Batman is a Rising

IS HE RISING OR JUST BEGINNING? OR IS HE FOREVER? WAIT, IT COULD BE THAT HE IS RETURNING?

It's not just one aspect of this film that makes it good. It's every aspect. Everything about the film just reeks of awesomeness. The film looks great, the cinematography is brilliant, the editing is sharp, quick when it needs to be and controlled well when that needs to happen and the action sequences are breath taking. The choreography of the fight scenes is especially great because the moves, although fast, are not like crazy ninja moves or people from The Matrix and fights that other superhero movies might have but the fighting seems very realistic and you can see the characters struggle with the effort as they get tired and, for me, this really worked cause Batman is human. He is the only human in the most famous of the superheroes (they are called superheroes because they are super human), and so this was attention to detail that really appealed to me. 

And the music. This is almost what impressed me the most. In the previous Batman films I barely noticed the music but in this film for some reason it just really struck a chord with me and I was in awe of it. Hanz Zimmer really goes all out on this soundtrack. The music builds up right when it needs to and the most powerful thing about it is that it drops to almost silence after some of its biggest swells. The music will be all around you, drowning you in its almighty sound and right when you think that it is going to repeat the main theme and get even more intense, it will drop away into nothing as if it was never there in the first place (kind of like Batman disappears if you look away) It's epic and it works so well that you are in the edge of your seat.


Christain Bale reprises his role as Bruce Wayne without batting an eyelid, as if it was almost as natural as breathing. Before this movie I wasn't very sold on Christian Bale as an actor (some of you may scream out in protest, but I haven't seen The Fighter and so my knowledge of Christain Bale in movies is pretty limited to basically just The Prestige and Little Women...) but do not worry, I am sold now. He is pretty great. And of course, we can't forget about the Batman voice (which he still does even when he knows that no one is around...surely that must get tiring on the vocal chords).

Anne Hathaway is fantastic, she really is. She nails her role as Catwoman. She is also hilarious. Her transition from bad ass to the pretend victim or vice virsa to a pleasure to watch. She has a lot of sass and the fact that her cat ears are incorporated into her costume and that they are multifunctional was a really good idea. I was pretty worried that she was playing Catwoman and wished they had chosen an unknown for this part but Hathaway rocked it.

Tom Hardy. What can I say? He is one scary man in a mask. Even though he has limited expression, you always seem to be able to see the emotions that he is trying to portray. He goes from the scariest person, ever, just by laying his hand on someone's shoulder to being so vulnerable near the end of the film that you just want to give the guy a hug and take away all his pain even though he is a diabolical madman. I mean the Joker was insane (and Heath Ledger played that character so well) but he is just not as scary as this guy.

Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine and Gary Oldman are brilliant as always but a real stand out is Joseph Gordon-Levitt. He steals the show off these older guys. I mean, he is just so awesome. He walks around as if he owns this film.


*Spoiler Alert!*

There were a few things, looking back, that were a little odd. For example, how do the people of that prison that attempt to jump to freedom not break their backs? How does the rope not split them into two and cause so much death it's ridiculous? Don't know? I don't know either. But I shall forgive it.
Also, Bane cracks Batman's back when he drops him from above his head onto his knee. Ouch! But then he fixes it by a random prisoner pushing the vertebrae back into place. I am obviously no doctor but that doesn't sound right to me...again, I will forgive it.

Bane's voice. You can just tell that they had to record that again. But if you look at it like my sister pointed out that you could look at it/hear it then it is dealable. If you think about it, it is almost as if Bane is in your head, giving him an almost supernatural quality which makes him pretty scary.
And, although Gary Oldman is a brilliant actor, there were a few times that I could not understand what he was saying. It was a real struggle and I don't normally like to have to struggle to know what people are saying, especially if they are speaking english.

Oh and one more thing that annoyed me from the first time I saw it, the death of Miranda Tate. Really she should have stuck out her tongue and started twitching or something. I have never seen anyone die in real life so I cannot say for sure whether her death could have been real, but it seemed really fake to me.

*End of Spoilers*

I liked this movie better than the first two but then maybe I should watch them again because everyone seems to be disagreeing with me. But I thought that it brought together everything that the others were missing. I would not be able to tell you what they are missing but they were missing something in my opinion. Batman was never a movie that I would say; "Yes, I really feel like watching that right now." That would be something like Easy A or Stardust or Cars. (Childish? Maybe, but I am okay with that.) But I went and saw this new Batman three timesso that's saying something.