A Legend Ended In IMAX

I'm not inside my own mind today... You can thank Christopher Nolan and company for that.

Last Night I saw The Dark Knight Rises in IMAX.

IT

WAS

AWESOME!!!!!!

It felt like I was witnessing something special. In my heart, I'm skeptical that a filmmaker with the imagination, and the cinematic prowess that Christopher Nolan has will ever make a superhero film again, much less a Batman movie. This trilogy was bigger than Star Wars for me. The Dark Knight was like Empire Strikes Back, as far as the Star Wars metaphor was concerned. It had the big moments, and it set the tone for what was to come in Return of The Jedi

The Dark Knight Rises was everything it needed to be and more.

WAS it better than The Dark Knight? No... but it certainly wasn't far off.

To compare Dark Knight Rises to The Dark Knight is almost like directly comparing Return of The Jedi to Empire Strikes Back. It's almost un-fair to do so, you have to look at the movies for what they are and go from there.

For the sake of secrecy, I'm going to try my damnedest to refrain from spoilers here. I just have so much on my mind, I guess... I barely slept last night. All I could do was think about this movie. I had to accept that expectations are objective and they ruin movies. Leaving the theater, I was a bit chided boecause a couple of my predictions of the plot came true. They didn't come to be in a linear fashion, for that I thank Christopher Nolan, and in the context of the movie, the way it was pulled off was perfect I thought. It still happened and Christopher Nolan has always seemed to subvert my expectations with his imagination.

Don't get me wrong. That still happened, and it was glorious. I guess I've never predicted a Christopher Nolan movie, and I didn't predict what happened in DKR, just a couple plot points, so I needed time to get over myself in that regard. Here's some things

The Plot, the plot was great, an excellent send off to the Trilogy, and really gives the entire story a sense of closure, as a true third part to a trilogy should. I think it was a bit melodramatic at points, but it had to be to truly sell the scope of what was happening. I think, if there's anything to criticize its that there wasn't enough Batman. There's got to be a 2:1 ratio of scenes involving Bruce Wayne to scenes involving Batman. That's cool, but it's the only thing I have a real beef with. Some spotty CGI in parts doubled with a few moments where you really have to suspend your disbelief. It's a compelling tale that brings real drama to a Superhero world that deserves it.

Most comic book films are shallow explorations of the title characters, and excuse for explosions and action. Christopher Nolan brought depth and drama to a world that had never really got its due. You never saw that level of depth from Tim Burton, and especially not from Schumacher. Their films were about the spectacle of the Bat, more so than anything else. I think that's why I'm drawn to Nolan's trilogy as much as I am. It's a deep world for a fanboy like me to get lost into.

It's far from a perfect film, I think that honestly it might be the most flawed of any of the 3 movies but as a send-off to their story it did what it had to do. It had the over-the-top villain it required. Bruce Wayne learned to cope with loss, and learned to love again. There was character growth that you don't see from superhero movies very often unless its Iron Man learning to build a suit with temperature resistance.

The Dark Knight rose, indeed he did. I loved it, and I'm going to see it again in a couple of days. I need to think about it some more. I want to write a bigger blog about comparing the Dark Knight Trilogy to the Star Wars Trilogy (There's only one to true Star Wars fans...) In the end, I was very satisfied.