Saturday, July 21, 2012

Dark Knight Rises

Went to see it last night.  It opened at the Jax Jr last midnight, so Friday night was the first showing for ordinary people, as opposed to true fans who stayed up to see it at midnight.  Place was full.  There was a line at the ticket window an hour before showtime. 
   It's long (2.5 hours).  It's loud, Dolby 7.1.  The villain's voice was amped up and reached every corner of the theater.  Lots of explosions, car chases, fist fights and fireworks.  Poor Batman, a lot of very bad things happen to him during the movie.  Lot of bad things happen to Gotham too.  The movie is a duel to the death between Batman and Bane, a big beefy weight lifter type villain who carries automatic weapons and does little other than straight forward violence against every body and every thing.   No subtle plots or clever humor in Bane, he is into bashing, pure and simple.  He is so dangerous that it looks like he is winning, right up to the very end, despite the strong comic book tradition of  "the good guys win in the end"
   The movie picks up where the last one (the one with Heath Ledger as the Joker)  left off.  Harvey Dent has been made into a hero, Batman is blamed for Harvey's crimes.  We have a very nice Catwoman, an attractive New York cop named Blake, some adorable orphans.  Michael Caine is back as Alfred. 
  It was OK, but unless you are a true fan, like my children, you could wait for it to come out on DVD.  The awful things that happen to Batman and Gotham are depressing downers.

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