Quick Post: The Dark Knight Rises

Well, I went to see the film of the summer today. Not at midnight or 3am, at 10:40am.

First, let me say that if you're going to see a movie on opening day, 10:40 is a pretty good time to see it. There was hardly anyone in the theater. As I entered the sixteen theater cinema, I was the only person in line for a ticket and the only person in line for a soda (I gave up getting popcorn years ago - I can only afford so much!). The first patrons I saw were in good old theater one and there were about ten of us. I really wanted to stand up at one point and ask them to pause the film so I could go to the bathroom.

I'll keep this short and spoiler-free. I was intrigued by Neil Gaiman's comments that "preferred the last movie [The Dark Knight], but this is a better Batman movie, and, I suspect, a better film." How could you like something more that was not as good a film? I'm not sure. I tried to rationalize it by saying that I prefer  Anchorman, but recognize that The Artist is a better film.

Any way, when it comes down to it, I only slightly disagree with Gaiman. I still think The Dark Knight is the better film. Christopher Nolan is brilliant and takes a decidedly uninteresting villain in Bane (who came across to me as a "cautions on the use of steroids" villain back when he first appeared) and made him somewhat compelling. And Anne Hathaway is great as Catwoman. But neither of them packs the punch of Heath Ledger's Joker. Both movies were epic in their own ways. The Dark Knight played with the entire cityscape and gave us a view of Gotham that was recognizeable, gritty and only minimally cartoonish (even with such a potentially cartoonish villain as the Joker - see Jack Nicholson's portrayal for an example how cartoonish he could be). The Dark Knight Rises does an incredible job of tying together the compelling moments of the first two films into an outstanding climax. In short, I loved it. But I still love The Dark Knight more.