MOVIE REVIEW: The Dark Knight Rises (PG-13)

I just came back from watching The Dark Knight Rises, it was a good movie; however it was not a good Batman movie. Also after the realistic Begins and Knight, I was ready for yet another realistic Batman film. I felt a little disappointed as I left the theater, it felt as if someone had told Christopher Nolan that he was making a comic book movie and he had decided to make it a bit more light-hearted than the others.

Christian Bale was great as Batman as usual, but as Bruce Wayne, it seemed as if he was getting tired of the role. Angelina Jolie as Catwoman was wonderful, however they didn’t really use her character that well, and compared to the other Catwomen, she didn’t have the same pizaz as Michelle Pfeiffer in Batman Returns.
Tom Hardy as Bane, on the other hand was not as good, I could hardly understand what he was saying. Part of it was because of the mask and part of it was because of the heavy Russian accent that he had. Then there’s Joseph Gordon-Levitt as John Blake, I know he’s a great actor but with some of the lines that he had to say felt very wooden.

The action was very well-done but there wasn’t really that much fighting till the last act, most of the time, Bane would just crush someone’s face or twist their head around 180 degrees. The final fight scene between Bane and Batman was awesome; however it felt like it ended way too soon.
Also, I have to mention the new armor/costume for Batman. It looked horrible compared to the other suits; the suit from The Dark Knight was all black and actually looked like an actually crime-fighting suit. This time, it is much lighter in color, looking very blue and the cowl looked like it was too small for Christian Bale’s face.

One of the things that I like about Nolan’s Batman movies was that the police were corrupt, however in this film, you were actually cheering on the police a few times. There was one scene where the police start chasing Batman and I was expecting more scenes like that in the movie, but it was only that one scene.
The reason I say that it’s a good movie but not a good Batman movie is because Batman’s hardly in it. Halfway through it, I almost forgot that it was a Batman film and not about Blake in a city taken over by terrorists. Also it felt like they were trying to wrap up too much stuff up and were no longer focused on the story.

My verdict? It was a good movie, but if you’re expecting another amazing movie like The Dark Knight, you’re probably going to be very disappointed. There were quite a lot of problems that I had with the movie, and left the movie with quite a few plot holes that will never get filled.

As much as I’d love to give it a higher score, I give it a 4/10.