Darkness Falls

I've been on more or less a hiatus the past two  weeks. A busy work schedule, not to mention plain old fatigue, has been gnawing on me, and between that and the string of blah releases recently the result I'm afraid has been me been neglecting Hello Mr. Anderson and my readers. Still, I couldn't imagine a better return to the site than reviewing possibly the most anticipated movie of the summer, The Dark Knight Rises. The finale to Christopher Nolan's take on the caped crusader has certainly earned it's "epic" label: at 165 minutes, it is the longest of his Batman trilogy, and borrows extensively from the comic book character's mythology in the formation of its story. In this third installment, the director took pages from one of the Batman's all-time great stories, 'Knightfall', which chronicled a hero driven to the point of both physical and mental exhaustion before being broken entirely. With Marvel having dominated the comic book film wars the past few years - Iron Man, Thor and of course The Avengers performing more impressively than DC's Superman Returns, Jonah Hex and Green Lantern - Nolan's films have been a light of hope for the company to somehow find their way back to the quality of storytelling for which they were once known. We're a long way from the "Bat-Nipple" sham that was Batman & Robin, and I was certainly of a mood to see this movie after spending this last weekend in the REAL inspiration for Gotham City, good old NYC.

You guessed it: he's Batman.

Set eight years after accepting the blame for the death of District Attorney Harvey Dent in The Dark Knight, Batman has retired his cape and cowl. Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) has lived in seclusion, avoiding any public appearances both due to the physical trauma his body endured in his battle with Two Face and the Joker and his emotional instability following the death of childhood friend and former romantic interest Rachel Dawes. Gotham has enjoyed a modern Renaissance, with Dent's legacy ensuring that the city is free of the organized crime that had crippled its peace and prosperity in the previous decades. That all begins to change with the arrival of Bane (Tom Hardy), a brilliant, mysterious and deadly mercenary who has Gotham set in his sights, to bring chaos in his wake. What is Bane after? Why has cat burgler Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway) targeted Bruce Wayne? And how are Ra's al Ghul and the League of Shadows involved? It's no wonder the thing stretches out to nearly three hours, as Nolan definitely needed that time to tell the whole story.

You'll wake up to an empty apartment... but it will be worth it.

This was to be the big one. The Dark Knight Rises was going to be bigger, more explosive and exciting than Marvel's The Avengers, being the end of Nolan and Bale's involvement with the storied franchise. It was far and away the most anticipated movie of the year for most people. Naturally this is where you start to pick up that The Dark Knight fails to live up to those impossibly high standards you have set. It's not so much that Nolan does anything particularly WRONG, not really. But there were several curious decisions made that - while not making TDKR as disappointing as Prometheus - seriously hinder the film's narrative flow. The movie starts off exciting with the introductions of Hardy's Bane and Hathaway's Catwoman, two major characters in the Batman universe who benefit from the amazingly talented actors who portray them. Hardy, nearly unrecognizable, has turned himself into a force of nature, and Hathaway masters all the angles of Selina Kyle, from her natural seductiveness to her brilliant strategic mind to her physical prowess. We even get to see a different side of Bruce Wayne, one that has been seriously affected by the battles and losses in his life. For Bale, it might not be as impressive as his turn in The Fighter, but his ability to invest himself fully into a role is nothing if not impeccable. And Nolan has always had a talent for drawing a lot of emotion out of his audiences with stellar visuals and explosive action.

Sure, he's not quite like the comic character, but Hardy's Bane is one of the best villains this year.

Unfortunately, even Nolan can't keep it up in a three-hour film, and when the film inevitably slows down for excessive plot exposition, you start to notice all the things that are wrong with The Dark Knight Rises. Like how Catwoman, despite her and Hathaway's many talents, still turns out to be kind of a one-dimensional character. Or Bane's ending, which is about as anti-climactic as one can get. Or Alfred's (Michael Caine) actions, which would never have happened in the comics. Or how Nolan ceases to focus on Batman for stretches at a time, turning the movie into the John Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) show. They're great actors and do wonderful jobs, but the last time I checked the protagonist was supposed to be Bruce Wayne, not some orphan cop. Or hey, remember when the villain conspired to use a Waynetech invention to actually destroy Gotham City in Batman Begins? Well, expect to see that again! Or Batman's steadfast refusal to use guns, while having no qualms about using the machine guns and missiles on his new "Bat" flyer late in the film. Or how there's no reference to the Joker, who contrary to the first law of Batman movies did NOT die at the end of The Dark Knight? I understand that nobody can replace Heath Ledger's Joker at this point but I don't need an actor in makeup, just some sort of sign that he was loose in Gotham as all the craziness was going down. Or the film's surprising predictability. Don't even get me STARTED on Marion Cotillard's character. And that ENDING...!

This guy gets more attention than Batman...

One of the biggest complaints you will hear about films based on comic book characters is that you can't fully get into the story unless you already know all about the character in question. That has at least been partially true of Marvel's recent efforts, especially for The Avengers, which did have some moments that might have been confusing if you hadn't seen any of its predecessors. The irony of The Dark Knight Rises is that newcomers to the franchise will handily be able to follow along whether or not they've read the comic, so long as they've at least seen Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. Even marginal Batman fans, however, may find themselves frothing at the mouth with all the liberties Christopher Nolan has taken with Gotham's favored son. At it's best, The Dark Knight Rises is a fun, exciting and entertaining thrill-ride with enough action, character development and intrigue to overcome its most glaring faults. It's the little things that will dig into your fun at the theater however, and there is no moment like that one Avengers scene of the collected heroes preparing for battle that will make you cheer and clap your hands in pure joy and exhilaration. TDKR is not that kind of movie, and doesn't try to be. Nolan's Batman is a character mired in darkness, ultimately alone in the battle against injustice. It's unquestionably his creation, and I'll say it's good enough to be the #9 film of 2012. That it could have - and perhaps SHOULD HAVE - been so much better is a shame, but Nolan's successes far outweigh his failures. His Batman epic, though now over, will be remembered as one of the best superhero series of all time, if not THE best. It's too bad it didn't finish better, but perhaps this was the ending Nolan's trilogy needed, if not necessarily the one it deserved.

Dancing lessons have since been cancelled.

Spoiler Alert!

It's about dreams.

Okay, it's actually a whole lot more than dreams, but to be completely honest, I'm not sure how much I can say about Christopher Nolan's latest piece of art, Inception, without giving away any of the plot devices, spoilers, twists, turns or character development that the trailers were quite careful not to give away (unusual for a big-budget Hollywood flick). It's quite the conundrum, wanting to write a thousand-word review without saying anything revealing..

And so I've come up with a compromise. See Inception. That's all I can say right now, all I SHOULD need to say right now. If I can't talk about the movie without giving it away to those of you who HAVEN'T seen it, and it it's an excellent enough movie that I don't want to spoil it for you, then I suggest you see the movie, come back, and we can continue with this conversation.

Enjoy!

Are you still there? Or have you come back? Well, then... (clears throat)

!!!SPOILERS WARNING!!!

(Just to make sure you were paying attention)

Anyone who knows me realizes that I have had, and still do have, problems with Leonardo DiCaprio. I know, he gets touted as Hollywood royalty, and no I haven't seen What's Eating Gilbert Grape which was supposed to be his early-days best film, but I never got into his movies. For years, I would justify these feelings with how bad his movies were (The Beach) or how he was constantly being overshadowed by his supporting actors when they simply out-acted him (Gangs of New York). And of course nobody talks about his performance in Titanic (except perhaps to ridicule it). So for years I remained unimpressed by this so-called wunderkind while others flocked to rightfully steal his thunder and shove themselves into spotlights which before might have been reserved for Leo.

Then came The Aviator.

The Howard Hughes biopic, while not a perfect film, was up to that point owner of the finest Dicaprio performance to date, with the actor almost flawlessly stepping ton Hughes' loafers, portraying the industry magnate with a fiery energy almost unseen in his career. Of course, one movie makes not a career, and only time would tell whether this had been a fluke or if he was truly beginning to "get it." The latter seems to be the case, since after The Aviator, Leo has starred in several notable films with nary a blotch inbetween. With The Departed, Revolutionary Road, and Shutter Island, DiCaprio finally seems to be living up to his potential as a performer (and, though the Academy didn't agree, actually deserved an Oscar nomination for his role in Revolutionary Road). It remains to be seen if he can keep it up but for now I don't have the dread feeling of impending failure when I see he's headlining a film these days.

And so I was actually excited to see Inception, the latest mind-fuck by Christopher Nolan (the man who made Batman cool again), but not just for Leo. Inception boasts a strong cast, with up-and-comers Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard, Tom Hardy and Ellen Page, and veteran performers Michael Caine, Ken Watanabe, Cillian Murphy and Pete Postlethwaite flanking DiCaprio. It was like Nolan got his shopping list out and grabbed every great actor he wanted, no fuss no muss. As the writer, writer, and producer of the film, Nolan took what could have easily been a glorified Matrix rip-off and instead produced a fine piece of filmmaking, creating what might be one of the better films this decade, let alone this year.

You might think that last bit was a little bit of hyperbole, but I honestly think this film is too smart, too clever, too GOOD to end up on the wayside. I once thought Nolan would be remembered for reviving the Batman franchise, but I'm confident that he'll be to this movie what the Wachowski Brothers are to The Matrix. What makes Inception different from the superhero-like Matrix, however, is it's genre. It's a heist film, and a giddy heist film at that, but one that, unlike most such films, also has emotional stakes which drive the movie forward, in addition to the genre's standard practices. As Cobb, the group's leader, DiCaprio had to be that character who's doing what he can with what he knows to recover from his wife's death and be able to return home to his children. That, more than the dream scenarios or fantastic effects, are what drive the film forward, and Leo handles the role with a talent I honestly didn't know he had ten years ago. You see the pain in his eyes, the tiredness and wanting to go home, to somehow redeem himself for the guilt he feels he put on himself.

And let's not forget the rest of the cast, who put on something of a clinic themselves. Gordon-Levitt has gone from indie favorite to rock star in his role as DiCaprio's partner in crime Arthur, a man so bodily beaten in this film it's surprising he can still stand at the end. Whoever's running Ellen Page's career deserves major kudos as well, as the in-her-prime Canadian actress once again wows and dominates most of the scenes she's in. Those she doesn't steal are pretty much in the hands of Hardy, whose suave forger (who can imitate other characters in dreams) always has the perfect quip to suit the occasion. He also becomes one of the ones to root for in the film's closing moments, led only by Arthur. Cotillard may be the best, vacillating between the loving wife DiCaprio remembers and the scorned personification of his guilt as she foils his jobs. Not as much is seen of Watanabe or Murphy, but both put on the respectable performances they are known to be capable of. Rarely do you see this level of talent in an ensemble cast, and nobody mixes poorly with the others, proving Nolan cast this piece well.

One of Inception's best qualities is that Nolan does his best to eschew the idea of shoving CGI graphics into any part of the film that is difficult to shoot. While CGI was necessary to add to create some of the more outlandish sequences in the dream worlds (including the "folding earth" moment shown in the trailer) some of the movie's more famous scenes were done in real time, with multiple cameras catching the action simultaneousy. Some of these, like the infamous exploding Paris bistro scene with Dicaprio and Page, or the rotating hallway fight involving Gordon-Lovitt, were done without CGI in very tricky shots that any other director might have done entirely using computers. The only instance where this hurts is in the very beginning of the film, where Watanabe's old-man prosthetics look extremely fake and haggard, but that's a minor quibble. Thankfully, Nolan's old-school attitude made sure that no fake-looking CGI ruled the day, and his extraordinary directorial talents made sure the scenes looked fantastic.

(Okay, even if you didn't take it seriously before, SPOILER WARNING!!)

With a story that cuts deep and manages to surprise, Nolan has brought us a film that hopefully will be remembered years from now as a modern classic. But is is truly over? I've heard more than one viewer wondering aloud about the ending of the film, which keeps the idea open that Cobb may not have woken up and may be still in fact dreaming. My opinion is, whether yes or no, it doesn't matter. Cobb's journey was to accept the circumstances that led to his wife's death, nothing more. Whether he's really awake or stuck in a dream, his guilt is assuaged, and he can once again be happy. And that's what this last job has really been about. It was never about the idea of actually pulling off inception, but about redeeming himself, to himself, stopping his self-sabotage and being able to go home again one day.

And if you're happy, who are others to say whether it's real?