Lincoln

No, I’m not going to do it. I’m not. No, I refuse to use that joke. Seriously, it’s been used a thousand times by now; I’m not hopping on that bandwagon. It’s been used by countless other movie reviewers. Do you really want me to stoop to that level? Goodness gracious. You are stubborn. Fine.

Spoiler alert, Mr. Lincoln dies in the end!

I hope you’re satisfied with yourself.

This movie is one that so many people have been talking about, and I’ve wanted to see it for myself since I first heard about it. First of all, I love the Abraham Lincoln. I believe that he’s not only one of the greatest presidents the United States has had, but one of the greatest men to have lived an American. If there is any better and more genuine story of the American dream coming true, I’d love to hear it sometime. The point is, this movie has one of the greatest directors of our time taking some of the greatest actors around to portray the final months of one of the greatest men to have lived in the United States of ‘Merica. May the greatness ensue.

Being that this film is based upon true events, there is little plot to “give away.” However, because the story is one that has a familiar ending, it becomes a matter of how the story is conveyed. Mr. Spielberg had to ask himself and his writers things like, “Whom all do we focus on? How much time are we going to cover? What is going to be the overarching premise? What will make this story relevant?” These are a few of the things that I’m going to cover in my review.

First off, who is the focus of the story? Okay, if you couldn’t figure that out by the time you walked into the cinema, then I would like you to return to your padded cell and keep quiet for a while. I’ll get back to you soon, I promise. But in all seriousness, the movie actually does a fantastic job depicting Abraham Lincoln. Wait, scratch that. Daniel Day Lewis does a fantastic job depicting Abraham Lincoln. I swear, DDL could take on whatever role he wanted if you gave him a year to prepare. His mannerisms, speech, tone, and body language all fit so perfectly with what I imagined Abraham Lincoln to be like. But, I digress. The movie itself has an interesting focus, which is Mr. Lincoln’s quest to pass the 13^th Amendment. Normally, you’d think this a history lesson that many high school students would be bored to death with. However, you’ve got to remember that this is a movie directed by Steven Spielberg; this will be much more than a history lesson, and it most definitely is. The movie captures all of the emotions and passions that were present at the time of the American Civil War, especially the various prejudices that were present within Congress itself. Not a whole lot of people know that, I think. Sure, there was the prejudice South and the supposed “freedom” of the North. Sure, the Union didn’t allow slavery. But some people would actually send runaway slaves back to the South in order to be nicely compensated. Northerners were fairly prejudiced themselves, and this movie nails that right in the head. Congressmen scoffed at the idea of black men and women (women in general, actually) casting ballots. This, among other issues, is definitely touched upon in the film, and I feel like they are truths that need to be known by those who slept through history class (even though those of us who did probably aren’t going to be the first in line for this movie).

The time that’s covered during the film encompasses the months preceding the passing of the 13^th Amendment. It’s a fairly good choice on Mr. Spielberg’s part; it’s not too long that details are missed, yet it’s not too short that the details are thinned out. As far as the length of the movie, it was noticeable that the runtime went beyond the two hour mark, although I was having fun with it the whole way through. I didn’t mind it that much.

Now here is where I feel the movie really shines today. The story is based in America 150 years ago, but why should people care about it now? Even though it’s not exactly an issue that’s brought up in the movie, the ideas that are found and are seen to be emerging are actually very relevant today. Tommy Lee Jones’ character is that of a Congressman who is most certainly not afraid to speak his voice. Granted, I don’t think this is uncommon in Congress today. What’s unique about his is that he’s willing to stand for what he believes, and what he believes is good. He knows exactly what the country needs, and he has some very moving dialogue that I would love to hear come truthfully from anybody in our government. While I and numerous other movie reviewers have said that this movie is perfect for the classroom, I also believe that this needs to be shown in the House, the Senate, and in the White House. They all must realize that people can be like this, and they need to be able to stand up like this. Money should not be the reason to do anything, ever. When it is, then we have a problem. What should motivate our actions are good ethics: compassion, love, righteousness, justice, and truth. Anyways, that’s enough of my moral lecture. On with the movie review.

Despite the ethical battles and the acting talents that are brought forth in this movie, what I love most is the dialogue. Good Lord, did they do some amazing writing for this film. You can seriously tell that everybody put their heart and soul into making this picture, and it filled me with glee when I was watching this. Seriously, there were a few times when I was listening to Daniel Day-Lewis or Tommy Lee Jones giving a rousing speech, and half of the time I would just laugh so hard in the theater because of how hard they were just grilling their opponent. I loved it, honestly. They knew how to make good speeches.

“You do realize we’re going to be replaced by stubborn, greedy bureaucrats in a short matter of time, yes Mr. Lincoln?”
“Please don’t remind me.”

So you can probably tell that I love this movie, and I’m not going to waste any time giving this film a Kick-Awesome. I’m looking forward to this movie coming out on DVD, so I’ll be sure to get a copy for myself (assuming I’m not broke; that’s been a bit of a problem recently). If you have any movies you’d like to see me review, get a hold of me and let me know!

Many Apologies

Okay… so it’s been awhile since I’ve posted a movie review. I’ve had Here Comes The Boom written for almost a month, but I was never able to publish it until today since the finished copy was lost with a flash drive that I left at school (thank goodness somebody found it and returned it). However, in my absence I’ve been watching many a good movie, and I think that I’ll have plenty to talk about in the coming weeks.

I also want to thank those who have given me the kind words they have, and have encouraged me to continue writing. I do plan on pumping out movie reviews on a much more regular basis so long as I’m able to. What I would like to have eventually is one review every two weeks, although with my last semester of school coming up along with college applications and auditions, I’m not so sure that’ll be always feasible. However, I’m definitely going to try my best. That’s the best I can do, after all.

ADD Version: I didn’t write reviews for awhile. Bad! But now I’m writing movie reviews again! Yay!

Here Comes The Boom

Here Comes the BOOOOOM!

I don’t know why, but I just felt that was necessary.

So Kevin James has taken the big screen once again to show that Zookeeper is not the best of his work, and that point is definitely made in one of the feel-good movies of the year. I did not expect what I saw in Here Comes the Boom, but I was very pleasantly surprised. So without further ado, let’s look at Kevin James in Here Comes the Boom.

The movie begins with one of the best rock songs in the past decade, “Joker and the Thief” by Wolfmother, so you know that this movie means business. Plus, they put Kevin James on a motorcycle. There’s another bunch of bonus points in my book. It wasn’t necessary, and they didn’t exploit him being on a bike at all (such as stupid and time-wasting stunts and chase sequences used only to get a bad punch line across). They just put Kevin James on a motorcycle because they wanted to. I liked that. It may be a small thing, but it’s the small things in life that get you through. Anyways, the movie starts off on a pretty good note. We see that Mr. James is a biology teacher whose name is Mr. Voss in the movie, but I always looked at him as Kevin James through the whole movie, so I’m going to continue to refer to him as such. But he really doesn’t care that much about his job; he sleeps through class, he lets his students do whatever they want, and it’s kind of astounding that he’s even in a teaching position. Because he’s late to his own class, he loses a vacation day and is given bus duty for the evening. Later that day, he finds none other than Henry Winkler, The Fonz, who is teaching music in another classroom. Kevin James goes down, greets the legend, and asks him to do bus duty for him. He accepts, of course, because Henry Winkler is just an awesome person. We also find out that Mr. Winkler’s wife is expecting a child, which is very unexpected in their old age but also very exciting, as well. So we get a pretty good picture of Henry Winkler’s character (whose name I forget; again, I just saw him as Henry Winkler), and he seems to remind me of that awesome old man who’s still keen in his years, but also kind of goofy. Believe me; you know one of these people. Anyways, Kevin James goes to a school board meeting, and we see Mr. Winkler go as well. This board meeting is the board meeting that every school dreads, but most are going through right now. It’s the “we’ve got to cut everything” meeting. In this case, music is the big one. Of course, Henry Winkler is not having any of that. He makes a few statements that I found to be pretty cliché (but awesome all the same), and Mr. James is behind him all the way, saying that teachers should stand up to help him keep his job. After all, who really wants to put the Fonz out of the job? They’re told that the music department needs $14,000 in order to continue. In response, Kevin James gets a second job teaching government in night classes for immigrants who wish to become citizens. One of these immigrants, Niko, happens to have been an MMA fighter in Holland. When Kevin James goes to Niko’s house to help him study, he finds out that MMA fighters can win up to $10,000 in the UFC. From here, we have a story about renewal, friendship, determination, and awesome fights. Here Comes the Boom.

I really enjoyed the lineup they managed to have for this movie, despite the fact that I’ve never really been a Kevin James fan before this. In my mind, he was the guy who had a pretty good sitcom on TV for awhile and then did a few bad movies. Such is not the case anymore. Kevin James has shown that he is a decent actor and comedian when given the right writing and direction. This movie was good for him, and I honestly am looking forward to seeing him in another movie. And Henry Winkler. I was so happy to see him in something other than those Reverse Mortgage commercials. And he did a great job with this, I was impressed. It’s just really easy to like his character. I enjoyed seeing him again. The supporting cast was overall decent, although nothing spectacular. Whoever played Niko did a good job, and I felt there was some very good dialogue between him and Kevin James. I liked that, and it was definitely an unexpected surprise. And Salma Hayek was in the film as Kevin James’ love interest, but she could have been taken out of the film entirely and nobody would have noticed, honestly.

The film was overall a lot better than I expected it to be. I’ve never been much for the feel-good movies, but this is one that I thoroughly enjoyed. I will admit, there were times when I could spot the inspirational movie clichés. But they were acceptable, and ended up being little nitpicks. I would recommend this to everyone in the school staff, those who like stories with triumphant comebacks, and even for those who enjoy MMA fighting, because there are some really jaw-dropping fights in this movie. This is a movie that I think I will buy a copy of when it comes out.

Robocop

Alright, I’m going to get this out of the way first and foremost: Paul Verhoeven’s Robocop is one of my favorite movies of all time. If I wanted to, I could tear it apart for days on end. But, I realize that the coming December 22 apocalypse is coming, so I figure I should try to convince you all to witness this piece of cinematic gold before it’s too late.

Robocop is set in the not-too-distant future of Detroit (although I’ve heard tell that this was actually a documentary), where crime has saturated the city and political satire is scattered for every intelligent viewer to enjoy. Detroit and its police force are owned and practically run by an autonomous corporation known as OCP, Omni Consumer Products. OCP plans on tearing down “Old Detroit” to build Delta City, the city of wealth and prosperity everyone wishes they could build. However, in order to begin this process, they need to get rid of the crime that holds the city. Enter Alex Murphy, a young, dashing, and determined cop who gets transferred to the Detroit Police. He’s an interesting contrast to the rest of the police force because most of them are actually pushing for a strike during a majority of the movie. They claim that they don’t get paid enough while they’re getting mowed down on the streets. Typical union workers. But Alex is ready for the job, and he seems excited to do some good. He’s paired up with probably the only other optimistic cop on the force, Officer Anne Lewis. You can tell that they connect almost immediately. They bond, patrol the streets; it’s a nice relationship that they have. Alex is married, so it’s not a typical bond that you might expect. Nancy Allen, who plays Officer Lewis, said in an interview that her father was on a police force, and there’s a bond between partners that’s almost as strong as marriage, if not stronger. You have to have each other covered when you go out into the city. This bond is very apparent between Lewis and Murphy.

Alex has some interesting habits to his personality, ones which will become plot devices later on in the movie. The main trait is the now-famous gun twirl. We see this when the two officers are taking a break. He says that he learned to do it for his son. Plus, he “gets a kick out of it too.” At this moment, they get the call for a suspect that’s heading towards the abandoned steel mill. They begin to pursue, and they find out that they are chasing the one and only Clarence Boddicker, a known cop killer and crime lord. Once they corner him in the steel mill, the two officers call for backup, but find that all the other units are too far away to get to them in time. So, being the ambitious cops that they are, they head in to catch the bad guys. Movie guidelines tell us that this is a bad idea, especially in the first act of a movie. Murphy and Lewis then agree to split up to cover more ground. You don’t have to read the script to know that this is a horrible idea, no matter what movie you’re in. It turns out that Clarence and his boys corner each cop individually and take them out. Lewis gets off easy; she’s just knocked off a ledge and left alone. Murphy finds one of Boddicker’s henchmen, Emil. As Murphy takes him into custody, the rest of Boddicker’s gang takes him by surprise.

Here is where we get a good picture of who this Clarence character is. His monologue sets a pretty good impression, making him a pretty formidable guy. “You probably don’t think I’m a very nice guy, do you?” “Buddy, I think you’re slime.” “See, I got this problem. Cops don’t like me. So I don’t like cops.” He then proceeds to practically play with him, pointing his shotgun at different points of his body and giving off that “meter” sound. You know, the “ne ne ne” that speeds up when it gets closer to something and slows down when it gets further away. He tries Murphy’s chest, no luck. He tries the head, but the meter doesn’t exactly find that ideal. Traveling down his arm, the meter sounds satisfied when the gun is aimed at his hand. Thus begins the scene that could have tipped the scale of making this rated R film a rated X film. No, seriously. They had to edit this scene so that it wouldn’t go down in history as one of the very few films to get an X rating for something other than nudity. That’s flat-out gruesome, and watching it made me very sick. Murphy gets more than a dozen shotgun rounds, taking off his hand and his arm before they run out of ammo. In the unedited version, Murphy actually has his arm lopped off and lives a few moments longer for Emil to say, “Hey Clarence… he’s still alive.” Maybe it’s just me, but when comparing the edited and unedited, the former seems rushed, while the latter seems to go on a little too long to bear, which is a good thing. I guess that’s just my weak stomach. When Lewis finds Murphy barely among the living, he’s rushed to the hospital, but it’s in vain. The man is a corpse, which is exactly what OCP needed for their new Robocop program.

Jeez, I guess Red Forman really had that bad of a day.

Before Murphy and Lewis came together, OCP Vice President Dick Jones introduced the board of directors his new “urban pacification” unit, ED-209, a vicious robot with guns for arms and panther roars for effect. The unit ultimately fails, killing one of the board members. A rising star in the company, Bob Morton takes this chance to unveil his new project, Robocop, to the CEO of the company, known only as “The Old Man.” The project is accepted, and all they need is a subject to use for a body. With Alex Murphy dead and gone, OCP has a perfect candidate. And thus we now have Robocop, a force that, as Peter Weller put it, “is a beast.” So, how does one make an interesting movie out of this premise? Well, I’m pretty sure Paul Verhoeven had the right idea. Robocop goes out, patrols the city streets, and makes some pretty awesome busts. However, the movie makes a turn when Robocop actually begins to have dreams of his past life, which most certainly doesn’t sit well with him. Immediately after, he’s confronted with Anne Lewis, who recognizes him and also tries to get him to remember his past. These conflicts are what drive the rest of the movie, and it’s a wonderful ride the whole way.

As much as I’d like to, I refuse to go any further into the plot, as this movie is something that, as I say, must be seen, not read.

But anyways. The movie is, as you can probably tell, beautifully written. The story, the dialogue, the subject matter, all of it. It’s all stuff that I can love on. And one of the things that excite me is the subtleties that the film has to offer. They’re almost littered like Easter eggs throughout, and I personally love it. One example is when (kinda spoiler) Robocop is fighting ED-209, and Robocop is knocked through the door. When he’s getting up, you can hear him moan out in pain. Pain is a human feeling, not a cyborg feeling. Then it’s followed by a less subtle shot that zooms in on his visor, which is now cracked, revealing a look of terror in his eye. It’s an unnecessary touch, but it’s absolutely beautiful and adds that much more to the film’s heart (end spoiler).

This movie has a decent amount of actors that I honestly have not seen in other movies, but they have all done an absolutely great job in Robocop. It just seems like all of the people that you have seen in other movies, but you just never notice it enough to remember the specific actors. But like I said, the cast did a great job carrying their weight in the movie, and I think Peter Weller did an absolutely fantastic job as Alex Murphy/Robocop. I’ve seen various interviews both during the filming process and after the fact, and to this day Weller claims that playing this character was the most disciplined act in his entire career. Setting up on a normal day of shooting took him about 3 hours to get into the Robocop suit, and each day he was in it he lost an average of 5 pounds per day. Along with that, there were scenes where Robocop’s helmet was taken off, and the makeup that was involved with those scenes took up 8 hours of the day. By the time he had the makeup, prosthetics, and Robocop suit on, he had already worked an 11 hour day, and he still had to shoot for another number of hours. That takes an incredible amount of patience and, like Peter said, discipline in order to work like that. With that in mind, I tip my hat off to you, Peter Weller. You are indeed Robocop.

One thing that has to be noted on the Robocop series (which consists of Robocop 1 and 2, not 3) is the special effects that are used. Primarily they use stop-motion animation, and some pretty amazing stop-motion at that. Each of the villain robots are created using stop-motion, and this was in a time when CGI was just beginning to emerge, but it wasn’t good enough to use extensively (Tron, I know you tried). With this in mind, the special effects crews had to be especially creative in designing their ideas and bringing them to life. ED-209 was just absolute eye candy, and I personally liked that they made it stop motion. I mean, they could have waited a few years and made it CGI. Just look at Terminator 2: Judgment Day and JurassicPark. Those two movies had some incredible special effects, and they were only five years ahead of Robocop. But here’s what makes the stop-motion effects beneficial in this situation. ED-209 was a robot. As a robot, its movements aren’t supposed to be flowing or smooth; it’s sharp, agitated, and direct. That’s what stop-motion creates. Also, I think the fact that since stop-motion animation seems to move in an unnatural way, that adds to the fear of the character. Your thought when you first see ED-209 walking around is, “Wait, what is that thing? And why does it move like that? It must be EVIL!” Seriously, it’s just perfect.

This is another movie that I feel the composer did an awesome job on, as this movie has one of the cooler hero theme songs I can think of. It never seems to come up in the “cool themes” discussion, but I think Robocop’s theme song definitely deserves some attention. Plus, the other pieces throughout the film really put the right emotions in at the right spot. And this is a bit harder for me to admit, because I’m just not that fond of the 80’s synthesized sounds. But here, in a futuristic cyborg movie, I found that they used the perfect blend.

I’m not going to waste my time with this one, this movie was Kick Awesome. It has exciting action scenes, beautiful effects, talented acting and directing, incredible heart, as well as some hilarious social satire. So basically it has everything it needs to be a perfect movie. I’ll be getting my own copy soon enough, and I suggest you do the same!

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Incredibly Loud and Extremely Close. Tremendously Loud and Quite Close. Unnecessarily Loud and Ridiculously Close. I’m almost positive one of these is the correct move title of Stephen Daldry’s 2011 film.

So, I was recommended this film from numerous friends of mine, and I had overheard others talking about its supposed sentimental themes and touching moments. With a free night and a free movie card for my local video store, I figured it was worth a shot. Without further ado, let’s do this.

The movie begins with a figure falling. This figure will come back to haunt us throughout the movie, but that’s not important right now. What happen to be important are this boy and his thoughts. Oskar is our protagonist, a 9-year-old who has the perfect imagination as well as a real gift for creating his own inventions and organizational systems. However, it is implied that he has some sort of mental disorder as the events of the movie unfold. It never is fully revealed or proven, but it’s quite obvious it seems. His father, portrayed by Tom Hanks, is his only real link to reality and interest, giving Oskar new adventures and wild goose chases to embark on. It’s mostly just to kill time, but it keeps the boy’s mind busy. What makes the father admirable is that he actually does make sure that there is a treasure at the end of the path for his son, and he’s almost always there to help him if he needs it. You really can feel a close bond between the father and son. You could even say that it’s incredibly close…

I’m sorry.

Anyways, the major driving point of the story is that Oskar’s father dies in the 9/11 attack. This leaves Oskar alone, and there’s a quest that never ended up being completed. This tears at the boy, and he feels that he must solve the mystery that his father left for him in order to keep his memory alive. While going through his father’s closet for the first time since “the worst day,” as he calls it, he accidentally knocks a vase over from the top shelf. As it shatters on the floor, he finds that there was a small envelope with a key inside the vase. On the key, he reads “Black.” This must be a part of the adventure that his dad left for him, and so the rest of the movie is spent as Oskar tries to find out who “Black” is and where the lock for the key is.

One thing that I feel I must note is that a good chunk of the film is driven by monologue given by Oskar. I can only assume that what we’re hearing is his thoughts, although it seems more like something he’s telling us rather than us as viewers listening in. He relays certain points to us directly. This method of storytelling was annoying to me at first, as I’m not a fan of such storytelling when it seems confused and panicked, which is what Oskar’s speeches seemed like at times. One specific instance is when he is going out into New York City for the first time on his own to find clues for his mystery, and he begins to tell us what makes him nervous. We’re then launched into this array of phobias and distressed images that, at first, seem to be fair enough. Although, when Oskar begins to yell each individual fear out in accompaniment of the appropriate illustrations and sounds at a sickening speed, I found myself thinking, “Forced art.” The flashy imagery, the over-the-top listing, and the increasing volume just didn’t sit well with me. I felt they were trying to make art, which just doesn’t work. Creativity works best when it flows and just happens, not when you’re looking for it. However, to be fair, it did serve its purpose. Through this odd montage, we find out that Oskar is afraid of nearly everything, from planes to tall buildings to subway systems. I’m honestly amazed he stepped out of his apartment to walk around in the busy streets of New York. But if he didn’t that wouldn’t make for a good story, would it? Anyways, the storytelling method that is used in the film was hard to get used to for me; although by the end I was okay with it. I suppose that was just a matter of needing to be invested in the movie enough.

“Think they’ll ever see us, Dad?” “Nah, nobody ever suspects the binoculars, anymore.”

I will give the movie’s cast a big ol’ thumbs up, because I thought that each did their job wonderfully. Whoever played Oskar did a good job with the character he was given, and I think he did the best he could with the role. Sandra Bullock did a great job as Oskar’s mother, who had some pretty great dialogue between Oskar and her throughout the movie. Then there’s Max von Sydow, the guy you see in a few drama movies that you don’t really know the name of, but you think he’s a pretty cool guy each time you see him. He still puts that impression on his character here, which is called The Renter. What sets him apart from the crowd is that he has taken an oath of silence, which I have always thought to be really cool when I see it happen in stories. I guess that comes from my own wishing to take a personal oath of silence, although I have too much on my mind to do that. There’s a really great plot point and a few emotional scenes that follow this character, which I will not spoil. But definitely pay attention to him. John Goodman makes a few appearances as Stan the Doorman, and he has some interesting dialogue with Oskar, who seems to have a compulsion to hurl insults at Stan whenever he sees him. This makes for some pretty funny outbursts in the middle of the intensity and curiousness the rest of the film carries. And, of course, Tom Hanks plays the perfect dad who just wants to keep his kid happy. I loved it, and if that’s how Tom Hanks actually parents, then his kids must grow up to be pretty awesome. Not to mention their dad is Tom Hanks. That plays a part in it too.

So, how does the film hold up as a whole? To be honest, it did a lot better than I thought it would. I had heard people talking about it since its release, and I had very little interest in seeing it. But after having it suggested to me by multiple people, I decided to give it a look. And I’m honestly glad I did. It was a compelling story with interesting characters that were three dimensional and had, again, some really great dialogue. Did it come off as pretentious at times? Yes. Did it detract from the film? Sadly, it did. When I first saw the scene I mentioned above, I couldn’t help but point it out to myself, which took me out of the story and out of the movie. If a film does that, it’s not doing its job correctly. But otherwise, I thought the movie was great, and I think I’ll buy a copy.

If there are any movies you would like to see me review, comment below and let yourself be heard! I hope to get more of these reviews churned out, possibly at a rate of one per week if I actually become motivated enough. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see, shall we?

The Dark Knight Rises

After hearing that the final installment of Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy was going to be released on DVD and Blu-ray on December 4th, I’ve revived my complete passion for all that is Batman, and I’m here to review what seems to be the movie to review: The Dark Knight Rises. I will warn you now, there are spoilers, and this is a movie to be seen, not read. With that being said, let’s dig into The Dark Knight Rises.

This movie has a lot of substance for a 2½ hour movie. I’ve heard people complain about how the plot of the movie seems to be all over the place, which is a legitimate complaint. However, I’ve noticed that with Nolan’s Batman films you can’t really step away during the film and still expect to understand everything. If you pay attention, you’ll find a well-written narrative that has decent character and plot development. And while the plot was confusing at times upon the first viewing, I managed to pick up the slack the second time around, and I was very pleased with the outcome of this final film in that regard.

I think some people went to this film expecting a popcorn flick to just sit back and enjoy like the Avengers, only to be disappointed that they had to use their mind in the theater. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course. In the Avengers’ case, it was done really well. But what Christopher Nolan had in mind was to create an intense, very real world, not a comic book universe. When viewing the Dark Knight trilogy, I try to view it in the way that movie reviewer Jeremy Jahns does. He once said that he sees the trilogy as a historical documentation of events that actually happened in a Gotham city, and that the Batman comic books that we have today are the exaggerated retellings of the Batman story, sort of like folklore. So with that in mind, Christopher Nolan doesn’t have to live up to the comic books at all (but he does anyway). The point is that these movies aren’t meant to be comic book movies, full of action, explosions, and over-the-top ideas. The Dark Knight films were meant to be grounded and down to earth, and Nolan achieves this masterfully.

“No, this isn’t an iPad. It’s… a Batpad. For my Batpod.”

The actors in this film did a tremendous job portraying their characters in their own unique way. When the cast and characters were first announced to the public when the movie was still in production, a lot of people were skeptical about certain choices (Anne Hathaway as Catwoman or Tom Hardy as Bane). However, I think that each did a great job with what they were given, and I’ve found that certain actors have been working well with Chris Nolan, such as Hardy, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Michael Caine, and Marion Cotillard. I hope to see these people working again with Nolan in future films. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, by the way, did a great job playing the character John Blake, an inspired and ambitious young cop who we are eventually led to believe will be Bruce Wayne’s replacement. I especially appreciate the performance given by Michael Caine in this film. Even though he appeared for a relatively short amount of time in this film, I felt really torn and almost helpless for Bruce when Alfred decided to leave Wayne Manor. Caine always seems to do a great job with every movie he’s in, but I wanted to point him out this time around. I also thought that Tom Hardy did a fantastic job as Bane. As an actor, he had to jump some pretty high hurdles. One is that he had to put on a bunch of upper-body strength for the role. Bane is a very menacing character physically, and Tom had to accommodate that. The other obstacle that he had was that mask he wore. Normally, an actor’s facial expressions are the greatest asset the actor has. But without a mouth to express emotions with, there isn’t a whole lot left to use. But Tom Hardy’s eyes. Just a cold stare would send the shivers. Specifically, in the scene when Daggett and Bane are meeting in Wayne Tower, Daggett yells at his assistant to stay in the room to prove that he still is in charge of the situation between him and Bane. In response, Bane simply rests his hand on Daggett’s shoulder and asks him, “Do you feel in charge?” I think that we can all agree that if a giant man with a face mask that made him sound as if Sean Connery found Darth Vader’s voice box said and did that to you, you would not feel in charge of anything ever. If the look in someone’s eyes can do that to you in union with the rest of their body language, you have a great actor. Props to you, Mr. Hardy.

As a musician, I find myself taking careful notes of the scores in a film. The Dark Knight Rises is a film with an exceptional musical score, although it’s quite different from most others. Rather than attempt to create a theme or a catchy tune, composer Hans Zimmer set out to create a score that was more atmospherically based. His music set the right mood, and it was made to do just that and nothing more. Yet even so, when just listening to the music itself, I feel like it sums up Batman pretty nicely; it’s high tech, it’s epic, it’s big, and it’s mysterious. I give a thumbs-up to Hans Zimmer and his team. Plus, when watching the movie, how could you not feel like cheering when Bruce Wayne finally emerged from the prison pit while Batman’s theme is playing full blast?

This movie is honestly a little tough to review as an individual movie, mainly because its intended purpose was not to be seen separately from the first two films. The Dark Knight Rises is not its own movie; it’s a part of a trilogy. Each movie has its own goal that it attempts to achieve (and does so very well). Christopher Nolan gave each film a theme: Fear, Chaos, and Pain, respectively to the order of each movie. In the first movie, Bruce had to face his greatest fears in order to become Batman. In the second film, he faced Joker, who was the ultimate embodiment of Chaos, Anarchy, and, in my opinion, Pure Evil. The third movie focused entirely on how Batman is broken, how he rises, and how he finally dies. Furthermore, Bane is the instrument which brings about the fall of Batman. However, this is the fall of Batman, not Bruce Wayne. Because this is the end of Batman but not Bruce Wayne, we have a clean ending to the trilogy. Batman has served his original purpose, to be a symbol of hope. Bruce can live easy knowing that he left Gotham a better place, and that the city has that symbol of hope that he lived his life trying to establish.

The Dark Knight Rises attempted to do a lot in its 165 minutes of screen time. However, I believe that it does its job very well, and it brings a satisfying end to the Dark Knight trilogy. Christopher Nolan has made a very impressive impact on the Batman universe, one which will be sure to last.

Now since this movie is my first to review, I’m going to take this opportunity to introduce my own rating system: (from best to worst) “Kick-Awesome,” “I’ll buy a copy,” “$5 bin,” “Goodwill material,” and “Burn it with fire.” Needless to say, The Dark Knight Rises is Kick-Awesome. Let’s hope I never have to use the “Burn it with fire” rating. (although you never know)

Welcome!

Alright, folks. The deal is fairly simple. I enjoy movies. I assume you do too. With this in mind, I’m going to do a good deal of talking about movies that have either come out recently, been recommended to me, or ones that I’ve just decided to see on my own time and will. My reviews will be in-depth, full of 3-D explosions and whatnot. Please be aware of this at all times. Keep your hands and feet within the vehicle, and do not at any time decide that your voice is not one to be heard.

Basically, I just want to do this for fun. Like I said, I enjoy movies greatly, and I enjoy picking them apart. I hope that this will be fun for more people than myself, and I’m more than willing to take suggestions of any kind. So to start this off, I’m going to need suggestions. There are a hundred and one movies that I’d like to review, but I’d like to hear from anybody and everybody. Please post whatever movies you’d like to see in the comments; I’ll check out whatever seems to be in the popular consensus. Or I’ll just choose whatever I want.