The Dark Night Rises – 3D

BY far, this weekend’s movie premier is definitely the film that Papua New Guinean film buffs have been waiting for.
From the director that made dreams a reality in ‘Inception’ and immortal¬ised the Dark Knight; comes the latest and final film in the batman trilogy.
The Situation: The film is situ¬ated eight years after the events of its predecessor ‘The Dark Knight’ and as soon as the film starts, it is obvious that things have taken a turn for the worst, even if not apparent from the outside; decay and corruptness has a strong aura in Gotham City.
The law abiding attorney and champion of the people Harvey Dent, turned ugly mutant (a.k.a Two Face), has retired from a life of civility to pursue a life of crime; taking his ef¬fective crime fighting methods with him.
The police force keeps off the streets, the criminal elements stay on the streets and everyone has a mutu¬ally beneficial routine of eating donuts and watching muggings and stealing donuts and performing muggings respectively. The people caught between the two factions (cops and crims), are the citizens of the once fine city who basically live their daily lives ignorant of their city’s woes. In other words, the city is a mess with no apparent order.
Batman has gone into hiding after being blamed for Harvey Dent’s down fall and thus has disappeared from the spotlight for two years short of a decade. His legacy and good name is seemingly lost in this Gotham age and only tales of a caped hero who once kept the streets safe remain.
The Baddie: The evil doer in this Batman film has everything that we have come to expect of a supervillian. Bane (Tom Hardy) as he is known is a deranged lunatic who suffers from his own mental anxiety due to an obvi-ously regrettable childhood.
Wearing around a mask that looks like something out of a horror film and demonstrating his kick ass hand-to-hand combat skills at every opportuni¬ty, it is easy to love Bane. This attrac¬tive presence to the villain allows the viewer to dive into the workings of this lunatic trying to understand where he is coming from; a plot technique that worked evident wonders for the Joker in Dark Knight.
Though Bane’s charisma may pale in comparison to the Heath Ledger immortalised Joker, his craziness and apparent disregard for human life is well felt and amplified to a level that is becoming of the next Dark Knight baddie.
Hardy is as ‘Megamind said: Good at being bad.’ His portrayal of a fiend with nothing to lose is grotesquely enjoyable; the only downside to his performance would have to be his voice output which is unrecognisable as pointed out by Lisa Schwarzbaum writing for EW.com who stated: “At times he’s unintelligible under his mouth muffler, with its resulting Darth Vaderish acoustics.”
Overall however, the brute will draw in fans and is definitely due to twist the very fabrics of twisted plot loving viewers.
Gotham Falls: the city is plunged into chaos and utter panic when the masked villain Bane takes centre stage at the head of criminal society and launches a full scale attack on the peace loving citi¬zens of Gotham.
Bane does this by master¬ing what the Joker cared little for, which is ‘cooperat¬ing’. The super villain gathers all the forces of mischief and havoc under his control and focuses their energy at bringing down Gotham.
These parts of the film will rock your socks off, the carnage and may¬hem is nothing short of epic. Bring in the style in which these crooks do their bad and add the ‘Terminator’ ori¬ented one-liners to the mix and you’ll be wondering why they are considered the bad guys.
The Temptress: Cat Women (Anne Hathaway) is the film’s way of appeal¬ing to the audience who like a girl in tights who can kick ass – That’s Xena minus the armor.
Like her comic book counterpart, the Cat has her own agenda. Drifting into the story as an opportunist, this sly and cunning acrobat proves too much to handle for anybody. However, as is the case with most hotties and he¬roes. An unspoken attraction leads the Cat and the Bat to a confrontation that results in an alliance that though thin in depth, will prove valuable when Bane and his thugs are confronted.
The Hero: Batman (Christian Bale) comes out of his self imposed exile when he realises that the city has no hope of breaking Bane’s hold.
As a fallen hero whose reputation has been tarnished by false beliefs, his methods have reverted to more stealthy and subtle interrogations and detective work; which is a nice change as it brings out the aspect of the comic book legend that makes him stand out from the rest.
The time spent away from vigilante duty has slowed the knight of dark¬ness down somewhat, and with Bane’s unspeakable strength and invulnerable fighting style, the heroes’ ability to quell the city wide chaos is question¬able.
Still, the Bat will have you guessing what his next move is; making this Bat film as good as any Sherlock Holmes film. But don’t mistake this for a walk in the park, easy going thriller; this two-hour 40 minute film will have you drowning in action sequences. Definitely a film that will go down as one of the best of all time, and the CGI graphics, are simply to die for.
The Dark Knight Rises is probably the best film thus far, showing at the Paradise Cinema, that aloneis all that needs to be said; so head to the Cin¬ema for a guaranteed awesome night with the knight.

Director: Christopher Nolan
Starring: Anne Hathaway, Christian Bale, Gary Oldman, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman and Tom Hardy
Rating: PG
Running Time: 2 hours 45 minutes