The Darkest Knight

So, there was this movie that came out recently. It was pretty big, apparently. It also had Batman in it...and Batman is cool!

Better listen to him!

I'm pretty sure you figured out that this movie is called "Batman Vs Bane: The Return of the Dark Knight with a Vengeance".

So, what did I think of the movie? I heard somebody ask that...it was that one guy that I know...and since I know everybody cares about what I think...well...

I thought it was a pretty cool movie! I think my Dad liked it better than I did, and, probably a lot of other people too, but it was an overall fun and enjoyable experience. Actually, it feels kind of weird calling a Nolan Batman film fun when his movies are apparently the darkest and most realistic Batman movies. But, this is kind of the funnest Nolan Batman movie though. It really takes advantages of gadgets, a cool flying tank, and Batman and Bane just beating that crap out of each other. Sure, the stakes are incredibly high, and you're hoping that everyone makes it through, but it isn't as scary as the Joker in the last movie.

Now, I thought "The Dark Knight" was really, really, really good! The Joker was one real bad dude that made us cheer for the Batman that much more. The whole movie was basically a cat and mouse kind of game. The Joker had some of the most cleverest and down right evil schemes, and it was really intense seeing how the characters tried to track him down. It's one of the most involving movies with great ideas and themes, and it's highly regarded as one of the best super-hero movies ever!

You're still wrong if you're one of the people who say Heath Ledger was the best Joker!

I wanted to briefly talk about that movie to show how much this new movie has to live up to. But, I don't think this movie was actually trying to live up to anything. I think Nolan knew that he wasn't going to be able to do anything like the Dark Knight again, so, what we got is just a really good super hero movie. But, even then, there are still some people who would think this is the best Dark Knight movie out of the three. There are also people who think it's the weakest, but that's really not as important because, without even watching the movie, you could probably already tell why. Even my Dad thought is was the best of the bunch. Me? Well, I still think "The Dark Knight" is better because of how well I thought it played out, especially towards the final battle. It was some seriously intense stuff.

Yet, it's understandable why people would think this is the best though. For one thing, Bane is actually an excellent villain in this movie. You wouldn't think that from just knowing that Bane is the main villain in the character, but after watching the movie, I feel they made the right decisions. You see, I don't think Bane would make a good main villain for any kind of story. Hell, even in "Batman and Robin", one of the worst movies ever made, he wasn't exactly the main villain in the movie. You also encounter him in the two Arkham games, with the Arkham games probably being the best things ever with Batman in it, but he's still not the main villain. But that's the thing with Bane. All you can really do with him is just make him really big and having him break things, particularly breaking Batman, and that's really it. He's really just some big guy that Batman has to deal with before encountering the main enemy.

Yeah, this was all Bane really does in the comics. I'm not sure why they used periodic symbols on those words though...

In "The Dark Knight Rises", however, Bane isn't just strong, he's also a schemer. When he talks, his voice takes up the entire room. He's the guy that you don't want to mess with. Of course, most of these things are standard with bad guys. In fact, you could probably replace this guy with Darth Vader, and it wouldn't change anything at all with the movie, except it would make it more awesome! Bane, or Talia, who is the real big bad in this movie, has this master plan behind him, and when it plays out, it does get really intense. I think this might be the reason why some people thought he was an even better bad guy than the Joker(but, don't worry Joker, I'm still you're #2 fan!).

When it came down to Batman and Bane fighting, it was underwhelming though. I could post clips from Haywire or The Raid(WARNING! The Raid is INCREDIBLY violent and brutal) as examples of a good fight scene, except, that's what those two movies were really all about anyway, so, here's a clip from a movie that's probably going to piss you off because you're probably thinking "What? You're using that movie to show a better example for a fight?" Well...for one, I feel that the movie is underrated, and for two, it was seriously the only super hero fight scene I could think of that was similar enough. Yeah, laugh all you want, but it seriously does a better job. But, everyone knows what the problem is. It's because of Batman's costume and how he can barely move in that thing. I guess, for what it's worth, they tried everything to work around it. But, I've seen Batman being able to fight better even in his more restricting costumes because of how they set up the fight. Sure, in the Tim Burton Batman movie, Batman couldn't even turn his neck, but the fight scenes were set up to where he could fight with some sort of fluidity.

At least it wasn't the nipple suit!

That's really just one small problem to a movie that's actually really good though, but there is this one really big problem I have with this movie, and I guess some critics have said something like this before but not exactly in this way. The thing is, I really felt like the movie was in a big hurry to get to the end. That sounds like a weird thing to say about a movie that's almost three hours long, but the way this movie is set up really makes it feel that way though. Except for the final battle in the movie, most of the scenes leading up to it just feel like they're trying to move the story along as quickly as possible. Aside from the spectacular opening, the movie moves along like this.

Cut=Next Scene

"Hi, I'm Jim Gordon, and I want to tell you the truth...oh wait, I can't yet, I feel too bad about it"

cut

"It's not long before Jim has to go"

"I thought he was a hero"

"A war hero, this is peace time"

cut

"Bruce Wayne is doing a Howard Hughes experiment"

cut

"Hi, I'm Catwoman, and I'm a cat burglar"

cut

"Hey Bruce, you should get out more often"

cut

"I'm Batman!"

I'm exaggerating of course, and, yes, I know Catwoman is never called Catwoman in the movie, but feel free to post angry comments about that supposed mistake if you want. But the way I described the scenes, that's how the movie kind of felt. I felt like it needed to slow down. I'd say that it felt like there were a lot of scenes cut out and maybe it would go to the extended edition...except, apparently Christopher Nolan doesn't do stuff like that for what ever reason. It's not exactly about information over-load and not understanding what's going on, because I didn't have any trouble following the story, but that was mostly because characters stood in front of the cameras and told you what was going on. The movie never really takes time to let you get absorbed into the story, it's just feels like something going "And then this happened, and then this happened, and then Bane, and then Batman, and then more Batman"

There were two times where the "show, don't tell" rule was brought up, and the more that I think about it, the more I feel that this might be what's causing the problem. "The Dark Knight Rises" breaks that rule pretty frequently. But, really, that isn't really a bad thing, at least when it's not being done to state the incredibly obvious. Though, like I said, it does feel like it's being used to get the story moving along. Each scene involves a character saying something that establishes an important part of the story, and then it moves on.

I know it sounds like some sort of far fetched complaint from some one who claims he knows what he's talking about, but it really does bother me.

Really though, the movie is really good! I really liked it, you've probably seen it already, and you've probably liked it, so, let's all just be thankful that Nolan has been able to give us three really good Batman movies. Thank you Nolan!

Let's look forward to this in the Batman reboot!

The Amazing Spider-Man Thoughts

So, there was this movie that came out called The Amazing Spider-Man, and, I was really expecting to hate the movie. I didn't like the idea that this movie was getting made all because they didn't want to give away their rights to Spider-Man, Spider-Man's Edward hair style is........well, that, and it's like the Spider-Man movies from the 2000s, but it's different, and I don't like things that are different!

But, in the end, for a rushed, shameless cash grab of a movie, it's really about as good as a rushed, shameless cash grab of a movie as we could hope for. There are a lot of things that I didn't like about the movie, but, the thing is, I liked it more than I didn't. So, there ya go!

The movie is frustrating because of how much I actually liked it. I feel like I should be above liking movie that only serve for evil purposes.......but, the movie does kind of work.

The movie is really involving, it actually made me care what was going on, the action scenes were pretty cool, and anything you could want out of a fun summer action movie....well, I can obviously think of one better movie, but, I'm pretty sure everyone has seen it by now. But, if you haven't seen Marvel's The Avengers by now......I really don't know what to say then. Also, put aside your action train of thought to make some time to go see Moonrise Kingdom. A truly great movie that totally deserves your money more than....well, any of the action movies that have come out recently.

Ok, I'm kind of just running around the new Spider-Man movie without really directly talking about it. The thing is, any thing I have to say about this movie is going to amount to an endless stream nitpicks and not so nitpicky gripes that I have for this movie. So, to compromise, I'll just talk about stuff that I don't exactly feel like is nitpicking.

I guess the new Peter Parker works in this movie. Any major thing I have to say about him is basically me saying that it's not the Peter Parker that I'm used to, but, I'm also not exactly sure what they're trying to do with this new character. His character would work if they didn't try to make him out as a loner....because, he's too upbeat to be a loner. The best way I can describe is....well, he's a teenager. A teenager that kind of fits in well with other teenagers I know. I guess this is due to me coming from a different kind of reality where someone like that would fit in very well where the school I went to, but, in a normal school, maybe he wouldn't. But I still can't really imagine him being some sort of anti-social, nerd when he doesn't really act like one, yet, people keep on describing him as such. It just don't make no sense. Just drop the whole anti-social, nerd thing to his character, and it starts making more sense.

Ok, that was kind of nitpicky, but, here's something that was a little more painful though. As in, I kind of wanted to stab my eye out every time we had the "establishments" of Gwen and Peter's "relationship". I guess it makes sense because of it being a high school "relationship", but, if that's how it really is, then, I don't think I missed out on anything at all. There probably was a lot of high schoolers getting a little "touched" by these scenes, so, I guess it shows how jaded I was back in high school. I mean, I've only just gotten out of high school, and I imagine the people who have graduated with me are kind of in the same mindset that leads them to like these moments that I absolutely hated. Seriously, is this how people really talk to each other?

I guess my main complaints come from my background and what I'm used to in a Spider-Man. The biggest complaint that I think most of us can agree on is that the Lizard in this movie looks pretty terrible. Yeah, that's all I really have to say about him.

Oh, and there's a mid credits scene that was really lame. I kind of get the sense that they're trying a whole Avengers thing. And, when I say "kind of" I mean that they're definitely ripping off on what's popular right now in super hero movies. But, what makes it so lame is that it doesn't do anything AT ALL besides just letting us know that "Hey! There's going to be a sequel!" You know how all of the extra scenes from Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, and Captain America did their scenes to show us extra information on what was going to amount to a really big movie? I mean, did you see the mid credits section in Marvel's The Avengers? HOLY CRAP! In the new Spider-Man movie, it just tells us something we already knew. No big reveal, no new character, it just reassures us that there's most definitely, probably going to be a sequel.

In the end, the biggest problem I have just involves the fact that this movie exists. But, maybe I shouldn't complain too much if I actually happened to like it. Kind of, sort of, almost, maybe. It's decent, it's serviceable, it gets the job done, and you'll probably have a good time. I just feel bad for saying good things about something coming from an evil and rushed purpose.

I'm (LEGO) Batman

So, on the Bag of Games website, which is a site you should TOTALLY check out, there's this guy called Stretch. I thought he was pretty good columnist, he has decent. And then, I saw his review for Real MYST. I thought it was just going to be a review where he just stood in front of the camera and talked...and that was about it. Boy, was I wrong.

Stretch Reviews has some of the best video review work I've seen EVER!

Seriously, check it out, he's awesome!

So, I've recently gotten my hands on LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes. And you know what? It's actually a pretty cool game! I've written a review over it on Bag of Games, but it doesn't look like it's been posted yet.

A couple of weeks ago, I might have mentioned I was going to talk about a game that was hopefully going to be awesome, and, that was this game. I was going talk about this sooner, but, then, I went on vacation and it took me a while to get back into the writing mind set. But, now, Imma back, and Imma try to be more committed this time.

So, LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes is pretty cool. The voice acting and sandbox element of the game really do make this game special. It's the best LEGO game we've had in a really long time, and it's probably going to be the last good super hero game until....well, probably until the next Batman game. Hmmmm.....

Well, I talked about the game. I'll post the review up on this journal when it gets posted. I was planning on doing an anticipation kind of thing, but, I can't do that now that I have the game.

Hey! Check Stretch out! Seriously! If you like games, you'll love this guy.