The Dark Knight Rises

So one last post on this long-dormant blog: a quick, spoiler-free review of The Dark Knight Rises:

It is very good. It's somewhat doomed, like Return of the Jedi, by being the third part of a trilogy where the previous chapters were cultural phenomenons and the third one was "just" a well-crafted and enjoyable film. There were no Ewoks or anything, I think, for fans to criticize for years to come, but I think the death of Heath Ledger and the magic of his performance as the Joker left a hole in the series that no one could completely fill. But the movie only suffers from the bar having been set so high. It really was a damn good movie.

Anne Hathaway's Catwoman is great. Sexy (but not oversexed), smart, strong, and cunning, with a warped sense of ethics but not exactly evil. Other than maybe wanting a little more from her, it's everything I could want from Catwoman.

Tom Hardy was quite good as Bane. I find characters whose mouths are covered can sometimes take you out of the reality of the movie. In movies, when you hear a voice but don't see their lips move, we're usually hearing a character's narration. But that's everything Bane says, we never see his lips move. It creates a disconnect for me. I had the same problem with the Green Goblin in the first Spider-Man. It doesn't seem to be an issue for everyone, but that took away from it a bit for me. But Tom Hardy bulked up nicely and was entirely believable as someone who could take Batman in a fight, but also the brains and charisma to make big plans and get an army to follow him.

In addition to pulling in elements from the first two movies, The Dark Knight Rises drew on some classic Batman comic books for inspiration. For anyone interested in further reading:

• Knightfall was the first major Bane story and the one every comic fan associates with the character. The first part of Knightfall focuses on Bane and his quest to, as he puts it, "break the Bat," and it is quite exciting. The next two parts are not very good, feature a character (John Paul Valley, aka Azreal) that is widely disliked, and I do not recommend them.
• No Man's Land is a sprawling event that takes place after a massive earthquake decimates Gotham. The damage is so great and the potential repairs so staggeringly expensive that Gotham is evacuated and closed off, but not everyone can get out. And most of its criminals don't want to leave.
• The Dark Knight Returns is one of the most popular and critically acclaimed comics of all time, and tells the story of an older Bruce Wayne, long retired from costumed crimefighting, forced to don the cape and cowl again when Gotham becomes overrun by both his old nemeses and a new gang.

Done

Just in case it wasn't obvious from the lack of updates, I'm done here. All the Dark Knight Rises news is too filled with spoilers for me to keep up with. Thanks for reading, and here's hoping we can all stand the wait until July of 2012.

Official Website Live

The official website for The Dark Knight Rises is now live. Internet detectives put together clues (io9 explains how, vaguely) to get the above picture, which seems to be Tom Hardy as Bane (and I like it).

Also, principal photography has officially started, so there's that too.

Only 14 months to go!

Evil Scientist

Alon Aboutboul will be playing an "Evil Scientist" in The Dark Knight Rises. This has people speculating it might be Hugo Strange, but there's no real reason to assume that.

You may have also seen some other news about a picture from the set in India that seems to reveal some plot details, but I'm not going to post that, since it's too much of a potential spoiler. In fact, I'm pretty close to checking out of posting entirely, since until the trailer, there won't be much worth posting that isn't a spoiler.

News & Notes

Here are some odds and ends that didn't seem important enough to post on their own:

• Above is the first picture of Tom Hardy on set. I'm sure it will be a while before we see his Bane costume.
• Add India to the list of filming locations.
• Joseph Gordon-Levitt is playing a character named John Blake, who I, and most people, had never heard of. But it turns out there is a John Blake from the comics. He's not exactly a major character, but hey, it's something.
• Batman: Year One is coming soon as a direct-to-disc animated film, with Bryan Cranston, Katee Sackhoff, Eliza Dushku and more contributing voices.
• After Year One, The Dark Knight Returns will be adapted next. Hopefully it will be as cool as this scene from the 1990s animated series.
• And a fan-made trailer combining footage from the Batman movies, Inception, The Machinist, and I think there was an American Psycho shot in there, produces something different and cool. It probably has spoilers for The Machinist, so I'd avoid it if you intend to see that (super skinny Christian Bale is impressive but unsettling). Anyway, here it is.

The Entire Cast of Inception, Eventually

The casting of Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Marion Cotillard in The Dark Knight Rises was made official, with the roles announced as names we've never seen before:

Cotillard will appear as Miranda Tate, a Wayne Enterprises board member eager to help a still-grieving Bruce Wayne resume his father’s philanthropic endeavors for Gotham. Gordon-Levitt will play John Blake, a Gotham City beat cop assigned to special duty under the command of Commissioner Gordon.

But remember that going into Batman Begins, we all thought Ken Watanabe was playing Ra's al Ghul and Liam Neeson was Henri Ducard, so the door is still open for Black Mask or Talia al Ghul.

The Cast Grows Larger

Variety is reporting three new additions to the Dark Knight Rises cast: Daniel Sunjata (pictured) best known for Rescue Me, Diego Klattenoff best known from the short-lived NBC series Mercy, and Burn Gorman from Torchwood. Read Variety's article if you're interested in incredibly vague descriptions of who the cops might be, but there's not much there.