The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

"Eight years on, a new terrorist leader, Bane, overwhelms Gotham's finest, and the Dark Knight resurfaces to protect a city that has branded him an enemy."

After running out of time last weekend because I'd completely underestimated the length of the last two "Batman" films, it took me another four days before I got chance to see the final part of the trilogy. Although it was unfortunate that I couldn't watch them all back to back as I'd intended, at least the break allowed me some time to reflect on what I'd seen, what I'd hated, and what I hoped would improve in "The Dark Knight Rises".

I'm the first to admit that I know nothing about Bane. I think he was a minor character in one of the Joel Schumacher "Batman" movies, but I have no idea which one (although it's likely to be the one I didn't review, "Batman & Robin"). All the fanboys were going wild over this character, but I wasn't all that impressed by some fat Scottish bloke in a mask. Wasn't he supposed to be a Mexican in the comic books who had some superpowers from a potion injected into him?

I also wasn't impressed by the amount of lag in "The Dark Knight Rises". The story really dragged, pacing was ludicrous, and, when something important happened, it was rushed. This is a bit spoilery, but, seriously, can a broken spine be cured by punching the vertebrae back in and hanging from a rope for a couple of minutes? Wasn't there enough time to do it properly in a film nearly three hours long?

Of course, I only wanted to see "The Dark Knight Rises" for the new Catwoman as played by Anne Hathaway. The Sunmaid Raisins girl was definitely pretty enough for the role, but she didn't exactly light up the screen with her presence. Selina Kyle wasn't even referred to as "Catwoman" and, more disappointingly, she had no cats either. Oh, but she was a "cat burglar" to make up for it. Big hairy deal.

I did like the few moments that Bruce Wayne shared with Selina, but there wasn't any chemistry there or the sexiness of Michelle Pfeiffer's equivalent even when she was at her most nerdy. This "catwoman" was just a little bit too cynical and misanthropic for her own good.

The guy who played Tosh in "Torchwood" (and was in one episode of "Eastenders" with Phil Daniels) was in this too but I barely recognised him. I didn't recognise Tom Conti at all as the prisoner who helped Bruce Wayne until I looked up the cast list. I suppose that's to their credit as both were cast slightly against type.

The casting has always sucked in Christopher Nolan's "Batman" movies though. For some reason, he loves Cillian Murphy almost as much as aerial photography and making Batman stand on the edge of really tall buildings for no reason. Why was Cillian Murphy even in this? Was it just so he could rework that 50 year old joke about "death by ungabunga" into what should have been a more serious moment? Pretty lame stuff.

With both Commissioner Gordon and Batman out of the main spectacles of SWAT teams and more police running around than were entirely necessary, this was all about the previously mentioned Bane and his antics. What was he meant to be? A hybrid of Darth Vader, the "Predator" alien and a Teletubby? I've seen fake wrestlers on Saturday afternoon TV in better shape.

A really ridiculous moment (which stood out even more than Alfred's 180 degree turn into character inconsistency) was when Batman and Bane were fighting and they were knocking lumps of concrete out of buildings with their punches. All it needed was some onscreen "Kapow!" and "Biff!" balloons.

I won't spoil the ending for you too much, but be prepared for it to come at you completely out of left field just like "Kill Bill" with an unhealthy dollop of "Armageddon" thrown in. There's a third film which the ending borrows even more from, but I won't name it.

Well, that's my review of "The Dark Knight Rises" over just like the franchise. I honestly wanted this to be the best "Batman" movie ever to make up for the other two and prove to me that Christopher Nolan wasn't just a hack, but it was very disappointing.

I don't particularly like superhero movies or reviewing anything outside of the horror genre, but I started doing this because everyone else was. No, I wouldn't jump off a bridge if they did, but I thought they had found some treasure which I hadn't. I was misled.

My genre of choice will always be horror, that's what I know most about, and that's what still interests me. As long as Christopher Nolan keeps away from my favourite genre, everything will be fine.

The Dark Knight (2008)

"When Batman, Gordon and Harvey Dent launch an assault on the mob, they let the clown out of the box, the Joker, bent on turning Gotham on itself and bringing any heroes down to his level."

I've heard a lot of people say that "The Dark Knight" is one of the must-have Blu-rays should you ever upgrade to the format. I haven't got a Blu-ray player, probably won't buy one either, and my copy of "The Dark Knight" is the 2-disc "Special Edition" which I bought from the pawn shop along with "Batman Begins". Obviously, someone else upgraded or they didn't think much of these movies either.

Yes, you've guessed it, I didn't like "The Dark Knight". In fact, I didn't even like "The Dark Knight" as much as "Batman Begins". Out of the two of them, I'd say that "Batman Begins" was a lot better and, mercifully, it was also 12 minutes shorter.

Turning a comic book into live action with a more realistic setting is Christopher Nolan's thing, but it just doesn't work for me. "The Dark Knight" felt like yet another contrived cops and robbers drama but with Batman in it.

I know everybody raved about Heath Ledger as The Joker, and, while I can admit that he was the most entertaining part of "The Dark Knight", he wasn't as good as Jack Nicholson or even Cesar Romero. He just came across as a nutter who kept licking his lips. I didn't get any sense of menace from him, and, basically, if it came to a fight, I could take him.

The other big thing in "The Dark Knight" was the entire career of Harvey Dent. I didn't like the character, the prosthetic/CGI half of his face looked too fake and was completely unrealistic as far as the facial movements were concerned, and, well, that whole part of the story sucked. The last time I tried to watch "The Dark Knight", I didn't make it to the end so I had no idea what happened to Two-Face or Batman.

All the usual Christopher Nolan excesses were in this again. There were way too many shots of high-rise buildings which made me feel giddy, there was some pretty awful acting here and there especially from Maggie Gyllenhaal and Gary Oldman, and, the music was only slightly less annoying. I suppose Michael Caine was okay, but he was Cockneying-up his part too unintelligibly. I'm British and I almost had to turn the subtitles on!

One thing which really infuriated me was when Batman didn't kill The Joker. Is this a thing in the Batman universe which I'm supposed to know about? In "Batman" (1989), Michael Keaton's Batman couldn't kill him from 100 feet away with a load of rockets but destroyed the Batplane in the process. In "The Dark Knight", Batman couldn't run the same character over with the Batbike, but managed to destroy that and injure himself too.

I'll definitely never watch "The Dark Knight" again.

It's Baturday! The Dark Knight Rises weekend

Since it's highly likely that I will be going to see "The Dark Knight Rises" at some point this weekend, I'm preparing myself for the experience with a marathon rewatching of all the previous Batman movies.

"Holy Crappy Movies, Batman!"

I must admit that if the TV series was available on DVD, I'd rather watch that again than any of the Christopher Nolan abominations. Blame it on my age, but I really used to enjoy Adam West's and Burt Ward's escapades when they were repeated for Saturday morning kids' TV in the '70s.

I had the Mego action figures and the Corgi Batmobile which I thought were great. We all had them even though none of us had ever read a Batman comic, had never heard of DC, and were destined to forget all about the caped crusader once "The Six Million Dollar Man", "Starsky and Hutch" or even "Monkey" came along. Yes, kids are fickle and I changed what I was into more often than my underpants. I could probably list another hundred TV shows which caught our imaginations and almost forced some parents into bankruptcy with the merchandising.



As an adult who occasionally suffers from bouts of nostalgia, I remember the theme tune and opening titles of the "Batman" TV show more than any of the episodes. As you can see from the YouTube video above, it was pretty much a series of cartoon graphics with a couple of poorly animated moments and which promised more of the same. I don't think there was ever a child on the planet who wasn't a little bit disappointed by the live action which followed.

Having said that, Adam West will always be my Batman. I more than disliked Robin, I really hated him, and, to be completely honest, there were several times when I hoped that the villains would get the better of the pair of them. The villains were always far more interesting than the heroes.

Unfortunately, apart from watching episodes on YouTube, the 1966 movie version of the TV series is the only DVD available. There have always been a lot of arguments going on behind the scenes as to who owns the rights to what so I highly doubt that the complete series will ever appear on DVD now.

Even though I've always felt that the movie was overlong and a little bit dull compared to the individual episodes, at least it combined the talents of the four best supervillains: The Joker (Cesar Romero), The Penguin (Burgess Meredith), The Riddler (Frank Gorshin) and, of course, The Catwoman (Lee Meriwether).

I haven't watched it for so many years that I'm quite looking forward to seeing it again. I'll be back later with a proper review.

The Dark Knight Rises (2012) HD Exclusive Featurette

Fascinating stuff, isn't it?

Yeah, I know it has nothing to do with horror but I didn't actually make it to the pawn shop yesterday to buy any more films to review so this is all I have to offer as a Sunday post.

I'm really looking forward to "The Dark Knight Rises". I'm a big fan of Batman, but an even bigger one of Catwoman (as you already know). Ah, who am I kidding? I just want to ogle Anne Hathaway like everyone else does.

Meow!!! Yeah, she makes my Dark Knight rise alright.

In other news, I've been updating "The Bloody Horror Store" which now has a graphical link to it in the side column. I added a few more horror items here and there which may interest you. You aren't even reading this though now that you've seen that big pic of Anne Hathaway, are you?

Tomorrow, I'll review something. I'm not sure what yet because I wanted to do a month of ghostie films and I'm not really in the mood for any of them.

Any suggestions for what I should review? Just leave them as a comment below.