‘10 THINGS…’ IN NOT QUITE BEING PERFECT SHOCKER

This guy, old enough to see early Black Flag shows or be DJ Qualls’s dad, is the one blemish on an otherwise perfect movie:

What a wanker.

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

WANK OR WATCH | Havoc

Anne Hathaway was almost twenty-two when her second appearance as Mia Thermopolis in the Princcess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement hit UK screens. Now, while she was playing a twenty-one year-old in that film, it was obviously a children’s movie. Her only other major cinematic roles at that point had been Ella Enchanted and the first Princess Diary film and that was all I knew her for despite having seen Nicholas Nickleby in which she also appears. I had written her off, assuming that she would suckle on the Disney teat until she disappeared into obscurity and I would only ever see her face in supermarket bargain bins years later.

And then, one year later, she played the topless card twice and suddenly the world took her seriously as an adult. The first of these came in Havoc, a film centering on a gang of white upper-middle class teenagers who adopt a faux-gangsta lifestyle seemingly due to feeling unconnected to their families and heavily influenced by the music that they listen to. This film could and probably should have been amazing. Not only does the cast-list include two youngsters who have become legitimate stars in Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Channing Tatum in addition to Hathaway, the supporting cast have some excellent credits to their names and this was also written by Stephen Gaghan who won an Oscar for Traffic and was the first fictional film from Barbara Kopple who has two Best Documentary Oscars to her name. It is this team behind the scenes that disappoints me most, as Gaghan has shown that he can write gritty and Kopple has worked exclusively with reality previously. Unfortunately, neither of these things show.

What we end up with is a bunch of white kids embarrassingly talking like rappers, the guys being too dumb to notice the distinction between fighting other faux-gangs and fighting actual gangs, and girls being taught an archaic lesson about interacting with bad boys. The whole thing, on almost every level, feels cringe-inducing and, while Hathaway shows in her vulnerable moments that she was ready to make that transition into more mature roles, Gordon-Levitt’s incessant Snoop Dogg impression is reason enough to skip this.

This is an uncomfortable watch and not for praise-worthy reasons.

Verdict: Wank

DAN

20 July 2012

The Dark Knight Rises

Final chapter in the Dark Knight trilogy and the best comic book adaptation series of all time. New actors involved include Tom Hardy, Joseph Gordon Levitt, Marion Cotillard, Juno Temple and Matthew Modine, which, in itself, is a good enough cast without the others. I couldn’t care less for reviews with this movie, I will be seeing it as early as I can today.

Something From Nothing: The Art of Rap

An exploration of rap in it’s entirety seemingly, early reviews seem to suggest that the content is great even if the structure is weak. Any rap fan will want to see almost all of the greatest living rappers from all generations discussing their techniques, experiences and thoughts on the art-form. I know I do.

I Am Bruce Lee

A study of Bruce Lee, his life and his place in history. Gotten some fine reviews and interestingly features basketball legend Kobe Bryant amongst it’s contributors, this seems to be a movie that Bruce Lee fans will definitely want to see.

Lola Versus

Lola is dumped by her fiance three weeks before their marriage and attempts to find her place in the world once again. Poor reviews and a trailer that suggests that these reviews might be deserved, the only reason to see this is the always delightful Greta Gerwig. I will be attempting to see it but will not be disappointed if I can’t.

*My Pick: Unsurprisingly, The Dark Knight Rises.

DAN