The Dark Knight Rises

“Big time Hollywood filmmaking at its most massively accomplished, this last installment of Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy makes everything in the rival Marvel universe look thoroughly silly and childish.” Written by a fellow critic, I could not have put this any better if I wanted to.  Coming in on the heels of two big budget Marvel Comics films this summer, Rises triumphs.

If you have read any of my reviews before, you know I love to talk cinematography. However, in this review, it just seems inane. We already know that Nolan knows his way around a camera. We have seen his big screen game-changers like 2010’s Inception, the 2000 film classic Memento, and of course the equally triumphant second installment of the franchise, The Dark Knight.  Rises is breathtaking cinematically. Gotham City has never looked both more grandiose and daunting, all at the same time

There are countless things to discuss in terms of why this film, and the franchise as a whole succeeds. But there is one major point that I believe supersedes all others. It is not Nolan’s portrayal of the villain, although they are always more blood-curdling and bone-chilling than any we have ever seen on screen, or read about in comics. It is not the music, action or the gadgets, though all such aspects are impeccably done and more and more awe-inducing with each film. 

What we find in Nolan’s franchise that is unique to big budget, super hero cinema as a whole is an examination of the human condition that challenges us as an audience to examine the deepest, darkest parts of our own souls. Nolan has found a way to conjoin independent film emotion and sentiment with blockbuster action and effect, ultimately creating a movie for the film scholar (or film snob) and the everyday movie-goer. He has done the unthinkable and allowed both worlds to coexist in one film, both executed in a tremendous way.  Nolan breaks the mold. Here lies the inspiration within these films, and within Nolan as a director.  As an aspiring filmmaker, I cannot help but be an admirer of his work. 

So that we are on the same page, let me explain a little deeper, what it is that I mean. In The Dark Knight, the Batman is challenged mentally in the most acutely, intrinsic way possible by The Joker. The Joker, played so outstandingly by the late Heath Ledger challenged Batman because The Joker literally had nothing to lose. In complete opposition to Batman, The Joker had no rules. He did not commit crime for money or revenge-he was not the average criminal in that sense. He created crime only for the sake of creating chaos. To paraphrase The Joker himself, he just “wanted to see the world burn”. This second installment caused us as an audience to question our inner selves, and the inner beings of those around us. It forced us to ask questions like, “Does pure evil actually exist? If so, how close are we all to the brink of evil? Are we each just dangling on the edge, and perhaps with one slight push over, maybe none of us in fact knows what we are capable of.

These are the questions the Joker forced upon us, and The Dark Knight Rises pushes this a step further.  Bane is the almighty Dark Knight’s nemesis in Rises and Batman is due for a comeback to save Gotham after an eight year hiatus and retreat into obscurity due to Gotham’s labeling of him as a murderer and outlaw. Now Batman must not only struggle with Bane’s overwhelming physical advantage over him-something he has yet to face, but now he must also find the inner strength to “rise” up and defend the city that abandoned him, and discover within himself, what makes such a tumultuous, sacrificial life, worthwhile. Rises continues with such themes from The Dark Knight, and examines them further by forcing us to ask, what inspires us? Whom and what do we love so much that we might place their life, above our very own? Nolan executes an exploration of this theme from both sides. We see it from the villain, as well as Batman himself.

With The Dark Knight Rises, Nolan has solidified himself as a writer, director, and producer of legends. As someone that aspires to work in this industry for the rest of my life, Nolan’s talent and successes are what dreams are made of. I can only hope to have a fraction of the career he has had. As for everyone else, you simply cannot wait four months to see this movie on your television screens. The film was released a mere 24 hours ago, and Hollywood is already buzzing about Oscar nominations for Best Picture.

Hmm, A Batman movie for Best Picture? That is something else.

Prometheus

Director and producer Ridley Scott, the man responsible for blockbusters and critical successes like Black Hawk Down, American Gangster and the 1982 cult classic, Blade Runner has another monetary success on his hands with Prometheus. But this time, he has done something completely different than any of these mentioned earlier films. Prometheus is…forgettable.  Reviews and buzz around the film have been mixed. I can in no way call myself a “sci-fi junkie,” but being a movie fanatic and film scholar, I have to unfortunately say that my review is the same. Prometheus is just “so-so.”

Allow me to address the cinematic successes of the feature first. The film’s biggest accomplishment is its use of CGI to create both setting and creature. When the movie first opened, I said to myself, “Wow, this is really beautiful.” The film is aesthetically stunning throughout. In this science-fiction feature, Scott left nothing to the imagination. And I mean this in the best way possible. Aside from its achievements in visuals, the performances are mostly quite good. Noomi Rapace (2009’s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, 2011’s Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows) plays Elizabeth Shaw, the film’s heroine, and she truly delivers. Shaw’s character could not have been better cast. The rest of the cast is top notch as well. All of the world is familiar with Charlize Theron. She is not only strikingly beautiful, but her performance also does not disappoint. Although, I have to say, in terms of female leads and performances, this is certainly Noomi Rapace’s film. Idris Elba gives a questionable performance with him having accents that go and come throughout the film-this facet really through me for a loop. Although, since the film is set so far in the future, perhaps the film is making a statement about the future life for humans being one of varying descents, and ancestry no longer being clear and defined. I at least hope this is what they were going for. My favorite performance of all comes with Michael Fassbender’s portrayal of David, the anatomically and rhetorically correct robot. David is so advanced, even calling him a robot seems to take something away from his essence. Fassbender gives David the most precise amount of superficiality so that the audience easily believes that this extraordinarily life-like looking man, is in reality, a scientifically generated being.

As far as cinematic achievements go, that is really it for Prometheus. The film as a whole is very slow. The pace of the film speeds up, and slows down, speeds up and slows down. If we were in traffic, this would have been an overwhelmingly nauseating car ride. Aside from the slow pace, there are glaring holes within the plot. At one moment, there will be extreme danger, and the next, the focus has changed, and what was once deadly, somehow now no longer is. Character relationship and back-story is never fully developed. There are several relationships and potentials for them within the film, but none of them are ever fully hashed out, leaving the audience unable to connect completely to any one character.

Nothing sets Prometheus aside from any other science fiction movie.  We have seen every character and every storyline within this film if not once, then many, many times before. Ridley Scott also directed the 1979 classic Alien, where Sigourney Weaver plays the iconic Ripley, like Rapace plays the brave Shaw in Prometheus . Scott seems to try to mimic his earlier hit in Prometheus, and he just misses the mark. And  to be fair, this alone is not a valid complaint. All movies “bite” off of other movies. Rarely has something never been done before in this industry. But the question is always, "did you do it better?" "Was this somehow more unique than when it was done the first time?" And Prometheus just was not. This one isn’t worth a theater run. It will be in the Red Box box for $1 rent soon enough.