First things first: major spoilers regarding Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises ahead*, so, there's a reason beside disinterest to not continue reading...
On Thursday last, I came down with a horrible case of Bane Mouth and had to call out of work...what excellent luck that it cleared up right before I headed out to see the Dark Knight trilogy at 34th street's fake IMAX** theater with Jay and Paul and Steve and Jose.
All of whom you don't know but are, nonetheless, real.
I was going to show up at 3pm, but actually found myself tittering with excitement in the shower at about 1:30, so I got out and showed up at 2...right behind ten people and Jay.
About ten minutes later, Steve showed up and, after reading a sign, discovered that we were standing in the line for the Bourne Legacy screening (which, oddly enough, I had turned down an invite to earlier that week) happening at the same theater.
He lead us to the correct line where we were still about ten or fifteen people back.
We stood there and geeked our fucking balls off until about 5pm, when, just as those horrifying isolated thunderstorms were beginning...we were let in.
Guys...we were handed posters...and lanyards.
I worn mine for about five minutes and then took it off, feeling as though I had gone too far.
I'm not kidding, even I have limits.
Then I somehow managed to eat a whole burrito with only a dozen or so grains of rice spilled***, which made me very proud in a way I haven't felt in, literally, decades.
There was more talking and then the (totally gayballs) "IMAX calibration sequence" began.
I have seen ONE other film in IMAX: the re-release of The Exorcist whenever that was...I was in college I think...and, after seeing these three movies in IMAX, I will never see anything in IMAX again.
It was loud to the point of parody. Each footstep was a gunshot, each gunshot was an apocalypse and each explosion was instant anal prolapse.
The upside of anal prolapse is that it can only happen once.
Trying to understand Batman's growl-screaming-through-stuffed-sinuses-with-a mouth-full-of-rock-choked-mud and Bane's ball-gag-made-of-live-rabbits-German?-tinged-yawn-thunder was hard enough without all the music and sound effects turned up to "Go Fuck Yourself If You Can't Hear Shit".
Anyway, the trailers came on, the only one of which held any interest for me was the "exclusive" Skyfall extended trailer...which made me wish, for just...one...second that I was about to see that instead...but then...Batman Begins...begans...or did it?
No, it did not.
Now, I've only seen Begins a handful of times, maybe five, maybe less, but something felt...off...a moment later, I knew why: the lackwit in the booth pushing buttons...pushed the wrong button...and The Dark Knight Rises began to play...at 6pm on Thursday.
At first, people seemed upset...but then they kind of got quiet...because we were about to see the new, final Batman movie we'd been waiting for since one second after The Dark Knight ended in 2008 a whole six hours early...which I was totally fine with because I had a VO booked for the next morning at 9:15.
But, right around the time Bane was causing a ruckus in the airplane, it stopped.
The reaction was mixed.
Then, well, they showed Batman Begins and, after a thirty minute break or so, The Dark Knight.
And they were the excellent movies they've always been, except for the are-you-really-sure-this-should-be-this-loud-there's-blood-coming-from-my-nose-mouth-ears-and-dickhead IMAX sound pummeling.
Also, I'll admit, I was getting antsy and tired.
I have NO earthly idea how those freaks did the Avengers marathon (five 2+ hour movies PLUS the two and a half hour Avengers flick) or those Oscar marathons, but after two movies, I was ready to leave.
Then, they ran the trailers again and the movie finally started.
Hm...what to say that hasn't been said already...
Well, it, in no way, topped Dark Knight. Liam Neeson is great and Tom Hardy was great as well, but I could not take my eyes off the screen when Heath Ledger was on it.
I was so convinced that Nolan would have found a way to trump himself, but, he didn't. I mean, the scope was bigger, and the tying in of the first two movies was very well done, but I wanted this to make me forget about Dark Knight...not that I wanted to forget it, I wanted to be made to forget it, dig?
Anne Hathaway did all right, I suppose, but I really have trouble seeing her as this generation's Grace Kelly...could someone maybe point me at something amazing that she's done to earn this auspicious title? I mean, her boob was pretty cool for those ten seconds in Havoc, but Grace Kelly?!
Bane turned out very nicely, although turning up his garbled voice is really not the same thing as having him re-record it. I saw in an interview that Tom Hardy based Bane's voice on a gypsy bare-knuckle boxer named Bartley Gorman, the character's intelligence...and hiss Caribbean background.
No.
No no no, he sounds German.
German is how he sounds.
Except for the times when he sounds like Sean Connery ("Come now, Doctor...thish is not the time for fea-ah...that comsh latah...").
Oh, and when he picked up the microphone at the stadium?
Guys, insult to injury, can we get some fucking subtitles please.
The first time I saw the film (partially because of the goddamn IMAX ear-fucking), I did not catch everything Bane said, but, after seeing it for a second time on Sunday with Jen and Chris, I got everything except for the second to last thing he says to Dagget before whatever horrible thing he does to him off screen because this is PG-13 and we don't want to scare anybody.
"I am here to rumble tummy rugby rhubarb watermelon guggle tup" is what I think he said.
Also, at times, although the movie is one hundred and sixty five minutes long, I felt like stuff was missing...for instance, the way the bomb goes from 23 days to 18 hours to 12 hours to 11 minutes in a matter of, what, ten real time minutes?
And, how did Bruce Wayne get back from the prison to Gotham, how did he into Gotham and how did he know everything that was going on with the bomb while he was away?
My biggest problem with The Dark Knight Rises actually had nothing to do with the cast or crew of DKR...is had to do with that tubby pothead fuck, Kevin Smith.
Back in mid 2011, casting news for Rises came to light.
Now, announcing Tom Hardy as Bane gives away that the villain (or a villain, in any case) will be Bane.
Announcing that Liam Neeson will be in the movie could mean one thing or another (flashback, hallucination, that he is Ra's Al Ghul, the immortal Demon's Head!!!!, whatever).
But.
When Smith and his equally fuckfaced companion announced on their podcast that Marion Cotillard was cast as Miranda Tate...but that she was really playing Talia Al Ghul...well, fuck!
I have no problem with announcing casting news, this is one of the most anticipated movies of all time and casting news and set photo speculation is all part of the enjoyment for some people, but, fucking shit in a teapot CALL SPOILERS!!! I'm looking forward to the film, I don't want to know things that will potentially ruin the plot for me, which is, by the by, exactly what these idiots did.
At first, I tried to forget.
One more time: I tried to forget...which, any neurologist will tell you is physically IMPOSSIBLE.
DON'T THINK ABOUT MY HUGE PENIS.
See?
Doesn't work.
So, once I gave up trying to forget that this woman happens to be the grieving daughter of Batman's first and greatest enemy whose ultimate plan is to destroy him and the city he has sworn to protect...I tried to hope that this would be revealed early on, maybe...in the first three minutes of the film? Like, in a flashback, her and her father are sitting somewhere (maybe on that same patch of ice Ra's and Bruce fought on), and he tells her:
RA'S AL GHUL: Daughter, my daughter, Talia, for that is your name, Talia Al Ghul, the daughter of Ra's-
TALIA AL GHUL: Yes, father, I get it, I'm your daughter.
RA'S AL GHUL: Yes, of course, sometimes I forget...if anything should ever happen to me...like dying in a train wreck caused by some billionaire who is also a bat man...avenge me by becoming a socialite and then blah blah blah...whatever.
But that didn't happen.
(Also: it's pronounced "raysch", not "razz". It's in the comics, it's in Batman: The Animated Series and, in Batman Beyond, they actually address the fact that it is not pronounced "razz", so I don't know if it was one of the Nolan's or that no one wanted to correct Liam Neeson, but...yeah, "raysch", not "razz". Please continue.)
What happened was, from the moment she first appeared on the screen, I was 100,000% completely aware that she was secretly working against Bruce Wayne AND Batman. So, every time Bruce entrusted her with something important I cringed.
"I want you to take care of my company" (fuck)
"I want to get naked in front of you" (goddamn it!)
"I want you to be in control of my god damn nuclear bomb machine hidden under the fucking city." (fucking WHAT?!)
And, all the while, I'm looking for something in the film that would give her away so I can start enjoying this movie as it should be, but NO (except for that part with the scar on her shoulder...sort of), not until, literally, 97% of the way through the film, when she takes off her mask and goes, "Ah ha! I am not who you thought I was! I am, in reality--"
Yes, yes, do shut up, Marion.
So, because of that, a lot of this film was ruined for me.
I like being surprised (even if this wasn't the biggest surprise in the history of cinema) and these dickless cockhounds ruined it for me OVER HALF A YEAR BEFORE THE FILM CAME OUT.
More gripes: the way Nolan wrapped/set everything up? Bitter fucking sweet.
If he had said, look, I'll make another Batman movie in ten years, I would have been okay with setting Gordon Levitt up as the new Batman, but this is it. They're rebooting the goddamn franchise in something like a year, this world is finished.
That's just cruel.
Yes, it was an amazing ending, but...cruel.
Okay, enough bitching, how about what I liked?
A lot.
I actually got chills when Bane uttered those magic words, "I will break you", and then snapped Batman over his knee.
Amazing.
The scene where Bane makes his way above ground while a fucking child is singing the National Anthem right before Bane destroys everything...in New York City?! Are you kidding me?! Mr. Nolan...you have pushed alll the right buttons, you horrible bastard.
In. Sane.
Oh, and bringing Scarecrow back as the judge was pretty inspired, although I would have loved to see Zsasz come back...he is one of those characters you really can't soften up for animated shows or even PG-13 movies...he kills people and then cuts himself to keep track.
I mean...fuck, he very well may be the darkest Batman villain out there, and the simplest.
We see him at the beginning of Begins getting released into Crane's custody and then again threatening Katie Holmes and that annoying kid when all hell breaks loose; in fact, if you look closely, you can see, when he turns his head away from the camera, a whole bunch of fresh looking scars on the side and back of his neck.
THAT...is what...I am talking...about.
But, badgers can't be choosers and all that.
Al in all, it was a great wrap up to the trilogy, tying everything together beautifully. Was it as perfectly standalone as Dark Knight, but, honestly, can anyone suggest something that would have topped that without it sounding ridiculous?
If so, I'll direct it.
All right, there it is: my completely disorganized bitchfest pertaining to the Dark Knight trilogy.
Note: After speaking with my friend Will who pointed out a basket full of additional plot holes and reading this article from Kotaku, I must admit, the film is harder to enjoy, but, hey...he's Batman.
*I am going to fuckrant my bowels out soon regarding spoilers, their importance and why they're fucking called spoilers.
**Not not NOT to ever be confused with XMAX.
***I haven't actually seen the movie yet, I'm just seeing how much minutiae I can get you to read before you stop-- oops, there you go...
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