THE DARK KNIGHT RISES Review

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES Review

By Darin Skaggs

     I love a great film trilogy. The Lord of the Rings, Indiana Jones, Toy Story, The Man with No Name and the Original Star Wars trilogies are some of my favorites.  The history of film has shown that, despite the ones I’ve just named, it is hard to make a good trilogy.  Most of the time the biggest challenge of making a good film franchise is the addition of the third film, especially for superhero movies.  Examples of bad trilogies include films such as Spider-Man, X-Men and Alien.  So when I went to see Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises I was very nervous to see if it lived up to the hype of Nolan’s previous two amazing Batman films, Batman Begins and The Dark Knight.  Well I’m glad to say that Nolan’s Batman series can be added to the list of great film trilogies with the new inclusion of The Dark Knight Rises.

     Nolan’s new film takes place eight years after The Dark Knight in which Batman takes the blame for the crimes of Harvey Dent and becomes a fugitive.  The city of Gotham, because of Batman’s sacrifice, has significantly dropped in crime.  No one has seen Batman in years and Bruce Wayne, Batman’s true identity, has become somewhat of a hermit. Everything seems to be going fine in Gotham city until the villain, Bane shows up and starts causing mayhem around the city.  That’s when Bruce decides that it is time to bring back the Batman and stop Bane with help from an expert thief named Selina Kyle.

      The big star in The Dark Knight was the Joker. There were other good characters, but everybody left that film remembering him.  However When I left The Dark Knight Rises, I had many of the different characters roaming around in my head.  Kyle, who is also Catwomem though she is never called that in the film, is a really interesting and dynamic character.  Other characters from the previous films are given more to do, such as Fox, Alfred and even Scarecrow has a nice cameo in the film.  Bane, who throughout is merciless and is downright evil in his actions, becomes sympathetic near the end of the film.  The story of Bruce Wayne/Batman is explored to a great conclusion and brings his character back around to who he was in Batman Begins and who he has become. 

     None of these character’s arcs would be possible without the writing and especially the acting. Anne Hathaway, who as an actress I love, plays Kyle does a great job with the role.  Tom Hardy who plays Bane has restrictions because of the mask and can only act with his eyes and his posture. This is proven to work throughout the film, especially in the opening scene.  Christian Bale, who always did well in the role, as Bruce steps up his game. I would go as far to say that no one in this movie gives less than a good performance.  The best performance for me was Joseph Gordon-Levitt as cop turned detective, John Blake.  It is a hard thing to do, in the third film in a franchise to introduce a new character and give him an arc that is satisfying and also give all the other beloved characters satisfying conclusions as well, but the direction of Nolan and the acting of Gordon-Levitt make this possible.

     If you couldn’t already tell I love this film, but it is far from perfect.  In 2010 a similar issue took place with another Nolan film Inception.  This film was fairly popular with the film community despite being less than perfect and full of plot holes.  I did not enjoy Inception for that very reason.  I enjoy The Dark Knight Rises however despite its flaws because in Inception that was an imagined world with rules we were not familiar with and had to be learned from the movie.  I think the rules of the world were not explained very well and decreased the quality of the film.  The Dark Knight Rises however is set mostly in the reality that we live in. This helped me forgive all the plot holes and faults because I could find an answer for what was not explained unlike the dream world presented to me in Inception. 

     This film makes you feel so much, when you realize that Batman is out of his element you cringe at him when he is not getting the victory we are so used to him getting, which makes his victories much more glorious and well deserved.  The emotions get high when you realize what Bruce will do and all he has done for Gotham.  It even gets a little emotional with the story of Bane.  There are even a few nods for die hard Batman fans and Nolan brings the whole story back around from Batman Begins. 

Much like Joss Weadon’s Marvel’s The Avengers, Nolan made a superhero film that can speak to you on so many levels.  It’s fun, with great characters and makes you think.  Nolan has made a franchise that can be looked at more than just a few superheroes movies, he made great cinematic art.

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN Review

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN Review

By Darin Skaggs

     In the past there has seemed to be a new movie genre, the comic book superhero genre.  There were a few superhero movies in the past like in the late 1970’s with Superman and the late 1980’s with Tim Burton’s Batman films, but the genre never really took off until the past decade.  It all started with the X-Men franchise and the original Spider-Man movie.  Then it took off with other superhero films such as Iron Man, The Dark Knight and The Avengers.  Now, ten years later, we have our second attempt at the Spider-Man franchise with Marc Webb’s The Amazing Spider-Man.

     The story of Spider-Man mostly everyone knows.  A boy named Peter Parker, who lives with his Aunt and Uncle, is bitten by a radioactive spider and gains spider like super powers.  Then a villain, who usually starts out sane, becomes evil and endangers the city and it’s up to Parker to become Spider-Man and save the day.  The villain of the piece this time is Dr. Curt Conners, a one armed man who studies lizard DNA so he can find a way to grow missing limps.

     The film is new, but it basically tells the same origin story as the previous Spider-Man film and the villain in this film almost mirrors the original villain of the previous.  However the little changes that it makes in the story benefits it more and enhance the character of Peter Parker, not to mention Andrew Garfield’s acting is really enjoyable. 

     The acting in the film is a big highlight.  Everybody in this film does a great job at establishing their character and making them believable, especially Martin Sheen as Uncle Ben and Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy.

     This film is director Marc Webb’s second attempt at a feature length film, his previous attempt being the romantic comedy (500) Days of Summer, a film I enjoy quite a bit.  This is an odd choice for the studio to give this one time indie romance director a big comic book franchise.  Despite the odd choice in directors, Webb handles the material very well with fun action scenes and still adding a bit of romantic comedy material with Peter and Gwen.

     Even though I liked the film it has a few more problems. The origin story is great on its own and did not bother me that I saw it ten years ago.  The film takes so long on the beginning of Spider-Man and how he becomes familiar with his powers that when it gets to the climax of the story, it’s all over way too fast.  The fight between Spider-Man and Lizard is over way too quickly and the film lessens the character development of Dr. Conners becoming the evil Lizard.

I would say that this one is better then the first Spider-Man film. I think for someone a little younger or some who never saw the original this film would be a good, if not better, starting point for the Spider-Man series.  It’s not amazing as it advertises but I will not deny that it’s fun.

BRAVE Review

BRAVE Review

By Darin Skaggs

Often when a director makes several good films, filmgoers get on board with that filmmaker.  Then when a new one comes out they go and see the film no matter if they think it would be good or bad.  Examples of this for me are Paul Thomas Anderson, Steven Spielberg, Wes Anderson.  The film studio Pixar, even though all their films are multiple directors, is also one of those that I would go to no matter what because they put out such great work.  Wall-E and Up are two of my favorite films of all time.  Lately their films have been some of their weakest efforts.  That brings me to Brave.

Brave is a story about Marida, a Princess who is somewhat of a tom boy.  This upsets her mother who wants her to be proper and act like a lady.  Marida is destined to marry a first born son from one of the separate clans in the area.  Marida however does not want this, she wants to pick herself.  Well, that’s reasonable. Right?  Oh well, that leads to Marida finding a witch that, as the trailer leads, helps change her fate.  That furthers the plot and goes into some interesting directions, but the film doesn’t try anything new with their female lead.

Before this film the most well developed female character at Pixar was Jesse from Toy Story 2.  This is the first Pixar feature that has a female lead when every other time they have been secondary characters.  When I first heard this I was excited and I thought that Pixar was taking a chance on something new.  Most of Pixar’s stories when explained sound kind of ridiculous, but the majority of them turn out to be great.  This film however does not take any chances and doesn’t try anything new with the ‘girl coming of age story.’  Despite the unoriginality of the characters and the story of the film, it is not a bad one.  The story is fun, there are some good jokes in the movie, some scenes are touching and there is one part of the plot that when it comes up it is really enjoyable.

Another low point is that the themes of the film are trying to explore are interesting, but not explored to there entirety.  This is because the film is too short.  The running time is less than one and a half hours.  This film is trying to look for so many things like maturity, family, revenge, marriage and fate and it tries to explore all of them in that short amount of time.

The highlight of the film is the visual effects.  Previous films like Wall-E, Up and Finding Nemo looked beautiful and the creators really took advantage of the world they have created.  Brave might look the greatest when it comes to the Pixar films.  The forest looks like a forest and makes you want to visit that land, while the castle that Marida lives in is stunning and looks like a real castle.

Brave is an average story from the creators of Pixar and while still enjoyable it makes me nervous for what is to come with Pixar.  However the film is still worth checking out.