Great reviews flooding in for The Dark Knight Rises

[Ruby2]

It was pretty good. Not as enjoyable as Dark Knight, but that would have been hard to do.

It was kind of annoying being only able to half hear what the Bane guy was saying.

My favorite parts of the movie where the aerial shots of NYC, simply awesome... Hienz field being set in NYC was pretty funny and being a football and NYC purist was kind of annoying to me.

[Ruby2]

Originally Posted by SAR I

I couldn't understand a word he was saying anyway, was just a grumpy guy grumbling and mumbling through a lawn mower.

Some other things I hated:

"Cue the orphans! Let's get some orphans on the bridge. Star Wars, remember? We're up against George Lucas' Ewoks from his awful series-ender, gotta beat that!"

"Better include a scene where an estate-liquidator tells Future Boy Wonder that the name 'Robin' is really a nice name, gotta assume that 1% of the audience has never heard the 'and Robin' part!"

"Let's make sure no less than 10 people know Batman's secret identity, that'll really confuse the sh-t out of 'em!"

"Let's make sure that there's a magic tablet that can transfer billions of dollars to the bad guys and make sure that all of the engineers making Bruce Wayne's sexy flying technology and atomic particle smashers can't hack his money back to him while instead giving him a magic thumb-drive that can erase Google history!"

"I really like The Shawshank Redemption, don't you? How about we pull the old "look under the black rock" routine, have Alfred wish he'd run into Bruce Wayne in a cafe in Paris when everyone thinks he's disappeared. Pity we can't work in the Rita Hayworth poster, damn. Where is Zihuatanejo? Is it in France?"

"We forgot Raiders of the Lost Ark! How about we play 'Don't Break The Ice' in the Hudson River and 'Ascend The Illusional Desert Silo' to emulate the Ark bridge and Well of Souls scenes in one shot!"

SAR I

I liked the movie, but these are legit criticisms. To much unbelievable stuff. Wayne going broke was so dumb.

[chirorob]

My #1 basic problem

SPOILER ALERT AGAIN

The girl who stabs batman is batman's age, give or take a few years. Bane was her protector. Bane has to be at least 10 years older than she was. Bane is supposed to be younger, stronger than Batman.

Real bad math problem.

Bruce going broke. Hmmmm. There was a huge robbery at the Stock Exchange. At that exact same time, Bruce Wayne used his fingerprints at the Exchange to conduct massive business, costing him his entire fortune. And no one thought to contact an attorney that maybe this was fraud?

[AlwaysGreenAlwaysWhite]

Originally Posted by chirorob

Bruce going broke. Hmmmm. There was a huge robbery at the Stock Exchange. At that exact same time, Bruce Wayne used his fingerprints at the Exchange to conduct massive business, costing him his entire fortune. And no one thought to contact an attorney that maybe this was fraud?

Minor plot hole but they addressed it when Fox said they could clear it up but it would take a bit...

[Dirtstar]

Originally Posted by AlwaysGreenAlwaysWhite

Minor plot hole but they addressed it when Fox said they could clear it up but it would take a bit...

bingo.

if not for the issue that Wayne had been in seclusion for years, the company itself wasn't doing great and rival Daggett was trying to stage a coup at the Board level, they probably could've waited it out a few days/weeks to clear up any fraud issues.

but then again, i have a problem when people say that something in a superhero movie comes across as unrealistic...

i'm like REALLY??? which part? the one where the multibillionaire playboy is actually a masked vigilante who flies around town in military prototypes and beats the toughest criminals to a pulp with his bare hands?? oh no, that didn't bother you?? oh, um. ok... oh the phony wire transfer?? now THAT was ridiculous!!



bottom line: the movie was awesome, a more than worthy sequel to TDK, considering the whole ending to the trilogy had to be reinvented after Ledger's death. Bane was an awesome villain deserving of a more epic death (my only criticism of the movie), Hathaway pulled off a great Catwoman, and Bale/Oldman/Caine/etc were their usual excellent selves.

[AlwaysGreenAlwaysWhite]

^^^

That guy gets it.

[JStokes]

Originally Posted by Dirtstar

but then again, i have a problem when people say that something in a superhero movie comes across as unrealistic...

LOL, so crazy, yet so true.

Saw Deja Vu a few years back with the GF, and at one point Denzel is handcuffed to the steering wheel of a car that careens off a bridge into the water, and as the car starts to sink into the abyss, Denzel pulls really hard and pulls the steering wheel off the steering column and kicks to the surface.

So we come out of the movie and the GF has a troubled look on her face and when I question her, she says "There is NO way he pulled that steering wheel off the car--nobody can do that, it's just too unbelievable".

So I look at her perplexed and say "So....the time machine allowing you to go back in time and use a camera that filmed everything that happened from every angle imaginable to figure out who the killer was ok--yet it was the steering wheel that was the unbelievable part? Really?"



_

[Joe W. Namath]

It was a good movie. The one with the joker was 10x better. So if you are going to compare it to that, your going to be disappointed. But as its own movie, it was pretty good.

[Ruby2]

Heinz Field being set in NYC didn't bug anyone else?

[chirorob]

Originally Posted by Ruby2

Heinz Field being set in NYC didn't bug anyone else?

Since the Jets didn't want one there some one might as well put one there.

[JStokes]

Originally Posted by Ruby2

Heinz Field being set in NYC didn't bug anyone else?

It was set in Gotham.



_

[Warfish]

Originally Posted by JStokes

LOL, so crazy, yet so true.

Saw Deja Vu a few years back with the GF, and at one point Denzel is handcuffed to the steering wheel of a car that careens off a bridge into the water, and as the car starts to sink into the abyss, Denzel pulls really hard and pulls the steering wheel off the steering column and kicks to the surface.

So we come out of the movie and the GF has a troubled look on her face and when I question her, she says "There is NO way he pulled that steering wheel off the car--nobody can do that, it's just too unbelievable".

So I look at her perplexed and say "So....the time machine allowing you to go back in time and use a camera that filmed everything that happened from every angle imaginable to figure out who the killer was ok--yet it was the steering wheel that was the unbelievable part? Really?"



_

Suspension of Disbelief.

The contract between the viewer and the filmmaker/writer.

The problem is not "belief in the Super Hero", that suspension of disbelief is part of the inherent contract the viewer agrees to when he/she goes to see such films. We Sci-Fi folks know it well.

The trouble lies in every over-the-top unrealistic scene or action of dialogue that occurs outside the core assumption/suspension of disbelief. Too many, too obviously, and the film is a bad work.

It's no defense to a fantasy film of any genre to say "Well, you believed in the Super Hero/Space Ship/Alien, but you can't believe the Super Dog with Red Cape who flew in at the end doing stand up comedy and saved everyone with it's magic paw prints of death??? You dumb!”

Being mindful to not throw in too many utterly unrealistic elements, or said better, elements inconsistent with the prime core suspension of disbelief and human nature/ability, is the job of the writer and filmmaker, as too many and the weight of disbelief comes crashing down, ruining the entire piece.

In a way, it's a lot like an old adage of Stephen King, about showing the audience the "Monster". Keep it hidden, and it's easier to suspend your disbelief....but once you show it, and it's a dude in a runner suit, the weight of that suspension of disbelief becomes too much, crushing the tale right then and there. Film has a far harder time with this than writers.

So I completely get the complaints. May or may not agree, but in this genre, it is something that must always be watched for.

Another good example is the film Prometheus. It's big downfall, IMO, from its potential was a crew that acted almost 100% unlike an actual group of human beings would have in that situation. The second they landed, and go barging out, tossing helmets and security aside like loose threads, was the second my suspension of disbelief took a huge hit and I went "wtf???". And thats before we get to the main girl's "has a squid ripped out five seconds ago, now I'm running as if it never happened" lolfest.

I could but the Aliens and the Premise. I could not IN ADDITION buy into a space crew full of highly trained mercenary pros acting like a group of 5th graders who acted like total morons all down the line.