Tuesday Releases: The Dark Knight Rises

December 4, 2012 / Leave a Comment

DECEMBER 4TH, 2012

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES // A masterpiece in storytelling and delivering one of the best third films in a series, ever, “The Dark Knight Rises” finds the perfect way to bring the franchise full circle. Openly Nolan’s last venture into the Batman lore, the film wraps up exquisitely, with the last 30 minutes of the film containing thoughtful reveals and twists, which are built throughout the course of the film (and unfathomably kept hushed during the marketing of the film). All the actors hit their marks, with Bale, Freeman, Caine, and Oldman delivering above-par repeat performances, while Hathaway, Coutillard, Hardy, and Gordon-Levitt blow away expectations and deliver unforgettable performances. Though the fights are few and far between, the battles that do exist are epic enough to resonate through the entire film. With much deeper and darker material to drive the plot, “The Dark Knight Rises” is much slower paced than the previous installments, but with many great moments built with Christopher and Jonathan Nolan’s genius-like writing skills, accompanied by the best score I have heard since “Inception” (also Hans Zimmer), the final Batman film truly holds up and helps mark the capstone of one of the greatest trilogies in cinema history.

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HOPE SPRINGS // As much as I love Tommy Lee Jones and Meryl Streep, seeing them get intimate is not on my bucket list. Streep effectively plays the victim of a regular woman in a stand-still marriage and Jones, the grumpy husband who is content with his humdrum life, but the leads get sucked into their stereotypical roles and never are never released. Topped off with a creepy performance by Steve Carrell as their therapist, the entire film is far too emotionally draining to develop any real sort of emotion. Though I can definitely see the Foreign Press eating this film up during Golden Globes season, I do not see any Oscar nominations coming from this film in the slightest.

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V/H/S // The most effective found footage film since “The Blair Witch Project” and exponentially creepier, “V/H/S” is basically made up of a grab bag of different horror films, all led by different directors. Each segment scares in a slightly different way, and though all succeed in horrifying, some are more adept than the others, especially “Amateur Night”, “The Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She Was Younger”, and “10/31/98”. At times relying too heavily on the gore factor, I eventually grew to appreciated the non-gory thrills that often smoothed over the blatant attempt at shock value.

New Releases
Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Butter (2012)
The Dark Knight Rises
Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn
Hope Springs
The Odd Life of Timothy Green
Samsara
V/H/S