The Dark Knight Rises

It’s been a long eight years for Bruce Wayne.

Setting aside the cape and cowl after the events of The Dark Knight, Bruce holes himself up in his mansion like a Howard Hughes recluse – complete with dishevelled appearance, patchy facial hair and questionable hygiene. Peacetime, while it may have been good for Gotham, has not been good for its hero. Funny that the only thing to bring Bruce out of his stupor is not his city, but a new threat: a mysterious terrorist known as Bane.

That’s about the end of my plot synopsis – to mention it otherwise reeks of redundancy, and there are many other (more well-written) reviews that can do a much better job of explaining it.

I think this was probably the weakest of Nolan’s Batman trilogy. It doesn’t help that it came after The Dark Knight, which is arguably the perfect blockbuster for its adept balancing of pathos, spectacle, storyline, and intelligence – with the most charismatic screen villain in recent memory as a cherry on top. That being said, this is by no means a bad film. It’s actually quite good in fact – it’s just overshadowed by the brilliance of its predecessors.

What’s disappointing about The Dark Knight Rises is that it revisits the League of the Shadows – the villainous cabal from Batman Begins – villains that were more of an afterthought in the first film than an entire concept to build the trilogy around. What I mean by that is the first film used the League of Shadows as a stepping stone for Bruce Wayne to develop the skills needed to become Batman, and once that transformation was complete, they weren’t necessary anymore – thus their defeat in the first film. The Dark Knight had different ambitions – neglecting to mention the League of Shadows (at least to my recollection) and allowing the central villain of that film – the Joker – to survive for a sequel. The Joker was a villain to build the franchise around, the League of Shadows merely a placeholder for better things – but real life tragedy hampered the trilogy going in that direction.

Rises also suffers from unfocused storytelling, an overly complicated plot to destroy Gotham, and too many characters and comic references shoehorned into its bloated running time. But after watching this, I realized that any criticisms of the film are minor irritants – this may not be the perfect blockbuster, but this is the type of blockbuster audiences deserve. Nolan and co. may have overreached with this film, which lacks the consistency of the other two, but it’s still a satisfying and worthy conclusion to one of the best trilogys – blockbuster, superhero, or otherwise – to hit theatres. Summer movies don’t have to be dumb – and the success of Nolan’s Batman series proves that audiences aren’t dumb either. And that counts for something.

Grade: B+

RED Review

Frank Moses is lonely. His days are long and uneventful. He eats soup by himself at night and only speaks to his neighbors when picking up the mail in the morning. He forgets to put Christmas decorations up until everyone else in the neighborhood has and the highlight of his day is ripping up his pension check so that he can talk to his representative in Kansas City, a woman he’s spoken to countless times but has never met: Sarah.

Frank Moses is also a retired CIA operative. And he’s extremely dangerous.

“RED” is an action-adventure movie in the style of the Clint Eastwood film “Space Cowboys.” That movie was about octogenarians going into outer space to fix a broken satellite. This one’s about giving Helen Mirren, Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, and Brian Cox an excuse to shoot some high-powered assault rifles and react (as only Oscar-nominated actors can) to stuff blowing up real good. And it’s incredibly fun.

The meat of the film is that some shady figures are out to kill Frank Moses (Bruce Willis) and company for pretty unspecified reasons (something about an op in Nicaragua that needs covering up) so the team has to get back together for one last go-around before their ex-employers will leave them alone for good. Which basically means about an hour and half of action scenes and a half-hour of plot, pretty much the perfect ratio for a good brainless action movie.

And what action it is. Willis kills about eight men within the first fifteen minutes in a scene that’s exciting and oozes cool. He only has one pistol; they have multiple machine guns. He’s wearing a bath robe and slippers; they have kevlar and black ski masks. By the end of it, they’re all dead and Willis is rushing off to Kansas City to rescue Sarah (Mary Louise Parker) before she’s targeted.

Each actor is given a scene to fulfill their action-hero dreams. Freeman gets physical in an interrogation. Malkovich duels with a woman wielding a rocket launcher. Mirren guns down henchmen with a sniper rifle and mounted machine gun. It’s everything you’ve come to expect from the trailers, but surprisingly entertaining to see two worlds collide. It’s the “Betty White” effect: seeing an old, generally well-mannered and polite individual acting against type whether it’s spewing curse words, drinking excessively, or killing waves of faceless henchman. Always brings a smile to the face.

Morgan Freeman’s character has a moment where he finds it ironic that even though he’s fought in Vietnam, done countless black op missions and killed hundreds of people, he’s going to die in a retirement home rather than riddled with bullets. It’s a small moment but a key one for the film. These ex-soldiers lost their relevance, and being hunted is confirmation that they still have some purpose to serve. It’s nice to see a film that allows aging actors to thrive in an industry that is perpetually obsessed with youth.

3.5/5