- Captain Richards
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- Fabled Member
'Κύριε Ἰησοῦ Χριστέ, Υἱὲ τοῦ Θεοῦ, ἐλέησόν με τὸν ἁμαρτωλόν.'
So last night we got it on DVD and I watched it with my brother, and, I have to admit, I was highly disappointed with it. So now I will give my official criticism and feedback of the film.
Right from the get-go I noticed some rather silly elements in this film. First, notice Bain's voice. That alone right there nearly killed the whole character. The voice does not match the character AT ALL. In fact, it actually sounds funny and stupid. Bain is a violent, terroristic nihilist with brute strength, but you give him a voice like 'Darth Vader' with a British accent. What gives?
Secondly, the plot was horrible. You would think for being like 3 hours long it would be good and indepth, but it wasn't. The plotline just doesn't "flow" smoothly if you know what I mean--we never learn how exactly Bain was able to raise an entire army under the sewers in such short time. At one moment, Bane is just a petty thug, while ten minutes later, he is a Marxist revolutionary who took over the whole city. Don't get me wrong, it was very great and theatric how the city was engulfed in utter chaos, but I think that it all came too fast--there was not enough emphasis on the events which led to the city being overtaken. This could have been easily fixed if the writers would just have went into more details about Bane's plot--but they didn't.
Secondly, not only does the plot fail to be elaborate on its main event, but it also includes several mini-events that are sort of irrelevent to the main course of events. We see this police-officer (Robin) who just gets tired of following the rules, and oddly, has barely any interaction with the Batman at all. The Catwoman was pretty much unneeded for the film and was only added as a cheap romantic-interest filler it seems--plus, the few scenes in which we see her are irrelevent as well. We don't need to see Catwoman getting herself stuck in dangerous business deals. This all just makes the film drag on and be boring. People want simple and concise, but intense and dramatic plotlines in films that flow smoothly and everything goes along. Take the predeccessor for example--The Dark Knight--that film had MUCH better plot development. Pretty much every event you saw in that film was related to the main course of events in one way or another, all of the events naturally followed previous events and together it made for one simple, concise, yet intense and amazing plotline.
But not on this film. It was boring, dragged on for way too long, the plot developed horribly. One moment Bane is just a thug, the next moment he controls the town, we see boring irrelevent events like the Robin plotline or Catwoman scenes. And here is the icing on the cake.
WHERE WAS BATMAN? The main protoganist of the film barely occupied like 35-45 minutes of the screen and was absent for the other 2 hours and 15 minutes of the film. He was barely in the film. We only see Batman once around the beginning, then he gets his ass kicked and broken by Bane, and then he goes AWOL until around the very end of the movie. His character development was also horrible, we just see the same repetitive depressed rich boy throughout the whole thing and barely any Batman. Surprisingly--being the main protoganist--the actor playing Batman had the weakest acting performance in the entire movie. I mean, he already got outshined by Ledger in the predecessor, and now he got outshined by pretty much everyone else in the entire film.
A few more final problems with the plotline. The whole twist at the end with Talia Al Ghul being the true villain was very clever--admittedly. But so overdone and cheesy! Some daughter trying to avenge her father. Boring. Countless films have followed in that direction. Likewise, Bane's death was horrible. You would think that him--after dominating the screen for most of the film--would have a more passionate or brutal death, but he just gets blown away in a split second by Catwoman and that's the end of him. Who the hell designed that part? Michael Bay? "Hurr hurr, cheap explosions make up for a lazy plot." Likewise, I mentioned earlier when this movie was still being made that I was upset over the decision to have Bane be the main antagonist, and I still stand by that view. Bane just does not have it in him to make for a good antagonist in my eyes--he is more side-villain material. The reason is that Bane--by his very nature as a character--is just an overly violent brute. He does not possess the intelligence or personality to really be a primary villain. I personally would have went with the Penguin as the main antagonist and simply used Bane as an amazing side villain. I think that Bane and the Penguin would have had perfect chemistry for the film and would fit the current state of events in Gotham perfectly.
In the very end, I also do not like the right-wing political bias in the Dark Knight Rises. You would have to be stupid not to notice it. Bane is the personification of Marxism and the working-class/proleteriates (sp?), whereas Batman is the embodiment of Capitalism--the saviour of Capitalism. The violence erupting in Gotham is obviously supposed to represent a Marxist revolution. Hence the mock-trials where the rich bourgesie (sp?) are being tried and killed. Or when Bane says that it is "necessary evil" or something along those lines. In the very end, Marxism is demonized as the source of evil in the film, and the Capitalists are portrayed as the innocent, and Capitalism (Batman) ultimately prevails over Marxism (Bane).
Discuss.