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So why didn't you like The Dark Knight Rises? Nolan trilogy spoilers of course.

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ArjanN

Member
I still enjoyed TDKR and that ending gave me feels but these were my issues with it:

*Was fairly bloated yet had rushed sub plots.
*Catwoman didn't really fit all that well into the story.
*The whole Talia/Bane thing undermined Bane being hyped up as a monster born in the pit.
*Gary Stu "Robin" character also didn't fit that well into the movie.
*Poor action choreography which has honestly plagued the whole series.
*Some noteworthy plot holes.

All this and also I couldn't understand half of what Bane was saying.
 
what others said. it was nowhere close to the first 2 films. surprisng thesame people made such dumb choices when it came to writing. It felt like they new they couldnt top TDK so gave up
 
These movies are not exactly "superhero" movies which is the reason why I loved them. They're drama that happened to have batman in them for 30 min. I was never really a fan of straight up action or fun marvel type movies with no real issues to them or joke villains (iron man 3, AOU). I mean we have a "real" Batman in the BvS and look how that turned out. Personally I didn't like the bomb scene at the end since it was the most "superhero movie" like moment of the entire trilogy
 

bluethree

Member
TDKR was too stupid and over the top, and while it had some good ideas herw amd there, it felt like the first draft of a script that they hadnt worked out all the problems of before filming.
 

fr0st

Banned
The last montage +score and the casual robin reveal was cool seeing In Imax opening day.
People clapped when batman first appeared his theme played.
 

Alienous

Member
The Dark Knight Rises relied on nostalgia too soon after The Dark Knight.

It doesn't stand on its own too feet as a good movie.
 

Shig

Strap on your hooker ...
The core of the movie's conflict, with terrorists hijacking Wall Street in the name of power to the people, then Gotham immediately becoming an anarcho-fascist regime of ex-cons eating the rich and firing their guns into the air while the normals cower in their homes, feels distinctly like some fevered conservative hitpiece assembled against the then-relevant Occupy movement.

A Batman movie built around some alarmist Fox News dystopia scenario leaves a bad, bad taste.
 
It's such an awkward movie. Everything down from the incredibly sloppy editing to the way many lines are delivered is just...awkward. And then there are numerous plot points, momenrs, and overall resolution that are just terrible.

There are things to like in the movie, but it makes it very hard to appreciate it with the sheer amount of weirdly bad things.
 
2QcNSmR.gif
 

Currygan

at last, for christ's sake
I find them rather decent, but with some evident flaws and lack of properly directed action sequences
 
For me, it felt bloated, over long and utterly cold and joyless. Yes, of course the stakes are seriously fucking high, but outside of Anne hathways attempts to flirt a little with batman, I can't remember any attempt by any other character to inject emotions outside of droll sadness into the film. I could very well be wrong on this matter, I can't remember much of the film, the po faced serious tone of the film didn't gel well with me.

You had Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine inject some levity and humour in TDK, coupled with a (imho) legendary performance by Heath Ledger, who was mesmerizing and in a sick, twisted way kinda funny too. It all helped to flesh out and humanize the film so all the awful shit that was happening was more berable. Basically, TDKR needed a goodluck.gif moment. Which I personally feel it didn't have.

I also can't fucking believe how they dealt with Banes demise in the film, you have they guy who held a whole city at ransom, the guy who, literally, almost broke Batman in half, yet you fucking end him with a 'LOL shot uuu' scence and drop it like a nasty turd and then quickly move on. That soured the film for me since I liked Hardy in the role and bane warranted a better send off, or at least a better resolution.

Despite the above, I did like other parts of the film, the bat wing was awesome, the police chase at the start was great, the fights between bats and bane are pretty hype and cat woman and bats teaming up at the end made for a pretty fucking great action setpiece.

Oh and the film has Anne Hathaway in a skin tight, full fitted leather costume for quite a few scences. That mitigated a hell of a lot of issues I had with the film, *ahem*
 

Replicant

Member
Halfway through the film it turns into like a GCPD film instead of Batman film. Plus, I didn't like Bane. Awful coreography/fight scenes too.
 
Isn't this the 2nd guy shooting the 3rd when batman punches the 2nd?

Watch the 2nd dudes arm, and then the guy goes down

Yeah. The actual goofy part to me is the last dude charging at him with a pistol. But, I think all of the fights look absolutely fine during normal viewings. The only part that bugged me from the first viewing is a sound effect during the sewer fight. There is a part where Batman grabs the back of Bane's head and it makes a punching sound. It's weird.
 

Apt101

Member
I liked it, but I felt as though many of the subplots didn't feel connected or relevant upon future rewatchings. I also never bought that Wayne would stop being Batman for eight years and go into seclusion, nor did it feel like eight years in that world had actually passed. Then he returns and rather than building to a climax, it kind of meanders.

Edit: I also felt the score to be jarring. Melancholy and haunting all of the sudden DUNN DUNN DUNN. Over and over.

My ratings:

Begins: 8/10
Knight: 9/10
Rises: 7/10
 
I enjoyed it fine. But it's definitely extremely messy and never felt like Nolan had control of his material.

Compared to how tightly wound The Prestige is, it's hard to believe they came from the same director.

For me, it felt bloated, over long and utterly cold and joyless. Yes, of course the stakes are seriously fucking high, but outside of Anne hathways attempts to flirt a little with batman, I can't remember any attempt by any other character to inject emotions outside of droll sadness into the film. I could very well be wrong on this matter, I can't remember much of the film, the po faced serious tone of the film didn't gel well with me.

You had Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine inject some levity and humour in TDK, coupled with a (imho) legendary performance by Heath Ledger, who was mesmerizing and in a sick, twisted way kinda funny too. It all helped to flesh out and humanize the film so all the awful shit that was happening was more berable. Basically, TDKR needed a goodluck.gif moment. Which I personally feel it didn't have.

I also can't fucking believe how they dealt with Banes demise in the film, you have they guy who held a whole city at ransom, the guy who, literally, almost broke Batman in half, yet you fucking end him with a 'LOL shot uuu' scence and drop it like a nasty turd and then quickly move on. That soured the film for me since I liked Hardy in the role and bane warranted a better send off, or at least a better resolution.

Despite the above, I did like other parts of the film, the bat wing was awesome, the police chase at the start was great, the fights between bats and bane are pretty hype and cat woman and bats teaming up at the end made for a pretty fucking great action setpiece.

Oh and the film has Anne Hathaway in a skin tight, full fitted leather costume for quite a few scences. That mitigated a hell of a lot of issues I had with the film, *ahem*

I think Bane was appropriately humorous. Dude sounded like how I imagined Uncle Pennybags from Monopoly would sound so that was pretty on point.

Besides, the blacks in this movie is about as dark as I've ever seen in a movie. Batman felt like he just melted into the shadows during the first Batman Bane fight. Any more humor and the movie would've been absurd.
 

Maddocks

Member
Movie is fine and I love it, but Baleman wasn't really batman if he vanished for 8 years just because of Dent. They set him up as a man who wanted to snuff crime out, all crime, big or small and they kinda shit on that by having him vanish for 8 years and randomly having a Dent Act that would punish criminals and have coed prison.

Bane was the tops though, he was a monster and def right on par with Joker for me.
 

inky

Member
I feel like I need to watch it again, because a lot has left my mind where BB and TDK are ever-present. I only saw it once (twice?) tho.

I remember not liking Bane, and my brain clocked out when the police force went into the sewers and got trapped in there. At that point I thought that whatever the movie was trying to say wasn't worth the hurdles it was making me jump. This happens to me sometimes with Nolan movies. He's just a bit too smart for his own good* that I can see the logic behind the script/filmmaking decision process supersede the logic of what's happening on the screen and I'm completely taken out. He wants to deal with big themes first, but doesn't always achieve it naturally.

Oh, and the ending didn't work for me. I just didn't buy it.
 
I really liked The Dark Knight Rises. I think it gets a lot of undue hate, but there are one or two things I could see complaints of it. Otherwise, I still enjoyed it. Certainly enjoyed a lot, lot more than Batman Begins.

But good lord, the obvious one is Talia's death. Good lord, that is bad acting from Marion Cotillard. Like, incredibly bad.

Bale is just a terrible Batman.

No.
 

DeathPeak

Member
I enjoy TDKR, but still think it's pretty weak compared to the other 2. Bruce Wayne was Batman for like a year and then he "retired" for 8 years? Whatever dude.
 

Blastoise

Banned
Reshoot Talia's dumb death face. Don't show Bruce Wayne with Selina at the cafe in the last scene, instead just have Alfred smiling.

It would've been perfect for me.

Still the best comic book trilogy so far.
 

Bluth54

Member
People complain that Wayne returning to Gotham is unfathomable and should have been shown.

This from a guy who lived as a street thief for years, trained as a ninja and is actually the Batman.

Because hopping on a plane/boat whatever is just out of people's imagination.

Yeah people whining about Wayne returning to Gotham is so stupid. The movie has a lot of legitimate problems and that isn't one of them.
Is it that hard to imagine that Bruce Wayne and Alfred had a few secret overseas bank accounts with a decent amount of money for emergencies? And even though Gotham was blocked off is it really that hard to imagine Batman could get in?
 

AlteredBeast

Fork 'em, Sparky!
The third act is sloppy and totally unsatisfying. I enjoy the first two acts a lot and I thought Bane was totally badass, but the third act just killed the movie for me. I have watched it three times and it might be years before I watch it again.
 
D

Deleted member 80556

Unconfirmed Member
Heath Ledger and Tom Hardy were the only things I really enjoyed about those movies. I found everything else to be camp, stupid, over done, lamp-shady or similar.

I wanted to like them, but I just could not connect. The way Nolan interrogates the idea of Batman, the idea of fascism, etc etc just felt shallow to me. And Bale, good god, he was just Patrick Bateman-lite. He was on sociopath autopilot the whole time. I felt it was a disingenuous attempt to both "Do Batman serious, yo" and have all the shoutouts, plot contrivances and easter eggs silly characters and whatnot that comics revels in without really being able to synthesize the opposing tones of the two. It came off as neither a deep meditation nor a character study nor an action story. I liked Batman Begins, sort of, for the potential, and liked TDK ,mostly for Ledger and TDK for Hardy.

It's a lot of the same problem I have with Daredevil and the contrived ninja bullshit. "We're doing Daredevil, we gotta have ninjas, right? Should we do it well in our self-serious take on this concept? Nah, let's go full camp! That won't deflate our tone at all! We're geniuses."

TLDR: Too much trying to have your self-serious cake and eat it too. My Joker. My Bane. Not my Batman.

And thus spoke Zarathustra. Great analysis man.

I literally laughed out loud in the cinema in the TRIGGER scene. I couldn't believe what I was watching. First and only time it has happened to me, in an unintended way.
 

Lijik

Member
Didnt like it as much as the first two, but I enjoyed it in the theater.

I suspect I'd find it much messier on a rewatch
 
Lowest bar ever. Not a badge of honor, either, especially with Captain America wrecking shit up and taking the throne.

We'd have to erase Captain America One from the record books for it to be considered. Rises was pretty not great, but CA1 was fucking garbage. The quality jump between it and Winter Soldier has to be the biggest leap ever in cinema.
 
Didn't like Bane. His voice made me want to burst out laughing whenever he spoke. Intimidating it was not.

Edit: Police going into the sewers...all of them practically. Umm...yeah right.
 

AlteredBeast

Fork 'em, Sparky!
We'd have to erase Captain America One from the record books for it to be considered. Rises was pretty not great, but CA1 was fucking garbage. The quality jump between it and Winter Soldier has to be the biggest leap ever in cinema.

I enjoyed Cap 1 quite a bit, actually. Best origin story in my opinion. The last act wasn't great, but still better than Rises' finale.
 

Robot Pants

Member
I liked it a lot. I just think it needed to be at least half an hour longer with all the concepts Nolan was trying to cram in there. They weren't fleshed out enough and needed some breathing room.
Also some of the choreography was a little bad.
 

bionic77

Member
I enjoyed the first and last act of the movie (very satisfying ending to the trilogy, for me at least).

The middle definitely dragged.

Worst of the 3 movies but it was pretty good for the 3rd movie in a trilogy. Most of which are unspeakably bad.
 
I wouldn't go to bat* against any of the criticisms in this thread, but I like the movie. The ending gets me every time.

*
get
 

digdug2k

Member
I thought the "the city is so evil we have to destroy it" plot from the first movie its weakest part. When they went back to the exact same thing in the third I was pretty disappointed.
 
I feel like The Dark Knight Rises was an uncomfortable mashup of the various elements of it's source material.

It's still the 3rd best Batman movie, behind only The Dark Knight and Batman Begins.
 
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