MAN OF STEEL Is The Super Epic We've Been Waiting For

MAN OF STEEL Review:

- I'm a Superman guy. People say Superman is cheesy. They say he's too powerful, too perfect. Those people are missing the point. Superman is an icon, an ideal. The best Superman stories are big-picture morality plays. The best Superman stories inspire and give us hope. Superman, to me, is about the idea that humanity has in them the capacity for good - to use great power for good. Superman fights a neverending battle that serves his ideals. With his power of alien origin, he could kill us, oppress us. He could view humans as an "other" as we view ants. But Superman is the ultimate immigrant story - the ultimate American story. Created in post-depression America by two young Jewish kids, Superman was the messianic figure who, in an unfair world, a world creeping into darkness, brought light and hope - who fought for the little guy and who served as a symbol for Truth, Justice, and the American Way.

Superman as a hero and as an ideal has always inspired me. The core idea - that we should strive to do good - is such a simple yet powerful one. It's the basis for the superhero myth. Without Superman, none of the other costumed heroes currently flooding the theaters would exist. Superman to me has always been the best hero because of the ideals he represents, but also because his story is one that's both grounded and cosmic. Superman's origins are both the stuff of epic science fiction and of Rockwellian Americana. Superman / Clark Kent's feelings of alienation are ones we all can relate to, and his All-American values are ones that we all know. But Superman is also a character that lends himself to epic adventure - time and world spanning journeys, world-conquering villains, imagination-expanding ideas. Superman is our modern Epic Hero - an Odysseus for the Science Age.

But time and again in recent decades, there have been those who've sought to make Superman less Super. While the Richard Donner movies featured a classic, timeless performance from the great Christopher Reeve, they were also cheesy as hell. Despite some dramatic moments, there were also numerous tonal shifts towards campy comedy and eye-rolling superheroics that undermined the great work of Reeve. Later, Lois & Clark turned Superman into prime-time romance, and Smallville upped the teen angst and soap operatics, with a "no tights, no flights" policy that made Superman less icon and more teen idol. That's not to say that those shows didn't have their moments, but as a Superman fan, they rarely left me fully satisfied. Meanwhile, Superman Returns left me flat-out disappointed. The movie paid slavish homage to the Donner films, keeping some of the worst aspects like used-car-salesman Lex Luthor. That movie was so wrapped-up in the symbolic aspects of Superman that it forgot the imagination and sci-fi. For a hero that starred in Action Comics for decades, Superman Returns somehow neglected to show Supes throwing a punch.

For me, my earliest memories of Superman were colored by what I had seen from the Donner films. I didn't get why Superman was cool. That all changed when circa 1992 I began reading The Death of Superman and Reign of the Supermen storylines in the comics. Suddenly, I was obsessed. I began reading weekly Superman comics from then on. I went back and read the best Superman stories by the greats like John Byrne, Jack Kirby, Alan Moore, and Elliot S! Maggin. I read new classics by Grant Morrison, Mark Waid, Mark Millar, Joe Kelly, Jeph Loeb, Kurt Busiek, Geoff Johns, and more. I realized that the best Superman stories - from All-Star Superman to Kingdom Come - gave Superman a humanity and relatability, but also played off the iconography - they were big, they were epic, they were larger than life. They were, in a word, super.

MAN OF STEEL is the first live-action Superman that truly fits that description. For that reason, people who only like Superman when he's written more like the street-level, wise-cracking, down to earth Marvel heroes ... well, they may reject this film. This film is huge, epic, full of weird sci-fi and mega-sized super-powered smackdowns. And it also takes all of that stuff seriously. There's not a lot of winking at the audience. And you know what? I say that's okay. Sure, Superman has a history of stories that are whimsical and even comical. But there are also plenty of stories (especially in the modern day), that have a darker, more intense tone. Biblical would be a good descriptor. And MAN OF STEEL fits that bill. It's biblical-level epicness - superhero sci-fi on a grand stage.

It all starts with a rip-roaring prologue set during the final days of Krypton. There is no doubt: this section of the film is flat-out awesome, and it plays 100% to director Zack Snyder's strengths. I love visual imagination, I love great world design, and damn, I loved seeing the "World of Krypton" come to life like NEVER before. Everything about this section is pitch-perfect, from Russell Crowe bringing the GRAVITAS as Jor-El to Ayelet Zurer as Lara. There are elements of this Krypton that I recognized from various comics - the servant robots, the society ruled by genetic manipulation, the crazy dragon-like creatures that Jor-El rides into battle. But this is also a Krypton that looks like nothing I've seen before. I got that old feeling from it. That Superman feeling. The feeling that I was seeing something new and different and awesome. FINALLY ... a Superman movie with IMAGINATION, that dared to be crazy, cosmic, and weird!

Russell Crowe is also just so good as Jor-El. He carries that prologue in grand fashion, turning in his most memorable and iconic performance in years. What a pleasure to see him square off with the equally awesome Michael Shannon as General Zod. It almost makes you want a World of Krypton prequel with badass Jor-El in the lead. But even amidst all of the crazy cosmic action in the prologue, the movie sets up a very important idea - Kal-El is special even as a baby. He's the first natural birth on Krypton in generations. On a world where all people are bred to fulfill a specific role, Kal-El is the first in ages who is free to forge his own path. His nature is, as it were, free to be nurtured - and it will come to be nurtured by the Kents and their heartland morality. Diametrically opposite of that is Zod. He exists for one purpose - to protect and ensure the survival of Krypton at all costs. And so, when he eventually makes his way to earth, he sees no reason not to exterminate humanity and resurrect Krypton in its place, via a codex that contains the genetics of all of Krypton's various bloodlines.

Michael Shannon's Zod is one of the best-ever villains in a superhero movie. His motivations are simple yet potent. His hatred of Jor-El and by extension Kal-El is palpable. He looks like a psycho badass, whether in his normal Krypton military gear, on in the creepy-as-hell space suit he wears over it. And this is Michael Shannon we're talking about - one of the very best actors working today, and perhaps *the* best at playing unhinged villains. Shannon brings a scary intensity to the role that is unrivaled. Forget used-car-salesman Lex Luthor, THIS is a villain worthy of Superman. Now, there is the legacy of Terrence Stamp in Superman II - certainly, an iconic performance. Shannon as Zod is completely different, and equally if not more memorable. Maybe he doesn't have a line as good as "Kneel before Zod." But he has an evil factor that renders catch-phrases unnecessary.

But let's talk Superman. Henry Cavill. I thought he nailed it. Cavill looks the part more than anyone since Christopher Reeve. He's got the sort of home-spun heartland humanity that you want in Superman, but he's also the most kick-ass Superman ever in film or TV. Unlike gawky Brandon Routh or baby-faced Tom Welling, this is a Superman who, finally, feels larger-than-life and superheroic. At the same time, Cavill deftly gives his Clark moments of real non-humanity, where he does feel otherworldly and alien. I've never seen that before outside of the comics, and it emphasizes the movie's theme of alienation. Clark knows he can't trust Zod, but Cavill also does a great job of showing Clark's weariness with humans.

Still, my favorite character in the movie might just be Lois Lane. I was a little worried when Amy Adams seemed not to figure much into the movie's marketing. But fear not - this is one of the best, coolest versions of Lois ever. Trust me, I'm a true-blue Superman fan and know the comics inside and out. But I was nonetheless incredibly pleased with the changes to the cannon that were made here with regards to Lois - it was different, but it felt like a great evolution. Basically, the movie does away with the whole idea (which can often seem silly and grating) of a sort of love triangle between Lois, Clark, and Superman. Especially given that Lois is a world-class reporter, her obliviousness when it came to Clark and Superman always seemed contrived. That's why my favorite version of the Lois and Clark relationship has always been the two of them as a couple with no secrets - a true team. And that's exactly what we get here - a Lois who is two steps ahead of everyone else when it comes to investigating this strange visitor from another world. A Lois who very quickly becomes Superman's ally and confidant, and who also kicks plenty of ass in her own right. There's an awesome sequence in the film - maybe it's best - where Lois, trapped on Zod's ship, has to make a daring escape. I'll confess that I was sort of smiling ear to ear during the sequence, because it just felt like man, Lois Lane being 100% "super" and not just a damsel in distress - about damn time! Maybe some will want more rom-com shenanigans and Donner-esque screwball comedy between her and Clark. But like I said, this is an epic, biblical-scale movie, and to me it seems fitting that Lois and Clark have a sort of star-crossed romance and partnership. Lois Lane in this movie boldly stands by Clark rather than betray his secret - even though doing so costs her the scoop of the century. If that's not enough to light the spark of an iconic romance, I don't know what is. Lois and Clark aren't even a couple, per se, by the movie's end. But the spark is there, as are the makings of Lois and Clark as (forgive me, Batman) the World's Finest team. There's almost an Office-esque Jim and Pam-style chemistry, I dug it. Amy Adams does so much with a glance, a nod, a smile. It's a knockout performance.

Kevin Costner was basically born to play Jonathan Kent. A great piece of casting. His scenes in flashback with a young Clark have a real resonance, because we feel the weight of a father who struggles to parent a son who is innately different, inevitably meant for some higher purpose. This is where the movie's humanity lies - the conflict in Clark between his adopted parents, who want to keep him safe and protected, and the desire to discover his origins and his destiny, which surely lies somewhere beyond Smallville. Diane Lane is also excellent as Martha Kent. There's a blue-collar aspect to these Kents that I like. There is some of the classic Rockwellian tone to the movie's Smallville segments. But there's also a little more grit, and Costner and Lane embody that. Other standouts include Laurence Fishburne as Perry White, Christopher Meloni as an army colonel who becomes an ally to Superman, and Richard Schiff as Dr. Emil Hamilton. I'll also give a special shout-out to Antje Traue as Zod's right-hand woman Faora, who kicks ass and takes names with style. She's just totally ruthless, seething evil. A great, memorably villainous turn.

On Zack Snyder ... look, I'm a fan. I think he gets a bad rap for no real reason. And MAN OF STEEL is likely his best directorial effort yet. He keeps things grounded when needed - we've never really seen Snyder do the more salt-of-the-earth stuff before that he does here with his Smallville flashback scenes. And yet, he also delivers epic superhero action in spades, the likes of which we have never seen before on the big screen. Yes, over the last decade or so, movies like The Avengers have delivered the kind of comic book action spectacle that fanboys and fangirls long dreamed of seeing realized in live action. Movies like The Matrix sequels and the more recent Chronicle have delivered Superman-esque action in such a way that made you think "man, this is what a Superman movie should look like." But I don't think it should be understated that *this* is, finally, the first time we're seeing Superman-worthy action in a SUPERMAN movie. On a visceral, primal level, and as a lifelong Superman fan, it's just damn satisfying. Some may not care about the scope of the action, and I get it, sort of. But Superman's neverending battle plays out in superpowered bare-knuckled fights to the finish. That's just how it is, people. That's the superhero bread and butter, and rarely if ever has it been so dynamically realized in a film. Snyder whips out cinematic tricks that left me breathless, from a knock-down, drag-out brawl in Smallville to a roller-coaster-ride airborne battle in Metropolis. From the prologue filled with chases atop flying alien dragons, to Superman powering through a tentacled warship in a last-ditch effort to save the world ... this is just great stuff. Some will dismiss it, say it's empty and hallow. To those people, I say - this is Superman! From Kirby's galactic, page-popping brawls to the classic art-deco Fleisher cartoons that had a mostly wordless Superman punching  away at giant robots, Superman has ALWAYS been about epic, visually-dazzling action that captivates the imagination. Some may have forgotten that over the years, but Snyder and co. didn't.

On that note, I'll address the biggest and most passionate criticism against the movie that is makin' the rounds: the notion that the movie features too much reckless destruction in its action. The critique is that we don't get enough sense that, in the midst of his epic battles, Superman is going out of his way to save innocent people and prevent damage. As Superman and Zod go at it in Metropolis, buildings crumble, trucks explode, and seemingly, many innocent people become casualties of their collision. I can see where these critics (notably acclaimed Superman writer Mark Waid) are coming from ... to an extent. I think a quick scene of Superman pausing his attack to save a kid, or to free someone trapped in rubble, or prevent a building from collapsing, would have gone a long way to make these battle scenes feel more Superman-like. In truth, the collateral damage from the movie's big battles is such that it does almost make you feel a bit uneasy. Even some quick codas of Superman helping to free trapped people or rebuild the city in the battle's aftermath would have helped. At the same time, I have a hard time seeing this criticism as any sort of deal-breaker for the movie as a whole. For one thing, we *do* see several scenes throughout the movie of Superman doing all he can to save individual people when they are in need. He saves Christopher Meloni's character, Lois, and several others in the heat of battle. And, many of the film's flashback scenes are explicitly *about* a young Clark going out of his way to save people, while remaining largely anonymous and in the shadows. For another thing, the movie clearly shows that the battles with Zod are not only Clark's first as Superman - but his first battles of ANY kind. He's never even tested the limits of his powers before. He literally has not fought anyone in a direct manner, ever, before this - let alone adversaries who have his same abilities. Point being, this is a Superman who is a complete novice in many ways, and suddenly he is being confronted by a superpowered being who is murdering thousands, who fully intends to destroy ALL LIFE ON THE PLANET. It's understandable that Clark might be so hellbent on stopping him at all costs that he can't fully absorb the mass-destruction that results from their conflict. And yet ... the aftermath of the Zod battle is handled in such a way that it's clearly a turning point for Clark - and he is devastated by it. I expect that future movies would address his quest to become a "better" Superman.

Still, I think some of the criticisms about that aspect of the movie tie in to what may be some recurring flaws in the scripts of writer David Goyer. Overall, I am a fan of Goyer's - after all, he's had a hand in some of the best comic book adaptations of recent years, including The Dark Knight. But Goyer, I don't think, is a details guy. His scripts seem to always have a looseness to them in some aspects. Goyer loves to set up intricately laid-out, puzzle-like plot drivers. And MAN OF STEEL has its own sci-fi spin on that, with Zod's quest for the codex that will re-ignite Kryptonian civilization on earth, and the World Engines that will terraform earth to further allow for the creation of a New Krypton. Goyer will give you every detail about how the World Engines are reverse-engineered from the Phantom Zone projectors or what have you, but he won't throw in a line that clarifies whether Metropolis was evacuated before or during the giant battle that eviscerates a chunk of the city. I think that's partly where some of the issues with those battles come from. The other thing though is that Goyer can occasionally seem a little tone-deaf when it comes to big, emotional moments. The same way in which Batman's "I won't kill you, but I don't have to save you" line to Ra's Al Ghul just felt off, MAN OF STEEL has a couple of moments that, as hard as the movie (and Han Zimmer's majestic score) tries to sell them, just don't seem earned. The biggest one for me is a flashback to a key moment where Clark finds himself helpless to save Pa Kent in Smallville. Cavill and Costner both play the moment as well as one could hope for, but it still just doesn't ring true. Even putting my preconceptions about Clark Kent and Superman aside, there was just *no way* that Clark - as we know him from other scenes in this movie - would act the way he did here. To sum up: I think Goyer has a real talent for writing epic, thunderously-paced stories that sweep you up with relentless pacing and nonstop intensity. But sometimes, in the need to make everything big and huge and melodramatic, he tends to misread or omit the small moments that would make all the difference in selling the story and filling in logic gaps.

That said, I think that MAN OF STEEL hugely benefits from having the same sort of forget-to-breathe pacing and intensity as Nolan's Batman films. I don't know how much influence Nolan had on the look, pacing, and overall arc of the movie, but there is a very Nolan-esque structure here. With films like the Dark Knight, you could overlook the occasional tonally-off moment or annoying plot hole because, man, the movie was just so impactful, so hypnotic in its intensity that in the moment, it totally swept you away. Same goes for The Man of Steel. Very deliberately, I think, the movie just thunders along. No opening titles or credits. Few breaks in the intensity. It just keeps hitting the high notes like a rock opera that won't let up. This was one of those movies where I barely blinked. I sat upright in my seat, transfixed. That incredible Hans Zimmer score - soaring, inspiring, classic - made it all the more immersive an experience. This is a movie that gave me chills on multiple occasions - Clark putting on the super-suit for the first time, Russell Crowe's impassioned speech to his son about his destiny, the military's moment of realization that the flying guy in the red-and-blue was one of the good guys. Yes, I love the quips and comedy and ironic coolness of the Marvel movies. But sometimes, I want to dispense with the irony and just be inspired, moved, and swept away. That's what MAN OF STEEL will do, if you let it.

I could go on with other little thoughts and asides and nerdy nitpicks. I wish the movie's color palette had been brighter - I'm not sure why everything had to be shown in Nolan's preferred palette of muted greys. Give me Kirby-esque bright colors in my Superman stories, thank you very much. I wish that, given the story's cosmic, comic-book nature, we got some additional hints that this took place within a larger DC Universe. I wish Jimmy Olsen was in it. And yeah, the fanboy in me wishes that at some point, Michael Shannon would have gotten the opportunity to bellow "kneel before Zod!" But man, I also think we're living in an age where some people make nitpicks into blow-up-the-internet level take-downs. I'm already seeing the strongly-worded essays popping up online that go in depth about various issues in the movie, examining small moments with a microscopic level of analysis that makes me wonder: what would these same critics have said if they were writing about the Donner films when those were first released? The same movies that many regard with nostalgic love contain two or three WTF moments for every one in MAN OF STEEL. Not only that, but even though, yes, I had some criticisms of the script, I also recognize that a movie script has creative freedom to do things like jump around in time, leave things open for interpretation, and not explain every single detail of how every single moment in the movie came to be. I'm already seeing people ask questions about Man of Steel that to me are clear "use your imagination, duh" sorts of situations.

In the end, I am happy. In many ways, this is the Superman movie I've been waiting for my whole life. Superman is many things to many people - romantic leading man, religious allegory, man of action, sci-fi adventurer, American symbol ... and the list goes on. But after so many Superman adaptations that seem hellbent on making Superman "relatable" to the average person - i.e., make him something other than Superman - and after so many Superman adaptations that pay homage to other eras and other times ... it is nice to have a Superman movie that is unabashedly SUPERMAN, and yet, a Superman that feels updated for 2013 in ways that make sense and feel true to what has often worked best about the character. I still think, of course, that there is room for improvement. I think a sequel could be even better, and show a Superman grappling with the mistakes he may have made in this movie, even as he is determined to keep fighting the good fight and striving to live up to an even higher ideal. But man, this is a good start. A great Superman movie that could kick-off something truly special and truly, well ... super. Bring it on.

My Grade: A-

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES: The Definitive Review From a Diehard Bat-Fan

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES Review:

- With BATMAN BEGINS, the sheer thrill of seeing the Batman mythos taken seriously, of seeing these characters portrayed by A-list actors, of putting the DARK back into the Dark Knight ... it was more than enough to make me love that film. Finally, we were out of the Bat-hell that was the Schumaker-era. Finally, we had moved on past the campiness and into a film that drew inspiration from the classic comics of Denny O'Neil and Neil Adams. Finally, we had the Batman film that we'd been waiting for. Then THE DARK KNIGHT came along, and director Christopher Nolan again assaulted us with a film of unparalleled, thunderous momentum and intensity. The movie had flaws, but it was incredibly easy to overlook them - Heath Ledger's stunning performance as The Joker was so brilliant and badass that it elevated the film past any superhero movie before or since. But with THE DARK KNIGHT RISES, Nolan's sweeping directorial prowess and sensory assault just isn't enough. Narratively, he seems to run out of gas before our eyes. Watching the film, it was almost as if I could see Nolan fall out of love with BATMAN as the movie went on. The direction was as epic as ever, the cast as talented (if not more so) ... but the message of the movie felt limp and confused. The plot holes and inconsistencies felt more pronounced, and the more grating aspects of the series all the more noticeable. The fact is: I am a lifelong Batman fan. I know the comics inside and out - the character and the mythology fascinate me to no end. There's no character I geek-out for more so than Batman, and that includes Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. But I didn't get that high from DKR. And trust me ... I take no joy in saying this, but here it is: this is a very good film, but it's also a low-point in Nolan's heretofore superlative Batman trilogy,


MASSIVE SPOILERS AHEAD!!!


DKR takes place a full eight years after the events of the previous film. Gotham has settled into a time of relative peace, but that peace is built on a lie - the lie that Harvey Dent was a martyr, killed at the hands of the city's enemy: Batman. The Dent Act has cracked down on crime, and now Commissioner Gordon watches over a city that is safer, though he bears the burden of knowing that that safety was built on false pretense - and that it cost Gotham its true savior. To that end, Bruce Wayne is now a recluse, holed up in Wayne Manor, using a cane to get around on a hobbled leg. Wayne's gone emo - shaggy, bearded, and still hung up on the death of Rachel Dawes.

Now, let me pause here to say how falsely this rang with me. BATMAN, the most obsessive, driven hero in pop-culture - a man who spent YEARS training to become the pinnacle of human potential, to become a one-man war on crime - has been sitting on the sidelines for a decade, pining for his lost love?! Remember, in this particular movie-verse, he was only actually Batman for about a year. And he just gives it up and becomes Howard Hughes? Yes, in Frank Miller's classic Dark Knight Returns, it's all about Batman coming out of retirement - but that's when he's middle-aged and had been fighting crime for decades. Hell, in Batman Beyond Bruce Wayne is still going strong well past the date he received an AARP membership. I get it, this is Nolan's take on the character. But I'm sorry, this take is lame.

To further expand (and to get even heavier into MASSIVE SPOILER territory) ,,, I just don't get what Nolan is going for with Bruce Wayne's character arc here. The first act of the movie is all about a Bruce Wayne who's given up being Batman for years. But the threat of a new uber-villain - the sadistic BANE - is enough to convince him to get back into the bat-suit. And yet ... the movie is not at all about Bruce Wayne embracing the Batman. Somehow, the plot evolves to be about Bruce Wayne *growing out* of being Batman, and leaving that identity behind him. Essentially, the film - in a very short span of time - takes Bruce Wayne in two completely different directions. On one hand, it builds and builds towards the Dark Knight returning, but then rather abruptly veers into much different thematic territory. The ending of the film sees Bruce Wayne fake his own death - that of Wayne and that of Batman. Wayne gives up his role as protector of Gotham. He gives up his identity as Batman. And he goes off  on a European vacation with Selina Kyle. The film tries to rationalize this sudden swing with a series of earlier scenes, in which Bruce is held captive, in the same nearly inescapable prison that Bane once called home. The big emotional beat here is that Bruce as Batman had no fear of death, and thus was a weaker man - unable to garner the strength of spirit to escape the prison. Only by realizing that he did have more to live for - that there was life beyond Batman - did Bruce muster the willpower to escape. I get it. Sort of. But this just rang false to me. It contradicts the much-more powerful premise that Bruce Wayne is the mask, and only Batman is real. It undermines the arc of the first half of the movie - the return of Batman - when we realize that the return was never going to be more than a one-shot deal.

Let me jump around a little bit here ... and please note: there are a number of mini-rants below. Most of these aren't deal-breakers as far as my enjoyment of the movie goes, but things that bugged me. More so, these were things that kept the movie from being *great*, from reaching the levels of awesome found in Begins and most especially in Dark Knight.

So ... I have to talk about Joseph Gordon-Levitt. I mean John Blake. I mean "Robin." His NAME WAS ROBIN. This was the single worst, most eye-rolling moment of the movie to me. And there was something about it that really bothered me. Nolan has said many times that he doesn't like Robin. That's always bothered me, because Dick Grayson is an awesome character. Tim Drake is an awesome character. Hell, Damian Wayne has become a pretty awesome character over the last few years. But the reveal of Blake as a dude named Robin - and the setup of him potentially inheriting the mantle of the bat - it felt cheesy. It felt lame. It felt like a weird mix of fan service and spite. "You wanted a Robin, here's your Robin." Some random cop doesn't just become Robin or Batman or Nightwing. Again, it felt unnecessary, and it felt like a short-cut. It felt like a plot point that is far too easy and optimistic for this franchise. We had a whole movie about the years of hardship and training and preparation that it took for Bruce Wayne to become Batman. But John Blake just gets to step into those shoes? It seems to undermine not just Batman cannon, but a lot of what we've already seen in this trilogy. Thematically, it doesn't even make much sense. By the end of DKR, we're supposed to be happy that Bruce has "escaped" this life and found peace. And yet we're also supposed to be happy that Blake has embraced the cape and cowl - stepping right into the role that was supposedly so horrible and tragic for Bruce. It's one of many examples of the movie undermining itself.

Another example is Bane. Bane is built up quite solidly. His first encounter with Batman is suitably intense, gripping, and unnerving. When he very quickly disposes of Batman and "breaks" him during their initial mano e mano encounter - in a scene that evokes the classic Knightfall comic book storyline - it's probably the single best moment in the movie ... its biggest, most holy-$#@& scene. But towards the movie's end, a bunch of things happen that just plain destroy Bane as a character. For one thing, there's the false reveal of Ra's Al Ghul as his father, in a very strange scene where Liam Neeson appears to Bruce as a hallucination. This is played as a major reveal ... but why? It's proven false soon after, and that negates the entire origin story of Bane that we'd heard earlier - which was pretty effective in building him up as an uber-badass. For another thing, Bane is built up as a leader, a tactician, a mastermind ... only to eventually be revealed as a mere pawn for Talia Al Ghul. The movie goes so far as to re-tell Bane's origin with Talia in his place - the ol' bait-and-switch - transferring much of Bane's badass status to Talia. Suddenly, Bane is just a lackey, a pawn. Finally, as if to reinforce his sudden demotion to jobber status, Bane's climactic fight with Batman comes to an abrupt end when he's promptly obliterated by Catwoman, who kills him point-blank with a high-tech firearm, and who fires off a well-timed quip in the process. WTF? This completely kills the epicness of the Batman vs. Bane brawl. Catwoman straight-up kills Bane and Batman doesn't say a word in protest. And ultimately, Bane goes out like a chump instead of like a champ.

Speaking of Talia Al Ghul ... I love Ra's and Talia. Two of my all-time favorite characters. I wasn't surprised whatsoever that "Miranda Tate" turned out to be Talia ... as soon as Marion Cottillard was cast, I knew she'd turn out to be the Daughter of the Demon. But the movie killed the character by insisting on keeping her identity a "mystery" for so long. By doing this, they forced Talia's motivation for helping to destroy Gotham to be reduced to two sentences of clunky exposition ... exposition that barely made sense. Apparently, Talia hated her father ... until Batman killed him, at which point she decided to take up his cause and destroy a city full of people. Ummm ... okay? Look, the reason we all love Talia is because she's an uber-complex and conflicted character, torn between her love for her father and her love for Bruce Wayne, her "beloved." There was none of that complexity in DKR. Talia was a Bond villain, a thinly-drawn cypher. We spent so much time with her posing as a corporate titan that we never saw her as a badass. Her complex relationship with Batman was reduced to an out-of-nowhere tryst with Bruce and an out-of-nowhere turn to all-out, megalomaniacal villainy. Weak.

Catwoman. Catwoman at her best is a tough-as-nails femme fatale. Raised on the wrong side of the tracks, devious, devilish, but fiercely loyal and protective of the people and causes she holds dear. Catwoman is the most badass of all badass female characters in fiction. She will kick your ass and break your heart all at once. Now ... Anne Hathaway is a fine actress. And she gives it a good go here - she tries. But she's no Selina Kyle. It felt like watching a girl-next-door play-acting at being a badass. You could feel Hathaway trying her damndest to do the sultry voice and bad attitude, but she just wasn't pulling it off. I never believed that she could take out one armed thug, let alone dozens. I never believed that Batman would fall for her hard, let alone quit being Batman to hang out with her. We didn't get Selina's backstory - we barely got into her head. The fetishistic/psycho-sexual aspect of the character was never really touched on, and her chemistry with Bale was pretty nonexistent. And ... the Catwoman costume in this movie was boring and generic - a plain leather biker suit with no style or flourish. How hard would it have been to have just used the instant-classic, Darwyn Cooke-designed suit from the comics? Ultimately, this Catwoman was never offensive or Halle Berry-level bad, but she was also nothing special. It's a shame. Catwoman is one of the best characters in the Batman universe, and she deserves an iconic portrayal (I guess there's still Michelle Pfeifer from Batman Returns ... who Hathaway can't touch).

Alfred ... he up and leaves Bruce because Bruce becomes Batman again. What? This was a major beat in the movie and it, again, rang false. I could see it if it happened *after* Bruce gets mauled by Bane. But it happens so early on that it has no resonance. In the previous films, Alfred seemed to take satisfaction in helping to see through Bruce's quest to clean up Gotham. Now, Bruce's most faithful friend just ups and deserts him?

One more thing: as bone-crunching as some of the action is in this movie, most of it didn't feel like Batman. In the Knightfall comics, Bane breaks Batman by strategically exhausting him mentally and physically. By the time Bane personally confronts Bruce inside of Wayne Manor, he's a shell of his usual self. It takes every ounce of Bruce's willpower to fight back against Bane, and ultimately, Bruce has no more fight left in him. But in DKR, Bruce returns to a Bane-controlled Gotham to literally wage war on his foe. Batman leads an army of cops in an effort to take back the city. And yet ... Batman's big plan to confront Bane is to simply duke it out with him? Their fight is visceral and intense, but it might as well be a boxing match. It felt off to have Bruce come all the way back to Gotham - after having been imprisoned for so long - without much in the way of a plan. Of course, he did plan an elaborate bit of theatrics - a dramatic lighting of a bat-symbol-shaped flame - to announce his return to Gotham. Too bad he didn't also bring some ideas of how to take out Bane aside from punch him a bunch of times.

A lot of the issues I have with the film can be traced back to its jumpy pacing. The movie picks strange moments to leap forward in time, undercutting a lot of potential drama and build-up. We see Bruce dramatically escape from the prison Bane sticks him in, but then we just see him appear back in prison-state Gotham moments later, with no explanation given of how he got back in. Bruce falls for Miranda and Selina at the seeming drop of a hat. Look, we all know that the weak link of the last two films was the love interests - but here, the lack of chemistry and believability in the relationships is even more pronounced. Meanwhile, Alfred storms out of Bruce's life incredibly abruptly. Then there's Blake's arc. Bruce talks to Blake a couple of times, and suddenly we're to believe that he's been entrusted with Bruce's most sacred and personal creation - the mantle of the bat. How about when Bane seizes Gotham ... it's hard to figure out exactly the effect on ordinary citizens, and it's difficult to discern the larger ramifications of his takeover - we get some quick cuts to the military and the President (played by no less than the great William Devane!) talking over the matter, but it all feels pretty incidental to the main plot. Finally, the random cameos by Cillian Murphy as Jonathan Crane were totally baffling to me - Cillian is great, but why have him appear as Crane if he does nothing the least bit Scarecrow-ish?

So yeah, DKR has a lot of issues. The pacing is uneven, the twists feel out-of-nowhere and cheesy, and  thematically, the film lacks cohesion and consistency, seemingly contradicting itself and previous films in the series at every turn. But please, don't get me wrong ... the persistent power of Nolan's direction is still a force to be reckoned with. While lacking the sorts of iconic shots that made The Dark Knight so memorable, DKR still runs like a rocket engine. Nolan is among the best ever at giving his films an operatic, apocalyptic momentum. And for a while, DKR has a haunting sense of racing towards Armageddon (and that's partly why the multiple "happy endings" of the film ring so false, thematically). But Nolan and his cast again make the film riveting more often than not. Bale is as intense as ever as Bruce Wayne / Batman (though the strained,  gravelly Bat-voice feels more absurd with each passing movie).  But come on - look at this cast. The seasoned supporting players like Caine, Freeman, and Oldman are reliably kickass. Tom Hardy makes some odd choices as Bane (the voice is alternately creepy and just weird and campy - sometimes he sounds badass, sometimes like Dr. Frankenfurter - undoubtedly, he's got too much dialogue) ... but Hardy's become one of my favorite actors precisely because he's so unpredictable and unhinged. There's no doubt though that Hardy helps make Bane into a great, imposing villain for much of the movie ... at least until the script butchers him. Joseph Gordon-Levitt has some truly great scenes in the film. Even if his character never fully worked for me, Levitt is one of those guys who's so good, he makes any part he plays better than it might have been otherwise. Again though, it's hard to overstate how much Oldman, Caine, and Freeman are MVP's of the film. They give so much gravitas and dignity to their roles, they elevate every scene they're involved in.

And Nolan still delivers the goods - with help from cinematographer extraordinaire Wally Pfister - in making the movie look huge and breathtaking, In IMAX, it's stunning to look at. I honestly think that those who come away loving this film will do so because they simply got completely caught up in the overpowering imagery of certain scenes. That's when the movie is at it's best - when it's dealing with simple, emotional, cinematic beats. The high-speed chases through the streets of Gotham - Batman piloting his ultra-sleek, ultra-cool Batwing. The big, stirring moments - as when Gordon lights up that flaming Bat-symbol, triumphantly announcing that the Dark Knight has returned. Or, perhaps most memorably, when a determined Bruce Wayne uses every ounce of his legendary willpower to escape from the inescapable prison - scaling its unscalable walls to impossible freedom. As Han Zimmer's epic score soars, as Bruce's fellow inmates chant in ominous tones, as Bruce channels his inner Batman and scales those walls - that is the moment where you think "damn, Christopher Nolan is the real deal, man." And hey, I'm a Nolan fan from way back. I count Memento as one of my top movies of all-time. I've loved his work from The Prestige to Inception, from Batman Begins to Dark Knight. And there are a handful of scenes in DKR where Nolan does indeed wow you as only he can.

That's why I do feel a bit torn about this one. I did thoroughly enjoy it, and there is some truly exceptional filmmaking to be found in certain points of the movie. In and of itself, it works as a good, solid, entertaining superhero flick. But there are two very high standards that this film was going to have to live up to. One was Batman Begins, and to a larger extent The Dark Knight. TDK was and is a true modern-day classic, perhaps the apex of serious superhero movies. Could Nolan make a film that was on par with - or better yet, that outdid - the movie that raised the bar? Secondly, there is simply the Batman legend. Nolan is playing in quite the sandbox here, adapting beloved characters that shaped childhoods, that have had their stories told in countless comics and cartoons. Heath Ledger's Joker was different than previous versions - but it was so interesting, so complex, so unique - that it instantly became iconic in its own right. I don't know if we'll be saying the same about this movie's versions of Bane, Catwoman, or Talia Al Ghul. Certainly, not about "Robin" Blake.

If you look at the metatext here, it almost feels like Nolan wants to move beyond Batman, just as Bruce does in the film. I don't know that Nolan ever truly loved Batman, but he found his place of passion, his voice, when he realized that he could use Batman as a metaphor for our modern-day political struggles - as a symbol for the hopes and fears and moral ambiguity of a post-9/11 world. From that perspective, there is a unique sort of symmetry and closure in DKR. But it feels more true to Nolan's internal political debate than it does true to the character of Bruce Wayne / Batman. Superheroes can be used as political allegory, but ultimately it all comes back to the core of the character. What makes Bruce Wayne who he is? And ultimately, what is the Batman mythology all about? The Dark Knight worked as political allegory and as a Batman story because it found the sweet spot where the two intersected. The clash between Batman and The Joker is also a clash between order and chaos, method and madness - between civilized society and violent anarchy. But where was that sweet spot in DKR? The political allegory that Nolan aimed for necessitated a story where Bruce Wayne returns as Batman, only to forsake the mantle, erase his identity, and start a new and more carefree, peaceful life. The political message clashed with the Batman character, and the overarching theme of the film forced Bruce to act very un-Batman-like. There wasn't that same subtextual symmetry in this one as in the previous films. The end result? Nolan's political message becomes muddled, as does what he has to say about Batman and Bruce Wayne. Ultimately, the message that comes through most clearly seems to be Nolan saying "I'm done with Batman, and for that I feel content." Problem is: Batman is never content, and never stops fighting. And perhaps that's the issue at the heart of this; the reason why The Dark Knight Rises entertained me yet left me wanting, why it wowed me on a technical level, but never fully won me over on an emotional one.

As for how I graded this movie ... at the end of the day, I give the movie props for its best and biggest moments. Relative to other comic book adaptations, there is still a level of quality and craftsmanship here that is above and beyond the norm, second to none. And certainly, a level of thematic ambition that you don't see in many films in this genre. But I also grade movies in terms of: how well did the film accomplish what it set out to do? Earlier this summer, The Avengers set a new standard in terms of a superhero movie that was a near-perfect execution of its intended plot and tone. DKR aimed high and shot for the moon - but like I said ... it ran out of gas before the finish line - crushed under the weight of its ambitions and its legacy.

My Grade: B+