melee if all the convicts have to reload at the same time. It's all forgivable but silly.
I'm glad they never called her Catwoman, her heels and her goggle ears were a BIT much. I wish they had stopped at her wearing a cat outfit at the charity ball, that would have been classier but whatever. I mean, I guess the Joker did have his makeup and his suit but like I dunno. The ears felt a little bit like if Two-face had worn a tailored split pattern suit to me. At least they stopped before she had a whip. I never thought I'd be thankful for that...
The goggles were subtle compared to basically everything costume wise that could have gone wrong, especially since the villain was flippin' Bane.
I really liked that Selina shows up with Bruce at the table at the end but they don't like pan the camera over her face and the pearls around her neck and shit.
Talia
The accent stuck out but I didn't click it until they mentioned Ghul by name and she slept with Bruce because the laws of Batman are that Bruce can only bang Selina or Talia and that lady wasn't Selina. I think Talia was well done and well hidden in that there are plenty of nods to the fans but enough to keep casual fans and movie-goers from immediately seeing it. It's also part of the nicely done backstory for this universe's Bane, Ghul and Talia.
