'The Dark Knight Rises' movie review, trailer: An 'almost perfect' film

Saturday, 28 July 2012 10:30

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Gordon-Levitt's Blake does a lot of the heavy lifting when Commissioner Gordon and even the Batman are indisposed, and he's more than up to the job. Hathaway and Bale look good enough together that one roots for them to get away from all this carnage and go make spandex-sheathed super-babies. Caine's Alfred deserves a vacation in Florence. Gordon is stalwart under trying circumstances.

As much as the actors excel, they are aided by beautifully crafted scenes. Nolan's images stand on their own as ominous, startling, beautiful. By now, he is skilled enough to make even the cartoonish gimmicks seem real, and he relies far less on CGI cheating than similar films of recent Hollywood vintage.

The downside is that at least some of the violence really is visceral and immediate, something that is worth considering in the wake of the murderous attack on an opening night crowd in Colorado. Of course, Batman did not create that sort of mental dysfunction, but both are products of a common culture. At the very least, "The Dark Knight Rises" should not be a movie for young children or impressionable young men.

On its own terms, however, it has few shortcomings, though they include that pandemic of the genre, the overly talkative super-villain. Where's Scott Evil when we need him to advise, just shoot him and let's eat? Another minus is Hans Zimmer's thunderously generic score, which drowns out the occasional line of dialogue while subtracting from the pleasure of watching "The Dark Knight Rises."

Given the current economics of the medium, there will probably be a new Batman movie along any month now. But take advantage of the opportunity to see this one on the big screen, even IMAX. "The Dark Knight Rises" does just that.