REVIEW | The Dark Knight Rises

This is not Spiderman 3. It is not Iron Man 2. But this is also not very good.

The final chapter of Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy is beautifully shot, with the cinematography and direction being superb throughout. The acting is excellent from those who have been with the trilogy throughout and even better from Hardy as Bane, JGL as the new Gary Oldman/spoiler and, best of all, Hathaway as Catwoman. These three, along with Bale, earn their moments of levity in this flick and they do so with aplomb. The major set pieces are just stunning, whether understated in the sense of the final scene involving the bomb or even the shots shown in the trailer of the bridges in the distance, or balls out crazy like that of the football stadium, they are created with the same level of detail and care.

Unfortunately everything else isn’t. There are far too many plot-holes in this movie to simply wave them off as being par for the course with a blockbuster (see another person’s excellent but spoilerific run through here for proof) but while I was sitting there in the cinema aghast at these utterly fucking bonkers moments, there are more fundamental problems. There is not a simple, central narrative to the story like those of the first films, making the entire middle section a mess. The editing is poor, even from the start where we are first introduced to Commissioner Gordon talking about Harvey Dent for a matter of seconds before cutting to Bane In A Plane for the entirety of that sequence before jumping back to Gordon talking about Dent making that initial moment entirely unnecessary. A daft nitpick but from that moment I knew that we were in for a bumpy ride. The now obligatory car chase is dumb as hell and serves absolutely no purpose. Bane is big but he is nowhere near as frightening as Joker.

This culminates in a film that, even if you were not acknowledging it as the final chapter of the series, has bigger stakes than the previous two and yet I felt nothing. No concern, no emotional tugs and no interest. It seems as though Nolan had a great many ideas for the film and, when the movie came in at over four hours, decided against cutting chunks to make it more linear and opted instead to trim, rendering the entire movie undeveloped. This not only makes it a disappointing end to the trilogy but a bad movie when considered as a stand-alone.

Verdict: Spunk

DAN

REVIEW| The Amazing Spiderman

So The Amazing Spiderman isn’t quite amazing but it is pretty darn great. I would still argue that a reboot merely five years after the last trilogy concluded is utterly unnecessary but this film is definitely an improvement on any of Raimi’s offerings and, with the exception of Ifans’s baddie, is better in every way to Raimi’s original Spiderman. Here Garfield is almost a Superbad character instead of Maguire’s shy, pathetic guy, and his relationship with Stone (better than Dunst in every way except that she remembers an umbrella when it rains) is way more believable and affecting. Field and Sheen work well as his aunt and uncle too and it’s a shame that Sheen has to follow Uncle Ben’s character arc as he and Garfield have great chemistry.

The problems with this movie are threefold. Firstly it’s still cheddar as hell. There is one scene involving a man that Garfield assists earlier who happens to be able to align a bunch of cranes to help Spidey in a moment of need that screams of the disgustingly patriotic scene with the public throwing shit at Green Goblin on the bridge from the original series. The second problem ties in with this in that there are lots of moments that I audibly laughed at how often you’re expected to suspend reality or accept coincidence in this flick. Sure, it’s a movie about a man-spider but whether it be the only man you see Spidey save being a workman in control of a fuckload of cranes in the city when everyone is being evacuated at the exact moment Spidey needs him, or Garfield walking into Oscorp at the exact moment that interns are coming and then, when he takes a swipecard belonging to a ‘Rodrigo Guevara’ the receptionist remarks that this seems unlikely and yet lets him enter the building and then, only moments later, we see the real Rodrigo being dragged away by security, this movie manages to force you to forgive the silliness even in moments based in reality. And finally, the action is pretty poor. Spiderman is forever hampered by having non-human bad guys (Batman, Avengers, Iron Man etc. all have more relatable baddies just by them not being lizard men etc.), the action in this can sometimes seem like an X-Box cut scene. Add to that the stupid one-liners that Garfield is forced to say despite them not befitting the excellently cultivated character.

This is a very funny, good and constantly entertaining movie though and one that at least improves on the original and possibly warrants its existence in doing that. Also the 3D isn’t pivotal but that one scene with the cranes is freaking awesome in 3D.

Verdict: Movie

DAN

REVIEW | Red Tails

I am genuinely surprised that the actors were able to deliver their lines of dialogue in this movie without giggling. The white guys in the movie tend to get it worse, especially those in planes when saying things like, ‘Gee, those Red Tails boys were swell. I sure hope we get them to protect us next time,’ and other bullshit like that. The ‘based on true events’ aspect is such that it was inevitable for all dialogue to be extra mature cheddar and the plot to be sloppy and fucking saccharine, but this manages to have a ‘below TV movie’ vibe by the end.

It’s basically The Help meets Pearl Harbour and still not even as good as what the bastard offspring of those two would produce, but still manages to be the epitome of an easy watch.

Verdict: Spunk

DAN

VIDEO | ChariDVD #1: The Death and Life of Booby Z

  1. Go to a local charity shop.
  2. Buy the most bizarre legitimate film there that we haven’t seen.
  3. Buy beer.
  4. Watch film(s) with friends whilst drinking beers.
  5. Discuss film briefly.
  6. Get on with our lives.

CREDITS

Shot and edited by: Rob

Featuring: Mike, Claire and Dan