This review is probably going to be a mess of jumbled shit, so I'll start with the negatives, of which I can only think of a few. First is Talia/Miranda. Cotillard plays her well enough and she's the hottest thing ever to walk this earth, and I'm very glad she turns up and plays a pivotal part, but there's one thing wrong with her character and one thing that could be perceived as a fault by a few but I personally didn't have a problem with.
The second thing is that when Ra's visits Bruce in the flashback and Bruce hypothesises that he's Ra's son, everyone who knows who Talia is knows he's talking about Talia. For the wide audience they won't have a clue probably; my dad came out and was surprised because he doesn't know who Talia is. It's not really a problem for me though, more a happy knowing that she's coming.
The fault with her is the fuck session she and Bruce have. They meet once or twice before, and all of a sudden they're fucking and planning to run away together. I still think you could have had the impact of her betrayal without obligatory sex scene. It's shoehorned in and just comes off as a little cringe. Literally, lose 3 minutes of the movie that is dedicated to this scene and you lose nothing whatsoever.
Thematically it's good but the whole Occupy Gotham thing isn't so much Occupy Gotham. I know they all say a citizen being the triggerman is a smokescreen but how Bane is liberating them I don't know. Just tell the fuckers you're going to kill them all. I keep seeing a lot of reviews saying how Bane stands for the smaller man, but he doesn't. It's merely illusion, and while its good the reviews don't give anything away, a lot of the liberation speech from Bane seems a tad unnecessary when he seems the type to want to tell people they're going to die at his hands. How he dealt with Dr Pavel was awesome though, and lol at the Mayor getting killed.
The other flaws are small; one or two parts early on where the editing feels a little disjointed (although not as much as TDK), one or two where Bane's voice seems overly loud as to combat the criticisms, and off the top of my head that's it really. I kind of wish Fox had drowned or Gordon had died so there was a bit more emotional resonance, but meh. It's grandiose, operatic, huge scale film making, and I don't think its right to say Nolan's ambition is bigger than he can handle. He handles it with aplomb. I'm sure I'll find more faults on later viewings, but by and large it was incredible.
Bale is as good as he was in BB for large stretches of the film. The best section of the whole trilogy is the first 45 minutes of Begins until Falcone is chained to the skylight and a lot of why that works is because of Bale. The conversations with Alfred, the dance with Selina and Bruce in the prison are as strong as he's been at any part of the trilogy. And when he is seen, happy with Selina, and smiles? It's brilliant. A lovely ending.
Caine is at his best here, no doubt. The part when he's breaking up at Bruce's grave is very sad, especially when I was so dragged along by the film that I believed Bruce to be dead.
Oldman is great again, he was underused in BB until the climax where I thought they used him a little clownishly, but in both TDK and this he really steps it up. He just exudes this sense of authority, good will (despite the lie about Dent, which I was happy JGL at least called him out on; it strengthens his character, plus we also got more Bane speech) and strength. He's the perfect Jim Gordon.
Freeman is Freeman. Dependable, but he's once again playing Morgan Freeman. I wish he'd drowned so that there was more dramatic resonance. I don't know why I hate Morgan Freeman.
Loved seeing Neeson again but wish it hadn't been so brief. Another minute or two would have been lovely. Murphy as well in a short role was good, but it would have been nice to a) have him dressed as Scarecrow and b) have a resolution to the character.
Hathaway is just fantastic. The switches from timid to exuberant confidence, the fighting, her facial expressions; she's as sexy a character as she is looks wise. She's funny, intelligent... The Nolans really nailed her character. Her scene with Bruce at the charity ball is fantastic, her scene handing over the finger prints and pretending to be hysterical is great, the attraction between her and Bruce I thought was depicted very well as opposed to his with Miralia. Honestly, a brilliant performance, probably joint with Bale for me.
Hardy was also fantastic. No, he's not the Joker. But he's working with a character with a tiny portion of the iconic status and fucking nailing it. His body language and expressions are just great. Like I said he's a little loud in places but I love how overconfident he is, how he rattles off speeches and commits grand gestures. He really utilises theatricality like both Ra's and Joker before him. TDK still has the best villains - Joker and Harvey are a little ahead of Ra's and Bane - but it's the weaker film because it's villains overshadow the rest of the film. Bale, JGL and Hathaway are the best characters in TDKR, but that's not to say Hardy is anywhere near bad. He's fantastic. His death scene is great as well, the emotion in his eyes when Talia is speaking, when he knows Bruce has defeated him... and then resorting to a gun to finish Bruce off is brilliant, loved that little touch of accepting he won't win at hand to hand. And BOOM Selina blows him the fuck away. Loved it. He wasn't a man deserving of a grand death, the way the fucker went was good. Fantastic character though, I've been quoting him all day.
JGL is brilliant. All the way through I really liked his character, and then even when he says Robin I didn't panic. I didn't think he'd show up in a lovely little red tunic, I just knew that was a funny little in joke. But after the final scene, you get that it's not about 'LOL MUSCLY BALE AND NOW JGL?'. It's about creating a symbol and what it represents. Fuck being a huge muscle, he shows agility and fighting skills. He'd be very good in a Batman Beyond role, but having him as the next Batman in my imagination is fine. Nolan's done a perfect job of creating a world where the implication of what happens next doesn't ever need to be seen. You know that Batman exists; it doesn't matter who is behind the mask, just that he's there.
My favourite scene in the film is a toss up between a few : the fight between Bane and Bats is incredible. Nolan pulled off a fucking master stroke not having any music. I winced a few times when you can hear every crunch and thud. Nolan's also stepped up his action directing, I could see everything that was going on then and in the climactic battle.
Along with that the whole mythology about Bane and Talia was just fantastic; it really used some of the less real parts of the universe but kept it grounded. Every scene with Bruce and Alfred was great, and the dance scene between Bruce and Selina was brilliant. They've got fantastic chemistry.
The last half hour or so as a whole is just great, from when Batman returns on the ice. It just keeps amping it up.
The score, incredible. The remix of Molossus on Batman's initial return got me very excited, the choir boy return from Bruce's parents death was heartbreaking. It's probably a little loud in places but it does a very good job of keeping things intense.
Pfister pulls off some great work. I need to see it in IMAX to see the full scope of it but it looks great. The sweeping shots of Gotham with all the bridges out were just brilliant, the saturated colours of Gotham after Bane takes control, the football stadium scene was vibrant.
Nolan just doesn't really put many feet wrong throughout the whole trilogy for me. I'm so glad that a trilogy of films has come out with one of my favourite characters that finalises a story. It doesn't leave me wanting more, it just made me ecstatic that Nolan's Bruce is happy, free of Batman, that he hasn't tarnished his reputation and that it'll stay like that, you know? He hasn't said 'we'll see', I'm not left with any reservations. It was incredible. There's a few things wrong with BB; the second half isn't fantastic, Gordon's a bit of a buffoon in it, Holmes isn't great. TDK has pacing problems, a few stretches where the action seems a bit unnecessary, Gyllenhaal not being very good. For this, the only problem I really had was the love scene.
Critics saying 'there's a great 90 min movie in there'... I don't get it. You could say it for TDK (which I don't think many critics have rewatched; I love it but for someone to call it perfect is mad. The editing and pacing is a lot more noticeable than it was here) but I can't think of one thing save Bruce and Talia fucking that could be redundant.
It also fucks me off when people are still saying a film about a giant bat is too serious. It's the third of the trilogy, and the giant bat is running around saving people from nuclear bombs. Who laughs in that situation? You either buy into the universe of the film or you don't, and if you don't that's your problem. In the end, The Godfather or Lawrence of Arabia or TDKR are all people running around fucking acting. It's a film. Buy into what it's trying to do for the duration of the time you're there. If in real life someone doesn't run around as a giant bat, that's fine. If in that universe people have accepted it for 8 years and want that giant bat to come and save them from a terrorist attack, just fucking accept it.
For me, I'd give all 3 films 4/4. But TDKR is better than TDK, and it's a hard one to judge against BB. BB's first half is superior than anything else in the whole trilogy. But as a whole, TDKR might just beat it.
Am seeing it again Monday and will probably see it in LieMAX sometime next week as well. But yeah, brilliant.
