Zephyr's Movie Reviews! #3- The Dark Knight Rises

Yay! Review time! I quite like doing these.

Ok, this time my review is on what is perhaps the most anticipated movie of the year.....besides Avengers....and the Hobbit....oh, and Django Unchained!

*shakes head* Argh, focus! Ok, time to review....



Ok, to start off, the previous Batman movie, The Dark Knight, unsurprisingly factors very little into this film. The only thing they take from that film was the fate of Harvy Dent and Batman's actions at the end. Rises actually takes a whole lot of material from Batman Begins, to my delight. (Begins was my favorite before Rises came along).

Synopsis-wise, Rises sees very little Batman at the beginning as Bruce Wayne has secluded himself in his mansion for the past 8 years, as the Gotham City Police Dept. cleans up the streets under the new Dent Act. However, things take a very grim turn as a new threat, the terrorist and revolutionary Bane, arrives at Gotham. Bruce tries to come to grips with his desire to stop Bane and his now nihilistic attitude to his Batman persona.

I was completely giddy throughout the whole movie. Absolutely everyone in this film brought their A game when it came to their performances. Christian Bale is amazing, even dialing back on that annoying growl when it comes to his Batman voice. Gary Oldman as Commisioner Gordon is perfect as usual and even Ann Hathaway's Catwo...sorry....Selina Kyle is better than I thought she was going to be. Micheal Caine as Alfred pretty much had me in tears near the end of the film, though I won't say in what way to avoid spoilers.

Let's talk about the new guys joing. Bane, played by Tom Hardy, is a very unique villain. His plans to destroy Gotham might seem like a retread of Ra's Al Ghul from Batman Begins, but there's a reason for that. He isn't very much like his comic book version, but he still manages to come off as a VERY serious threat....except for one thing. His voice. Throughout the whole movie, he souunded like he was trying to impersonate Sean Connery. I got used to it, but it's funny hearing such a Posh accent coming from such a hulking monster.

On the light side of the force, we have Joseph Gordon-Levitt as John Blake, a police cop who assists Gordon and Batman. I won't say much about him, becasue I thought he was the breakout star in this movie and I have a giant man-crush on Joseph Gordon- Levitt that anything I say would be pure bias. He's extremely good.

While the film might take a while to hit its stride, it pays off in spades by the final act. The twists in this film, while a bit predictable for anyone with knowledge of the comics, were so cool that I was smiling like an idiot the whole time. While people may be divided on whether it was a satisfying conclusion or not, I thought it was brilliant. Not many comic book movies have a definitive ending, so it's refreshing to see one here....well, maybe it's not so permenant of an end....you'll have to watch it for yourself. It's worth it.