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Sunday, July 22, 2012

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES




Warner Bros. Pictures

Rated PG-13

Running time: 164 Minutes



Click below to watch The Dark Knight Rises trailer.



In Warner Bros. The Dark Knight Rises, crippled, reclusive billionaire Bruce Wayne, Christian Bale, comes out of retirement when terrorist leader Bane, Tom Hardy, threatens to destroy Gotham City - and billionaire Wayne/Bale returns as The Batman.

Sad to say that this film will probably go down in movie history more for incident of the midnight screening shootings at Aurora, Colorado rather than as more as the end of the Christopher Nolan/Christian Bale trilogy of the Dark Knight series. It was pretty shocking for me to wake up to this breaking news that day. If I did not have to be at work the next morning, I probably would have been at a midnight screening myself as well. Naturally, the cast and crew had expressed their deepest sympathies to the victims.

The movie itself is more of a dark suspense thriller, instead of a fun superhero action film like The Avengers. In fact, this movie was more like a serious James Bond film rather than as a comic book film. 

In the last of The Dark Knight trilogy, The Dark Knight Rises is written with Christopher Nolan and his brother Jonathan Nolan, and is based on the DC Comics character Batman created by Bob Kane, with influences by the darker Batman comics of "Knightfall" and "No Man's Land." Selina Kyle, Anne Hathaway - as "the Cat" - steals the pearl's of Bale's mother. Since this was more than a simple cat burglary, Bale comes out of his eight year reclusive isolation since the events of The Dark Knight to find out the real reason Hathaway accessed his safe. A corporate takeover of Wayne Enterprises by Board Member Ben Mendelsohn incorporated Hathaway and terrorist Bane/Hardy as Mendelsohn's henchman. Bane/Hardy is formally a part of being with Ra's al Ghul's League of Shadows - just like Wayne/Bale used to be a part of the League. Bane/Hardy has his own agenda from Mendelsohn - assuming the leadership of the League of Shadows, and in taking up Ra's al Ghul's mission to destroy Gotham City.

Although Aaron Eckhart did not appear as his character District Attorney Harvey Dent in The Dark Knight Rises - because Eckhart was killed off in The Dark Knight - Eckhart's pictures and archival footage were used throughout the movie as a reference to his character and of how much Dent/Eckhart still had as an influence to Gotham City. Gary Oldman reprises his role as Commissioner Gordon, who feels guilty in covering up District Attorney Dent/Eckhart's crimes when Dent/Eckhart was the criminal Two-Face. The Joker is never mentioned in The Dark Knight Rises out of respect for Heath Ledger - although, this lack of mentioning The Joker in the movie is ironic considering the events that have surrounded this movie.

Hathaway was very good as Selina Kyle's Catwoman, however she was never referred to as Catwoman in the movie. Hathaway went through intense training to be Catwoman and she says that this was her most physically demanding role to date. I believed that Hathaway could kick-ass while I was watching her - especially when she goes from sweet, innocent girl, to "the Cat." Tom Hardy as Bane also trained heavily for this movie by studying various fighting styles but, with Hardy's face covered by Bane's mask, you feel that it could be anybody under his mask - especially with Hardy's accented voice, just like anybody could be The Batman with Bale's gravelly voice. You don't really get to see any deep acting from Hardy because of the mask. He could have just been some big hulking wrestler under the mask with Hardy doing a voice-over for all we know. At least this time the character of Bane was more like the original comic book character of a general, strategist, and one-man ruthless army to be a villainous equal to Batman mentally as well as being the villainous character physically.

While I expected Joseph Gordon-Levitt having a minor role in the movie - he actually had a larger more integral role than I had expected, becoming Gordon/Oldman's right hand man. Levitt was good, however I felt the character should have been younger. The character should at least be fresh out of the Police Academy with his idealism.  Liam Neeson's cameo reprising his role as Ra's al Ghul was an unexpected pleasure to see. The Pittsburgh Steelers make cameo appearances in the football game.

You need a willing suspension of disbelief to accept Bale's healing of his injuries as I felt there was not sufficient time allowed in the showing of the film's story to allow for proper healing. Even with the doctors Bale had, that is still not enough sense of time in the movie to heal properly. If you accept that there was enough of a period of time for Bale to heal, then the events in the movie happened over a very long period of time which seems excessive to me. Also, the fact that the entire police force is sent underground is unbelievable as that would leave the entire city exposed. I know the Fire Department will not give up all their assets for Mutual Aid as that would leave their own city at risk, so I would not be surprised if the Police Department had something similar in their procedures. The climax of the war between the police and the criminal gangs is also unbelievable, given the firepower involved. There is a similar scene in War Horse that was much more believable. On the other hand, Batman's equipment was great to see in action as he drove around in them. Instead of a batmobile, this time he has a batplane. Although it was sad to see what happens to some of the equipment, it was still great to see. As a veteran cop tells his rookie partner, "sit back, you're in for a show."

The film was a long movie. I felt it could have been trimmed a little in the second half, just before the climax. As it is, this is the longest film Nolan has ever directed. There was also a lot of exposition in the movie, exposition of the plot rather than dialog. One, maybe two, exposition scenes I could except, like Michael Caine's concerned fantasy about the welfare for Bale while Bale was away for years for the first time. Cutting out some of this exposition could have trimmed the movie.

This is definitely the end of the Dark Knight trilogy, but the end of the movie is a positive ending left open for a new generation, a new direction for the next series of movies.

The audience I saw The Dark Knight Rises with applauded and cheered at the end and it was a pretty full house for a matinee, so not many people were intimidated by the events. Although as I was going up to the theater, a group was also going to see the film. A family man with his kids was coming out of the theater. The group asked him, "Did you see The Dark Knight?" The family man jokingly said, "no, he did not want to get shot." I was wondering if the events would hurt or help the film, or have no effect at all, to what the box office will take. We shall see as Warner Bros. will not release the opening weekend result until later "out of respect for the victims and their families." So while I think most people will live out their lives and not let the Aurora tragedy make them live in fear, it will take a while for the rest of us to get over it and heal.


Rated PG-13 for violence. Running time: 164 Minutes.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

Pancho's Movie Reviews


Saturday, July 7, 2012

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN


Columbia Pictures

Rated PG-13

Running time: 136 Minutes




Click below to watch the The Amazing Spider-Man trailer.



In Columbia Pictures/Marvel Enterprises The Amazing Spider-Man, high school nerd Peter Parker - Andrew Garfield - is bitten by a genetically modified laboratory spider, and becomes The Amazing Spider-Man.

This reboot of Spider-man in 2012 is released on the Fiftieth Anniversary of the first appearance of Spider-Man from the comic book Amazing Fantasy #15 that was published in 1962, which was Amazing Fantasy's last issue. Based on the comic book character created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, the movie The Amazing Spider-Man goes back to the origin of Spider-Man - with Ditko's early comics work as an influence on the film. Also, the movie concentrates more on Parker's/Garfield's mysteriously missing parents - who were killed in a plane crash - than was shown in previous movies. Parker/Garfield soon learns that his mysterious scientist father had worked with his fellow scientist, Dr. Curt Connors - Rhys Ifans. This is the first of the Spiderman movies that I can recall that they concentrated so much on Parker's parents. Actually a lot of the elements in this movie harkens back to the original origin from the comics, so I felt rather comfortable with this remake of Spider-Man. While politically incorrect - sports jock Flash Thompson, Chris Zylka, beating up weakling Parker/Garfield is straight from the comic book, although Garfield should have been more of a geeky push-over during this scene. The movie, however, integrated spiders much more into the movie as a major plot point than was indicated from the original origin story, in order to create a biocable from genetically modified spiders. Thus, Parker/Garfield being inundated by spiders in the laboratory was very disturbing to me. I think part of Spider-Man being my favorite superhero is for me to overcome my phobia of insects.

Since the movie was set during Parker's high school days, I did not feel that Garfield was socially inept enough as Parker when he was in high school, but I did feel that Garfield was smart enough to be the science geek and well represented the mature Parker as he became Spider-Man. Garfield also had the playful sense of humor as Spider-Man that was needed for his jokes, especially since he is wearing a skin-tight red and blue leotard. There was a drastic difference in Garfield's abilities after he was bitten by the spider, although the depiction of Garfield's spider-sense was barely noticeable. My favorite Spider-Man scenes - aside from his continually gagging people with his webbing - was the scene where he was caught by the police, and he used his kick-ass spider powers to escape. Unfortunately, the spider-sense Parker/Garfield has just makes it seem like Parker/Garfield only has extremely fast reflexes, instead of reacting to danger.

Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy was not just a damsel in distress, but a smart and kick ass lady who falls in love with Parker/Garfield. Denis Leary was great as Stone's father, police Captain Stacy. In fact an old friend of Leary's thought, when he first met Leary, "I thought you  were George Stacy!" Stacy/Leary is determined to go after the masked vigilante Spider-Man - although Stone's and Leary's relationship with Spider-Man was reversed in the movie as compared to the comics. Leary's and Garfield's dinner scene debating their vigilante beliefs showed their passions on what they believe is right. This was one of my favorite scenes as it shows their diametric beliefs and stresses one of the major themes of the movie.

Martin Sheen was great and well cast as the loving Uncle Ben, as well as Sally Field being great as the loving Aunt May, although Field was not the frail, invalid that Aunt May is typically being known for. May/Field continually coming across Parker/Garfield who is all beat up and not wondering why he is always hurt like that after being such a loving surrogate mother to him was unrealistic to me. Such a lack of confrontation from his "parent" about Garfield always getting beat up while he is out being Spider-man had lessened the dramatic impact of Parker/Garfield's family home life to me. As it is, Field did not seem to me like she was taking care of Garfield like the parent of a high school teenager. Rhys Ifans as the one-armed Dr. Connors was nice enough as Connors but, without his family from the comics supporting him, Connors loses a lot of his characterization and sympathy - especially when Connors is forced to develop a cure for his gravely ill boss, Norman Osborn.

The effects and makeup of the villain, The Lizard, were good - although I would rather not have had The Lizard with the capability of speech just so we can accentuate his bestiality. I think The Lizard would have been scarier without the ability to speak. The Lizard was motion-captured, so his movements were believable. Having Garfield feeling responsible for stopping the Lizard goes back to Garfield's guilt of letting Uncle Ben/Sheen die. It was great Ifans insisted on doing his own stuntwork in the movie. Garfield studied how spiders move, and as a result he looked much more believable as Spider-Man in his spider movements than in previous movies. The graphics for Spider-man's webbing from Garfield's web-shooters - of which science geek Garfield had developed - were much more believable in that they looked like webs and as a result, both Garfield's movements and his webbing looked much more like what was in the comic books. Garfield's web-swinging is more visual as well, like in the comics. Garfield's web-swinging gives the city and the movie more of a 3-D feel. The film's action scenes were also shot in 3-D, while the rest of the movie was converted from 2-D. As a result, the action scenes had things flying out at you - as well as the stunts being performed on rigs flying out at you - which made the action even more interesting as a 3-D movie and worth the price for 3-D for me. There was also a Spider-Man pin given out, while supplies last.

OzCorp's holographic security system, seemed very high-tech - until Garfield was able to copy the code. At my work, we have to have card and code in order to gain access to our building - and we are not in a high-tech security industry like at OzCorp - so the ease of Garfield breaking into OzCorp's security ruined any type of credibility with me. Having Stone using a security card at OzCorp seemed anachronistic and inconsistent in the movie compared to the high-tech graphic security locks, although the card and code adds more security to the system. I personally wonder how they are going to bring Norman Osborn into the series - because, as of right now, he is mysteriously ill. My guess is that some experiment to cure him will turn Norman Osborn into the Green Goblin, or maybe even the Hobgoblin. I would love to see a Green Goblin vs. Hobgoblin battle.

I did not recognize C. Thomas Howell as the father of the kid Spider-Man rescues, but Howell had a significant part for what is basically a walk-on role. For comic book fans, the cameo of Stan Lee is in the middle of the movie during a Lizard battle in the school library. The guy behind me was laughing very hard at this scene. He was obviously, like I am, a big fan of Stan the Man.

There is a scene in the middle of the end credits that hints more of the story for Parker's/Garfield's parents for the sequel.

Rated PG-13 for violence. Running time: 136 Minutes.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

Pancho's Movie Reviews