Z/Web

I am a huge fan of The Dark Knight and I really hoped this one would live up to the previous one (though that seemed a big ask). Well, it’s not a bad film. It doesn’t have quite the philosophical impact of the previous one, though it is dark and brooding and wants to be intellectual. There are some profound moments. The production and acting are terrific. But — and this is a big but — the film isn’t much fun.

The Dark Knight was an amazingly perfect blend of action and thoughtfulness. It was intellectually stimulating while still a huge amount of fun. I’d watch it again in a minute. But Rises is somber from the opening screen until the final fade out. Except for a handful of semi-comical moments in Batman’s exchanges with Catwoman, there is nothing to even crack a smile about. That got old really fast for me. It meant I enjoyed very little of the ride. Everything was so grim and serious, with no contrast, that I found the experience tedious.

Don’t get me wrong: there’s a lot of great stuff. Some of the action is excellent. I loved Catwoman. The plot was outrageous with a predictable twist, but still somewhat compelling. The performances of everyone was excellent. But we begin with Batman depressed and isolated because of all the bad stuff The Dark Knight ended with, and everything just gets much, much worse from there. (I won’t give any specifics as I don’t want to spoil anything. But let’s just say Batman, and pretty much everyone in Gotham City, are having a very bad month.) Watching a depressed man sulk just isn’t any fun, regardless of how true that might be to situation and character.

I did like the very end of the film, which finally presents a little hope and optimism, but the middle two-thirds was just depressing. It’s definitely worth seeing; just note this isn’t at all a feel-good film.

I was strangely disinterested in this film, though I love Spider-Man, and it took me weeks to bother to see it. After all, the Sam Rami version was pretty good, so why remake it?

While the earlier version had flaws, so does this one — they are simply different flaws. I liked some parts of this one better — but the giant plot holes annoyed me, and overall I felt the whole thing was a wash. It’s not bad, it’s not great, but ultimately I still ask, “Why?”

After seeing Prometheus I was curious about this third movie in the franchise. I saw it long ago and didn’t think it was great, but like many I think I was comparing it too closely to the originals.

It is different, but seeing it now I was surprised and how well it holds up. It’s a little overdone — everything’s over-the-top, from the wacky characters to the zigzag plot, and it never quite delivers on anything — but it does have some great moments, plenty of dramatic tension, and some excellent action. I never knew the script was by Joss Wedon, of Buffy fame, which is fascinating. I was only going to watch a few minutes to check it out and got hooked and watched the whole thing, so that ought to be the bottom line.

I loved the original so I couldn’t figure out the point of this remake and didn’t bother with it in the theatre, but it turns out it’s really pretty good. The special effects are far more gruesome and over-the-top, and that’s not a compliment as they distract from the core story which is about paranoia. Still, the performances are good, and it seemed faithful to the original in the basic story. Not a necessary movie by any stretch, and the original’s still better, but not that bad.

What is it about these movies that is so appealing? The plot is known — everyone’s going to die one-by-one — and you’d think they’d be tedious and boring. But there’s something about the gimmick that makes them watchable. They actually do a good job setting up the characters.

Granted, by this time the franchise is getting stretched very thin (and it was thin to begin with). But there’s still the fun of the grand set piece (in this case a bridge collapse) and a few of the deaths are interesting. But the toying with the audience by teasing us with potential mayhem (ooh, a loose screw!) and then delivering death from a different method is now tiresome (and draws out the deaths too much), and does every death have to involve short-circuiting electrical systems?

Still, this was more fun than I expected and I rather liked the previous ones.