Year: 2012
Director: Christopher Nolan
Writers: Jonathan Nolan
Christopher Nolan
Stars: Christian Bale
Michael Caine
Morgan Freeman
Anne Hathaway
For those who haven't seen it, this is supposedly Christopher Nolan's last Batman film. Kind of disappointing for those of us who how magnificently Nolan brought the Batman series back to life after the dismal "Batman and Robin". Whoever thought that George Clooney would make a good Batman and that Arnold Schwartzenegger would be able to act in that Mr. Freeze suit should be shot.
The basic premise of the film is that a supervillian named Bane, a former member of Ra's Al Ghul's League of Shadows from the first film, comes to Gotham to "finish" Al Ghul's work. This film also introduces Anne Hathaway as Catwoman. I'll tell you, i had my doubts about her as Catwoman until i rewatched the old Batman TV series from the sixties and became reaquainted with Julie Newmar's Catwoman. At that point, i thought 'if Hathaway plays Catwoman just like that, it'll work'. And she did. And it worked. I also appreciated that Bane was handled with respect and dignity. For those who don't follow the comics, Bane was a character in the nineties who broke Batman's back. For a year, while he recuperated, Bruce Wayne was NOT Batman. This led to probably the most interesting year in Batman's history. Bane was brought, luchadore mask and all, into "Batman and Robin" basically to carry Poison Ivy's luggage. In this film, they ditched the luchadore mask in favor of a mouthpiece.
THE GOOD: Overall, an excellent film. The story is great, the special effects rock, and the performances overall are very good. The film is just short of three hours long and you don't notice the time passing. Nolan brings the same bizarre touches to this film that he did to "Memento", "Inception" and the previous Batman films.
THE BAD: Let me start this section with a disclaimer: these are just little nit-picky problems that i had with the film. Nothing major. So if you want to skip this, fine. Okay, on to the picking of nits... I hated Batman's cape in this film. For some weird reason, they replaced the cape that they used in the previous two films with this black velveteen thing that doesn't hang or billow right. Because it's jet black, it also doesn't mesh well with Batman's costume, which is gray-black. They changed Bane's backstory slightly from the comics, and i would have liked to have known more about him. A good editor would have also trimmed about 30 minutes from the film without damaging it. They also missed a bet with Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who played a young cop who figured out Batman's secret identity. In the first film, Batman saved a young boy who had been gassed with the Scarecrow's fear gas, and Batman said "Don't be afraid" and the boy said "I'm not". This should have been Gordon-Levitt's character, and it wasn't.
THE UGLY: Christian Bale's heart didn't seem to be in this film. His performance didn't seem to be up to his usual excellent standards.
All in all an excellent film, well worth theater prices. They left the film open for sequels, but Nolan will be missed as director.
Peace.
Randal
