Episode 207 – THE DARK KNIGHT RISES / MOONRISE KINGDOM
posted by
Jett Loe
Thoughts on the operatic magnificent mess that is THE DARK KNIGHT RISES as well as the terrible events in Aurora Colorado. That and Wes Anderson’s lovely MOONRISE KINGDOM.
Running time: 52 minutes and 52 seconds – 50.9mb
This entry was posted on Saturday, July 28th, 2012 at 10:27 am. It is filed under Action, Blockbusters, Blog, Comedies, Drama, Gareth Higgins, Gareth Higgins Reviews, Jett Loe, Jett Loe Reviews, Podcast, Reviews and tagged with "dark knight" batman "wes anderson", movie review podcast, podcast.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Boys, enjoyed the episode but genuinely surprised there wasn’t a massive disagreement over TDKR. I would have bet the mortgage that Jett would have had major problems with the structural issues of this film: the clunky pacing; the simplistic moralizing; the inconsistent characterization (Alfred abandoning Bruce, Bruce letting him, Bruce bedding Miranda, and on and on); the dialogue – God, the dialogue; the MESS of a ‘ticking bomb’ – ‘it’s going off… in 5 months’; the complete lack of reality – Bane’s plan is what? The US government would allow a major city to be held hostage and not try something more aggressive than sending in a handful of special forces soldiers? The lack of civil disobedience? The police can’t find another way out in 5 months? The fact that nobody seems to need a shave? The ‘magic’ back recovery? The prison in the middle of…
Oh, I could just go on and on. I thought it was a bloated, poorly structured disappointment. Nolan clearly wasn’t keen to make it – he traded getting Inception made for ‘having’ to make this and it shows.
And I think this film has been coming for a long time. In my opinion, Chris Nolan is a great filmmaker, not a great writer. As the scale of his films has got bigger, the tightrope has got higher. The structural flaws, the caricatures, rather than characters. The ‘big ideas’ that don’t hold up under scrutiny. The ‘intelligence’.
This is a poorly written film, full of (too many) half-developed ideas that are not built properly into something genuinely emotional, or impactful. It feels like a 3rd or 4th draft, not the 13th or 14th you need to make something this big hold up under scrutiny.
Maybe nobody dares challenge him that way anymore? How do you criticize the ‘billion dollar boy’s’ script? But somebody should have.
My prediction is that poor word-of-mouth will stall this film out quite quickly. Definitely all of the early hopes of a ‘masterpiece’ have been dashed and I think it will be viewed in years to come as a very poor follow-up to TDK.
Hmmm…time will tell. I’d recommend giving it a couple of years and then re-watching it. Stylistically alone with it’s non-stop thunderous score and set-piece after set-piece there’s nothing else like it in the world of mainstream movies.
I think you are seeing this film through the wrong lens. The film knows it’s logic is off. Chris isn’t interested in the logic. The plane sequence makes no sense really, but the pure thrill, intrigue and scale of it? Incredible. Nolan is playing Hitchcock here. Not only that but this is Nolan’s epic, his biblical epic. If you see from that angle, it all fits. The police charging as an army at full tilt into machine gun fire… etc. He is aiming at Myth over the ‘reality’ displayed in the The Dark Knight.
Think that’s where I was coming from re: spectacle, AVATAR v. Beijing Opening Olympic Ceremonies, etc.
It’s always a mistake to interpret a work through the prism of your own biases. It’s even more dangerous when you flat out ignore many of its features in order to reach your desired interpretation.
I’m alluding here to Dr Higgin’s implausible interpretation of TDKR, an exercise in wishful thinking if there ever was one. I don’t want to get into a frenzied analysis of the film. I don’t think it deserves it. But I will note that any interpretation has to take into account Nolan’s obvious conservative bent and it’s manifestations in this film.
Nolan’s portrayal of an Occupy Movement run amok comes straight from an elitist’s worst mob nightmares, especially in the way the rabble is deluded and used. It’s obvious that Nolan attempts to capture the tone and themes of A Tale of Two Cities. Yet these attempts ultimately fail as he lacks Dickens’ compassion and humanity, and has none of Dickens’ instinctual feel of poverty’s mean streets.
It might be a well made film, and it may even be art, but not as we know it.
The perception of Nolan’s conservatism is too much drive by the manipulation of politicians and their media handlers. They want us to think in simplistic, dualistic terms. It is why haters are the drivers of political culture. That’s the lie that politics has become. Occupy and Tea Partiers share a common space in the culture in that they both oppose aspects of the dominant political culture offered to us by the Republicans and Democrats. When they recognize that they share some common values and common ground, then things will get interesting for the politicians at all levels of government.
I am sorry that the film will always be associated with the Aurora shootings. The answer, Professor Higgins, is not more laws controlling guns. Essentially, that is advocating for a police state. I’m not a gun owner, though many in my family are. The problem is a cultural one, not a legal one.
My recommendation for what to watch if not TDKR is the BBC series, MI-5 (Spooks in the UK). In it you have similar themes operating. I recently watched all ten seasons and found it more compelling than Nolan’s film. In it are themes of the ambiguity of terrorism, political/ economic elitist control of the security services, government surveillance of citizens, the sacrifice of one’s life for others, etc. I found the end of TDKR robbed the film of what was its most redeeming moment, Batman’s sacrifice of his life for the people of Gotham City. Even if the film ended with Alfred, it should have ended as Cinema Paradiso did with an ambiguous look on his face.
Last comment. We live in age where human existence no longer is connected to the real world of our ancestors. Films and the digital culture in which they are one part is a hyper-real world. We are embedded in the culture that includes the film. We are not observers, but participants. Detachment comes at the price of alienation. The film is not about the content of the story, but about the experience of it.
It is conceivable that there are people because they suffer from various personality disorders, that cannot separate themselves out of their hyperreal experience to see it for what it is. Consider all those who donned their favorite character’s costumes to attend the opening night showings of Star Wars, Lord of the Rings and other sci-fi/fantasy films. These films create a hyperreal experience where the viewer is a apart of the story. Now imagine watching To Kill A Mocking Bird, and seeing the same kind of response. The hyperreal experience is more than just an emotional/ intellectual reaction. It is a fully embodied response to the film, where one is lost in the experience. And this is the place that films increasingly are playing in our world today.
“The answer, Professor Higgins, is not more laws controlling guns. Essentially, that is advocating for a police state. I’m not a gun owner, though many in my family are. The problem is a cultural one, not a legal one.”
I agree 100% with this. Even a brief glance at the history of “Rampage”, or “Spree”, killers shows that the majority committed their crimes from the 70s/80s onwards. In fact, given that automatic weapons were not banned until 1986, the majority committed their crimes when gun laws were relatively stricter. This alone indicates that we face a cultural problem. Banning firearms will hardly cure this.
I’d add something else, that is the push to restrict firearms does not spring from a curative impulse but rather from the inherent distrust between people and between classes. This distrust arises from the widening gulf between us, the collapse of social capital and the breakdown of the Community. The rich fear the poor, we fear our neighbors, and the traditional leaders – Priests, Politicians, Police, Business Leaders – have either been exposed as frauds or devalued.
In this environment it’s easy to see why some scream for bans on firearms. An armed poor person is a threat and a source of fear. Disarm them and their condition, poverty, inequality or whatever can be ignored with impunity. When you mistrust and fear your neighbor it’s comforting to know they’re impotent. And the Police will always remain the tool of the wealthy.
It’s easy to forget that one of the biggest commotions in the late 50s, early 60s, occurred when Malcolm X called for African Americans to defend themselves. To take up arms, their constitutional right. Naturally this was met with the usual outrage and uproar. Lying behind the faux outrage was fear, pure and simple. Fear that the downtrodden had the power to hurt the powerful. One wonders how successful MLK would have been without the armed Malcolm X’s of the struggle waiting in the wings.