Dark Knight Rises Movie Reviews
User reviews on Dark Knight Rises
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I absolutely loved this film and highly recommend seeing it in the theaters. I had pretty high expectations for this film and I think that a lot of people did and I was not disappointed, I was even surprised by how good this movie was. The film was very smart, interesting, emotional, and it was extremely exciting and I was on the edge of my seat throughout the whole film. THe filmmakers set a very high bar for the next filmmakers who will attempt to reboot Batman films. Overall, this film was wonderful and I urge you to see it in the theaters and experience the full glory of this film. -
I can not even tell you how long I have been waiting for this film and my hopes were very high. I am so glad to say that the film was amazing and I highly recommend seeing it in the theaters and maybe seeing it more than once. It is without any doubt the best film I have seen this year and one of the best films overall. The film is made very well, it is extremely interesting and intriguing and the cast is absolutely amazing, I really have nothing bad to say about this film. I know that this film is important to many people and the expectations are very high and I can not even imagine what kind of pressure the filmmakers were feeling but they did a stellar job and I think that this film will please a large and diverse audience. -
This was a disappointment. I loved the first two movies, though I still think the first one was the best one. I think the reason that this movie was such a letdown was because there's no real villain in the piece, just a monster dude who reminded me of an angry rhino. I also don't like how Christian Bale's voice is obviously altered to make him sound more menacing. Why does he have to sound like a grovely lounge singer? Other superheroes have high pitched voices like Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield, so why not Batman? It's not as bad as it was in the second movie, but it's still pretty noticeable. I also cannot believe how this movie is supposed to be thrilling when it's so (let me be frank here) boring in parts! There were whole sections of the movie where I was fighting to stay awake - and I wasn't even tired! I think that this would have been better if it were more fun and less serious. Maybe they forgot that they're dealing with a grown man who walks around in a batsuit. Not exactly Shakespeare, ya know. -
So I saw this movie because it stars my all-time favorite actresses Marion Cotillard and Anne Hathaway and I'm SOO happy I did! This was a very different movie from what I was expecting. Like everyone else on the planet I was blown away by Heath Ledger's performance as The Joker but the villain named Bane in this movie is not that memorable. He is a standard monster villain who kind of reminded me of Darth Vader, both in his appearance and in his voice. I really liked how Anne Hathaway was playing Catwoman but she was never called that. It made the movie less cheesy. She is really awesome in the action sequences too. Morgan Freeman is great, as is Gary Oldman who I only saw in the Harry Potter movies before this one (I think he's the guy who plays Sirius Black). My only hope is that they don't reboot this story like they did Spider-Man. I don't think it can be improved. At least not for another 15-20 years. -
Let me just save you the trouble of saying it: BEST.MOVIE.EVER. Not of the summer, not even of the year, The Dark Knight Rises is the BEST MOVIE EVER MADE! I have never seen a movie that was so riveting and so amazing in every aspect - and it's not even 3D! I have to applaud the director and the producers for not releasing the movie in gimmicky 3D, that way they can leave the focus on what really matters in this story: the theme and the characters. The movie really goes to the heart of the whole good vs. evil battle and it makes us look at ourselves and our societal values. You just can't do better than that and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since I saw it. Christian Bale literally OWNS the role as Bruce Wayne, making him a legend that few Hollywood actors can ever become. The rest of the cast is great too, though I did think the villain was a little over the top. Still, the most awesomest movie ever! (Sorry Citizen Kane, this one rocks the universe!) -
Everybody and their mother (yours truly included) likes a good superhero popcorn movie. That's how you can explain the success of movies like "The Avengers" and "The Amazing Spider-Man". But this movie is waaaay too serious. I know we should expect a lot of serious stuff to close out the trilogy based on the last movie, but even that movie seemed to have a bit of lightness to it. My kids and I both thought that this was much too dark and needed to be brightened up. I guess some people will like the "deepness" of it which is nice in a way since it means that Hollywood is trying to do something different, but unlike a movie like the last Harry Potter, this one loses itself somewhere along the line in trying to be an epic. My kids love fantasy series like Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, but this one they said they will only rewatch the first two. And I don't blame them! -
Maybe it's inevitable that Christopher Nolan couldn't satisfy everyone with the ending to the greatest superhero trilogy in movie history. After all, what could possibly measure up to The Dark Knight and Heath Ledger's unbelievable performance as The Joker. There are only so many stories you can tell, and this one is part story, part inner monologue. Sometimes the movie seems to happen more inside Batman/Bruce Wayne's mind than it does in Gotham City, a haven for crime and evildoers in the future led by a villain named Bane. I liked the movie, loved certain parts of it, but felt that it should have been better by being more of a popcorn movie and less of a Hamlet "to be or not to be" existential drama. Anne Hathaway, Marion Cotillard, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt are all good in the movie, though the old stalwarts of Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine are the best. I don't know what to make of Christian Bale's performance because he seem not to be acting in a lot of the movie. And I don't mean that as a compliment. He seems to be stuck in sulk mode and the fact that he only jolts out of it when he has to chase a car down or take up a high speed chase is not a good sign. A solid B, if not an A. -
Alright, let me put your worries at ease and answer the two questions that everyone who hasn't seen the movie is going to be asking until they actually see The Dark Knight Rises: Yes, it is an amazing movie that goes where no superhero movie has ever gone before, and no (I repeat "No!") it is not the best movie in the series, a designation that still belongs to The Dark Knight. Allow me to explain.
This final part of the Gotham trilogy is certainly not better than The Dark Knight for a couple of reasons. One, there was Heath Ledger, who gave a transcendent and amazing portrayal that was both a feat of acting and artistry unmatched by anything we've ever seen in a superhero movie before or since. And two, it struck the right balance between dark fantasy and the darkness of futuristic and dystopic urban reality. The Dark Knight seems to have forgotten that it is based on a comic book and there are many sequences that require a bit of levity but director Christopher Nolan is hellbent on making things as internally foreboding as possible. At times, the movie unfolds in a half dream state, while at others it seems to think it is a stream of consciousness tale. Imagine taking Batman and dropping him into a movie about existential realities like The Hours or The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. He's Batman, you're crying on the inside, not Virginia Woolf! Why is he so introspective? I doubt that even Ernest Hemingway was this moody or serious.
But this may have been a criticism that the makers were expecting all along because they've included so many car chases and speedy action sequences that clearly belong in the movie but which don't feel as organic as they ought to. They haven't been tacked on, per se, but they have been used to prop up what is a very different and concurrent flow of events inside the mind of an eccentric billionaire. Anne Hathaway is generally the woman in charge of these sequences, playing Selina Kyle, the slinky and seductive masked avenger who is never called Catwoman - not once in the entire movie. You can ask Halle Berry why.
The performances are all very good, especially those of the newbies to the franchise, including Hathaway, Marion Cotillard, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Tom Hardy, who plays the villain Bane, is nowhere near up to the par of Ledger's The Joker, but he suffices and that is perhaps the best that we should hope for. I am also happy to report that Christian Bale's voice is not nearly so low and gruff as it was in the last movie, where it bordered on caricature. Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman are as they should be in their respective parts: perfect.
I won't divulge whether or not Batman survives the end, not for fear of spoiling the movie (in a way, it's really incidental to the whole enterprise) but because this movie doesn't feel like an ending at all, which may be just what the studio and the director have wanted all along. It plays like the beginning of something, though whether that 'something' is the story of Bruce Wayne or not I'll leave for you to decide. But rest assured that the anti-superhero movie that is this superhero movie has forever and irreversibly altered the template for every movie based on a comic book that will be made in the future. Depending upon your tastes, that is both an amazing and terrible thing.
