The Dark Knight Trilogy (Christopher Nolan, 2005-2012)

[knives]

What if you like all three?

[Big Ben]

Rises really embodies the worst of Nolan's traits in my opinion. It's overlong, occasionally confusing and the characters motivations are downright asinine at times. Bane once again not being...Bane certainly makes him into more a joke than he should be namely because he has the same problem he does in Batman and Robin. Although his portrayal in Rises is nowhere near as awful as it was in Batman and Robin. Bane was an independent and smart dude in the comics. Not so much in his two film appearances where he's locked into serving someone else.

However the shitposting that came from Tom Hardy's Bane portrayal was really great. For a week.

[domino harvey]

Here are my specific thoughts from earlier in the thread and then my followup here

[Nasir007]

It's a big dumb great action film, incredibly entertaining and has just the right amount of darkness and violence. Not sure why people have turned on it so much.

I think people often react to the reputation of a movie right? Why is what I am doing here too to an extent.

Now for better or for worse, not many people will agree to that moniker - big dumb action film - for this Nolan film or any Nolan film.

I was recently with some friends and one said I hate dumb action movies, I like more intellectually challenging thought-provoking movies and another friend immediately said oh you mean Nolan movies and that made me roll my eyes. And I have literally been part of a similar conversation so many times at so many parties over the years.

So for better or for worse Nolan films are many people's idea of deep challenging thought-provoking films. And if a viewer were to watch a Nolan movie after being promised such, understandably the reaction could be negative.

[tenia]

I used to quite like BB but always found it to take way too long to get the plot moving, I saw The Dark Knight in the US in IMAX on a 3am opening morning show and was very impressed by it (and went to see it a 2nd time, this time with my dad's uncle, a few days later) (I was doing a student foreign internship there at the time) but rewatching in on video later, its plot construction and a few other things got me disappointed, and saw TDKR on its opening day in France and my view on it hasn't changed much.

So my revisionism is quite limited actually.

Nevertheless, TDK's Joker remains tremendous in what it conveys in terms of pure theory, a bit like Halloween's Michael Myers or The Birds' birds, and Ledger is, again, perfect in it.

overall good perfs from Caine (though his over-done accent gets tiring).

Sorry, I’m a bit confused on this point. What is it you mean?

I felt he was forcing his English accent in an overly heavy manner, which didn't feel natural. I guess "over-done" wasn't the right translation for this ?

[therewillbeblus]

So for better or for worse Nolan films are many people's idea of deep challenging thought-provoking films. And if a viewer were to watch a Nolan movie after being promised such, understandably the reaction could be negative.

Why can't they be "deep challenging thought-provoking films" and also "big dumb great action films"? Can't there be different kinds of depth? Who is to say that something must either be passively entertaining or prompt intellectual thoughts worth considering, or that they can't be woven together? Do you realize how condescending your comment is immediately after posts were made seeing the merits of these films for these very reasons mixed together, or did you not read the comments aside from the one you pull-quoted?

Here are my specific thoughts from earlier in the thread

Funny, your original thoughts in your first paragraph posture at the same things I like about the prior film- these characters are allowed to be treated as flawed egoists and be confronted with alternate perspectives on the source of their actions that don't align with superhero films! I also always liked Hathaway's Catwoman character for the reasons in your second paragraph, by far the best part of the film, but the irritating parts just overwhelmed the good re: JGL, Bane, Cotillard, etc.

[tenia]

The bigger issue with Catwoman to me is that the movie treats her as a very inconsistant character related to Wayne. By all means, the movie depicts her as someone that should clearly be treated with extreme caution because she's way too unreliable but hey, Bruce Wayne thinks she's more than that, so here you go and that's that.

[knives]

That's a thematic thing though and if you treat the film on the level of theme as the primary narrative fuel, which the other two films have trained the audience for, that relationship makes more sense as representative of Wayne's shift from a punitive model of justice to a restorative one which Rachel had been the primary proponent for in the first two films. That's key to the series view of gender as well as a sort of oil of metamorphosis.

[Mr Sausage]

overall good perfs from Caine (though his over-done accent gets tiring).

Sorry, I’m a bit confused on this point. What is it you mean?

I felt he was forcing his English accent in an overly heavy manner, which didn't feel natural. I guess "over-done" wasn't the right translation for this ?

Had it been a while since you’d seen Caine in something? He’s always had a strong and distinct cockney accent. Few actors have ever needed to punch up their accent less than Caine.

[flyonthewall2983]

The only movie I've seen where he tried another accent was Secondhand Lions

[knives]

He did claim to be doing an accent for these though.

[Brian C]

It came across like a bad Rob Brydon impression if you ask me.

[Monterey Jack]

The only movie I've seen where he tried another accent was Secondhand Lions

You're forgetting his tragic attempt at a "Maine" accent in The Cider House Rules, a terrible performance in a terrible movie that somehow won him an Oscar.

[tenia]

Had it been a while since you’d seen Caine in something? He’s always had a strong and distinct cockney accent. Few actors have ever needed to punch up their accent less than Caine.

I guess it has, since it's been quite some time since I last saw Get Carter, Dressed to Kill, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Mona Lisa and Children of Men.
However, I just quickly checked Pulp and nope, his accent there feels much more natural, less exaggerated.

[Mr Sausage]

Had it been a while since you’d seen Caine in something? He’s always had a strong and distinct cockney accent. Few actors have ever needed to punch up their accent less than Caine.

I guess it has, since it's been quite some time since I last saw Get Carter, Dressed to Kill, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Mona Lisa and Children of Men.
However, I just quickly checked Pulp and nope, his accent there feels much more natural, less exaggerated.

Out of interest I watched a scene from The Dark Knight next to a couple interviews with him from the last 9 years and his accent was the same in all three--regular old Michael Caine. Are you sure you're not reacting to something else in the performance? It's hard to imagine a scenario where an actor with one of the most distinctive natural accents in the world would decide to to imitate himself (no one click here) in a Batman movie of all things.

[tenia]

I don't know, it's just the way many of his words sound, especially his "Never" (or rather, Nayvarh").
My GF lived 3 years in Scotland, I have some family in Newcastle and had colleagues from Manchester and bosses from around London, so I'm used to people having various UK accents, but this one felt a tad too much for me. Thinking about it though, maybe that's because it simply is a very pronounced accent in a US production, ie not so much the intensity of it than it standing out so much overall.

[flyonthewall2983]

The only movie I've seen where he tried another accent was Secondhand Lions

You're forgetting his tragic attempt at a "Maine" accent in The Cider House Rules, a terrible performance in a terrible movie that somehow won him an Oscar.

Never seen it

[knives]

It's a movie with several fans on the board.

[Monterey Jack]

You're forgetting his tragic attempt at a "Maine" accent in The Cider House Rules, a terrible performance in a terrible movie that somehow won him an Oscar.

Never seen it

Lucky you.

[domino harvey]

Dude

[Jack Kubrick]

My parents have the DVD of TCHR somewhere in their house, unwatched since 2009. Somehow that's one of my mother favorite films.

[nitin]

I love all 3, and I would go so far as putting TDKR in my 15 or so great movies from the 2010s!

A lot of the criticism of it that I hear from people that I know is around how less 'realistic' it is compared to TDK. Now maybe it's just me, but I never thought TDK was a 'realistic' film, it was perhaps less comic bookey feeling tone wise and more 'gritty' but you still had a protagonist called Batman and a second villain that looked like he was from an 80s B movie.

[knives]

I always got the sense that Nolan was using the term realism more in the French sense of believability and immersion.

[tenia]

Exactly. It's more down to Earth, less comic-booky, more grounded, etc. It doesn't prevent the movies to remain super hero movies with all the credulity requirements, but it's not, say, Flash Gordon.

It coule be kind of our real world, and TDK and TDKR specifically clearly look like post 9/11 New York.

[knives]

Right, I think Nolan was contrasting his method with the clear fantasy of Burton and Schumacher.