The Dark Knight Rises (Nolan, 2012): Screen on the Green 7.45pm
This 35mm screening is part of the Nolan in 35mm season at the Screen on the Green from June 20th to July 15th. Full details here.Time Out review:
It’s been a summer of great expectations. First there was ‘The
Avengers’, which ticked all the right geeky boxes and made a truckload
of dosh. Then ‘Prometheus’, which disappointed most but still managed to
ring a few tills. Now here comes the biggie. Can Christopher Nolan see
out his Bat trilogy in style? Can he make that so-far-elusive five-star
superhero movie, the one which gets the blend between action, emotion,
plot and character just right? Can he at least live up to the eyepopping
standard he set with 2008’s ‘The Dark Knight’? The answers are yes, no, and mostly. As its running time suggests,
‘The Dark Knight Rises’ is a sprawling, epic feast of a movie, stuffed
to the gills with side characters, subplots and diversions. So if the
balance skews in favour of grandstanding action rather than emotional
resonance, of statuesque icons rather than real people, we can let it
slide. There’s nothing here to match the intensity of Heath Ledger’s
Joker, and the movie feels weaker for it. But that was a one-off, and
the show must go on. We’re reintroduced to Bruce Wayne, aka Batman (Christian Bale), living as a recluse, holed up in the east wing of Wayne Manor while Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) presides over a relatively crime-free Gotham City. But when marauding, mask-wearing psycho Bane (Tom Hardy) muscles in with the intention of kickstarting a popular revolution, Bruce must don the cape and cowl once again. This is just the central thread in an increasingly tangled story: there’s also Anne Hathaway as a slinky, burgling Catwoman, Joseph Gordon-Levitt
as a square-jawed beat cop and lots of confusing financial shenanigans
with the shareholders of Wayne Enterprises. As in the previous films,
Nolan and his co-writer, his brother Jonathan, draw on real-world issues
to spice up the fantasy, and with dubious results: with its rampaging
Occupy Gotham anarchists, philanthropic billionaires and decent cops who
ignore due process, this is so staunchly right-wing it’ll thrill all
those Fox News anchors outraged by ‘The Muppets’. But when the Bat flies, such considerations go out the window.
Sublimating CGI in favour of real crowd scenes and massive cityscapes,
Nolan creates a grand, dirty, engrossing world, and his action sequences
just hum. The way the various strands tie up is a mite predictable, but
it’s satisfying nonetheless. And as our heroes swoop off into the
sunset, we realise we’ve been witness to something truly impressive: a
seven-year cinematic adventure which combined the epic and the personal
in dizzying, inventive, sometimes perplexing, often enthralling, always
imaginative ways.
Tom Huddleston
Here (and above) is the trailer.
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