Film Thursday: Batman: The Dark Knight Rises - Review

Hey Guys,

This is Film Thursday.

Here’s the part of the week where I will either review a film or talk about how film can affect us in certain ways. Each week I will ask you what you feel should review next or what area of film I should look into.

This week we are going to review the new Batman film, The Dark Knight Rises (2012) directed by Christopher Nolan.

This is the third; and final, film in The Dark Knight trilogy. It is the last film that both Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale will both work on, but Nolan has left it open ended for other people to take up the chance.

The story is that Eight years have passed since the last film, The Dark Knight (2008), and everything is quiet, safe and calm. Yet as they say, ‘all is quiet before the storm’.

This storm starts when a new terrorist leader, Bane, overwhelms Gotham, and the Dark Knight is forced to resurface to protect the city that branded him as the enemy.

I did enjoy this film a lot and there was somewhat a wait between The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises. However for some reason, unknown, I felt that maybe something was missing.

For a start, I wish they would have explained how Selina was Catwoman, and referred to her more that way.

I also thought that, in parts, it was very slow to get into and a few unnecessary scene. In other parts it was very crammed up and too much seemed to be happening. Maybe they could have separated the film up into two?

The performances of Anne Hathaway (Selina), Tom Hardy (Bain), Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Blake), and Marion Cotillard (Miranda) were all at the top end. A few times there were certain things Hardy, Bain, said that were lost, but that may have been down to speakers in cinema instead of performance?

I thought that it could have been a little bit darker than it was also. As The Dark Knight seemed very dark, maybe due to it being released after Heath Ledger’s death, but in this one, even though still quite dark, did not seem as it should have been.

With all these things in mind and the fact that I liked The Dark Knight better I would still highly recommend going to see this film. Just for the pure fact that it is Batman. You can’t go wrong with a good comic book film.

Another thing, after my blog on Monday (Mull-Over Monday: Do special effects and CGI, improve films, or make them worse?) I can honestly say that the SFX and CGI in this film were outstanding. Loved the new Batman toy, 'The Bat'.

Finally, without giving spoilers because I know you are all dying to see this, (if you haven’t already, why the hell not?) I can truly say that the end sequence is one of the best cliff-hangers I’ve seen in an action/comic book film. With the fact that they have left the film open-ended, so that if another director to come in and play around with it or even wanted to create something different.

So all in all I do recommend the Dark Knight Rises and think it’s a good film, which contradicts what I’ve said, but what the hell. I think you should all go out and watch it, if you haven’t already.

Stay safe,

Matt

Mull-Over Monday: Do special effects and CGI, improve films, or make them worse?

Hey Guys,

Welcome to Mull Over Monday, This is the day where I pick something that people discuss and have different opinions about. These things will normally be to do with film or writing or something that obviously affects my life directly.

So something to think about and discuss this week is special effects and CGI. Do they improve films or make them worse? How much is too much?

I’m going to view my opinions and obviously, as normal, if you have other views on this topic then let me know underneath.

This may be a very one sided view on special effects and CGI because unfortunately I’m not really the biggest of fans, but I shall try and be as open minded as possible.

This subject has come about due to the fact that lately I’ve been watching a lot of comic-book films, such as The Amazing Spiderman, The Avengers Assemble and The Dark Knight Rises, (which I will be reviewing on Film Thursday blog.)

So first of all what do you class as special effects? Well truthful anything from a simple lighting effect all the way up to your big explosions and CGI creatures are known as special effects, SFX for short.

So in some ways without SFX a film would never work. There would be no light or sound SFX and it would just look extremely boring and unappealing. So SFX are needed to make, and improve a films quality.

The question is: How much SFX and CGI is too much? For me this is simple, when you start creating things that don’t look realistic at all and spoil the film; that is when you know you’ve gone too far. Take King Kong (2005) Directed by Peter Jackson. This remake of an old classic used so much CGI that there was not one shred of truth left by the end of the film, all relationships with characters were uninteresting and 187 minutes of pure CGI just was too much.

Looking through the archives over at TotalFilm.com I looked through what they rated the worst CGI film moments and why, so I thought I would give you a little taster, so you can see what might be a step too far with Computer Generating.

Here’s the link if you want to check out all of the list, or the scenes themselves:

http://www.totalfilm.com/features/the-20-worst-movie-cgi-moments

20: CGI Sharks – Films such as Deep Blue Sea (1999) and Shark Attack 3: Megalodon (2002) have some of the worst CGI shark attacks I’ve probably watched. There is just no realistic sense to them at all.

17: The brawl in The Matrix Reloaded (2003). Total Film gives a note saying ‘The Golden Rule of CGI: Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.’ This is an extremely good rule, and some directors do need to learn this one.

 12: The Scorpion King: The Mummy Returns (2001). When The Rock turns into a half scuttling Scorpion is one of the worst, most unbelievable things I’ve seen. This is when you lose faith in sequels and franchises.

9: The Lions and the Infected: I am Legend (2007). All the street clearing and lighting SFX in the world could not improve these hordes.

6: Troll Attack: Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (2001). Just watch a clip of the troll, not only do all the actors look really young in comparison to how they are now, but that troll is just unbelievably unrealistic.

1: Well we’ve mentioned this once before. I had a feeling that King Kong would be in this list. The whole medley of Giant Apes, Stampeding Dinosaurs and other over the top creations. Not only are the badly made, but badly dubbed also with the wrong Sound FX.

Now I’m not saying all CGI is bad, because sometimes there are some great moments created. What I’m saying is, sometimes the SFX teams might take things a little too far, get a little bit carried away and just decide that they will have a children’s drawn troll or way too many bomb explosions.

A film should not be about the action, the CGI and the SFX. It should be about the story and the relationships built between characters and audiences.

If you have any views on this, let me know and keep the discussion going.

Stay safe,

            Matt

Mull Over Monday: Are Films to Blame For Actions?

Hey Guys,

So after having numerous problems with accounts and emails and other things, all linked into losing my phone. I have finally got myself back on track. I’m back making YouTube Vlogs, I’ve got my writing going and been playing around on Photoshop for different covers and so on. Now I’m back on here and here are some of the things I’ve created and made whilst unwillingly being away.

Welcome to Mull Over Monday, This is the day where I pick something that people discuss and have different opinions about. These things will normally be to do with film or writing or something that obviously affects my life directly.

This week the topic is going to be quite a delicate matter. Now if I say anything that you don’t agree with, then just remember it is a discussion and is open to other opinions, but let’s remember to try and keep it above board.

The reason I’m saying this is a tricky, risky subject is because it is quite fresh in the news. Now I know I’m from Brittan and obviously this news does not affect us as much as the people in America, where it happened, but I thought I’d talk about it all.

If you haven’t guessed already I want to talk about how media blames films for Certain actions. Now this has sparked back up again due to the recent shooting at a premiere of Batman, The Dark Knight Rises, in Colorado.

Now I am not going to act as if I know all the facts or act as if anything I say is right, because it affects America, and not really anywhere else. Yet the media blames the film itself for the shooting.

Seeing as the film had just been released over there, it was a first premiere and that nobody had yet seen this film, already puts this theory into a bit out of place.

Secondly the gunman himself, not the most reliable of references I understand; but still, said that it was not down to the film, or religious views (as some media teams are saying) but still will not fully explain why.

Now if it was down to the film, then why just in one place? Why just one guy? Why did he burst into a random screen? Why did people in the opposite screening, which was a family film, also get shot by bullets he fired? None of these make sense.

This is not the first time that media itself has blamed a film for creating violence or destruction. We British have had a few cases, maybe not as rough and devastating as this case, but still not all that nice. Where children have gone to see a film out of there age range with their parents and then allegedly gone and re-enacted that scene and managed to hurt or kill people in the process.

First off, if you are a parent and you think that allowing your child of, let us say, fourteen to go and see a film rated 18 (not sure what that is over in USA) then you are asking for trouble from the start.

Secondly the group I’m talking about, who apparently saw the film Child’s Play then tied another child to a railway track. I have seen this film and for all I can remember I can truly say I don’t think there was a scene where this happened. Tell me if I’m wrong because it was a while ago.

Yet because these kids had seen this film, it got blamed. Some films get blamed for things before they are even released or seen by audiences. Films such as Blade Runner and Natural Born Killers where not even allowed to be shown in certain places due to the media hype, saying that they were bad films that glorified violence and would lead to problems.

These media nuts do like to take things out of hand and twist the real reason behind things. They like to do it with everything and they have gone and done it with the Batman film. They have made both the cast and crew feel bad about the film and given it a bad name, when it was not even the fault of the film.

Some media teams apparently even made up the rumour that the killer called himself ‘The Joker’. Now me wanting to be a director and want to create films that make people think about things would not understand why the Media would make up such lies and rumours?

 These lies will not sell more papers, more than often people like to know the truth about these situations. They want to know what went on; they don’t need to be told that if you see this film it will lead to violence.

If it was true that films affected your actions and that people truly go around killing people after seeing a film or due to seeing something, then don’t you think we would have many more problems such as these? There would be utter chaos every time somebody brought out a new film.

As I said at the start, I’m not pretending to know all the facts or saying that I’m right and all Media is wrong and judgemental and should be band. I am just viewing my opinion, and that is that the Media have twisted this out of proportion, as normal when something like this happens, and they have made people scared. They should be making people calm about the situation, shouldn’t they?

If you have any views at all about this incident, or any others that Media blame films for, let me know. I want you to update me and I want you guys to get chatting about this. Do you truly think that a film could make somebody act that badly? Or do you think the Media have it all wrong? Are they just blaming the film because they don’t know the real reason? Let me know what you think.

If you’ve been to see the Dark Knight Rises, then let me know what you think also.

Stay safe,

Matt