The Dark Knight Rises
Director: Christopher Nolan
Year Released: 2012
Rating: 2.0
One of the major issues I had with The Dark Knight was that aside from Ledger's Joker - the epitome of evil - none of the other characters were that interesting ... not even the Batman figure. Simply put, Ledger made that movie seem memorable (and deservedly won a posthumous Oscar). This problem becomes magnified in this bloated release, which only comes alive in the last third or so (with the Siege of Gotham) after endless exposition: Tom Hardy's Bane is fine but indistinctive (the mask is neat) but Anne Hathaway's Catwoman doesn't come close to Michelle Pfeiffer's in the Burton Batman movie (she's too chipper to have a dark side; she always seems like she's trying to act instead of acting ... but she does fit into that costume). Fanboys can nitpick at the finer details, but I basically could have cared less about any of these individuals. Nolan can keep trying to make superhero silliness art, but the effort is transparent at best.
