July 20th, 2012
I’m reserving final judgment until I see DKR again, because it’s a really sprawling, ambitious movie. The word “epic” gets tossed around a lot these days and I wouldn’t consider DKR epic by the scale of, say, the Lord of the Rings movies or Gone with the Wind. But I’d certainly put it’s sprawling canvas on the scale of Godfather II or Casino. This is a big, complicated movie with things to say.
And I don’t need a second viewing to know that there’s a lot to like about it. Nolan found a really interesting story to tell and he got the characters right. He’s made another movie of ideas. The fact that I’m ready to see it again speaks for itself.
But it was immediately apparent that this movie has substantive editing problems. Especially for the first third of the film, the pacing is disjointed, the character development is mis-juggled–even simple cuts between scenes are often done clumsily. There are a couple scenes which halt to underline exposition for audiences who may have missed or forgotten–which is fine, except that it’s done inelegantly. As Santino notes, at various times the movie feels both bloated and rushed.
This isn’t to say it’s bad. The reason I want to see it again is to better suss out the degree to which the film’s strengths overwhelm this weakness. But I am pretty puzzled, for two reasons:
(1) I’m confident that in Nolan’s editing bay there is (or could be) a cut of Dark Knight Rises that has the same running time, but has the engineering precision of a Swiss watch. All of the pieces are there and 99 percent of them are on the screen already. They just need to be shifted by small degrees.
(2) The editor for DKR is Lee Smith, Nolan’s long-time collaborator who, among other triumphs, edited Inception which, for my money has the highest degree of difficulty of any movie I’ve ever seen. And Smith absolutely nailed that flick. It’s an unbelievable accomplishment.
The bizarre sense I had through much of DKR (especially the first third) was that Nolan had somehow failed to get his arms all the way around the project. That’s the last thing I expected. The best metaphor I could think of was a spectacular juggling catch in football–only that, when put under review, it turns out the receiver never quite had control of the ball before he fell out of the end zone.
I’m not trying to poor-mouth the movie. By all means, see Dark Knight Rises, on the biggest screen you can find. And I hope it blows your skirt up.
One final thought, about the shooting in Colorado: It’s terrible, of course. Really and truly evil. But what next? Will we have magnatometers at the cineplex the way we do at airports and some schools? I don’t know the answer to this. But I do know that if I was a Hollywood executive this incident would scare me more than piracy and streaming and every other aspect of the digital revolution rolled up into one. If the movie-going experience becomes fraught–either with worry about psychos or the unpleasantness of a TSA-like regime–that would be biggest blow the industry has ever suffered.
I assume the smart people in the industry have already put a lot of thought into this question, especially after 9/11. But I have know idea what the good answers are, except to pray that it doesn’t happen again.
Update: I’ll be collecting more detailed thoughts on DKR for a biggish piece that probably won’t run for a couple weeks so that I’m able to talk about the film’s plot in detail.
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Glad you liked it. I’ve read similar complaints in other reviews (though I’ve been trying to avoid reading most them). I might go see it at the Smithsonian IMAX this Monday.
I had the same thought about the shooting this morning. I’m surprised this hasn’t happened before, to be honest. With all the other problems they have right now, a TSA-type security added to theaters might be the last straw for the movie going experience.
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They should have delayed the release until Thanksgiving and let Nolan and Co. edit some more. Seamless it’s not, which tends to take you out of the film.
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Did they install TSA-style security lines into college buildings after the Virginia Tech shootings? If not, I don’t see why it should happen in movie theaters.
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This would seem like the right time for America to reconsider both the availability of assault weapons and Hollywood’s glamorization of violence. But the Right will prevent the former; then Left, the latter.
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Not surprising to see your reaction; the movie received an “A” Cinemascore, but the hardcore comic nerds have been less receptive to the movie. The movie is a lot better than you’re giving it credit for, of course.
Also, you were wrong about JGL wearing the bat suit. As I told you two months ago, he ended up being Nolan’s homage to Robin.
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[…] a supplement to this first-blush reaction to The Dark Knight Rises I’m now ready with some spoiler-filled observations. Proceed at […]
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[…] first blush take on The Dark Knight Rises meshed reasonably closely with my second-day reaction: That it was a […]
Steven Den Beste July 20, 2012 at 9:25 pm
Magnetometers wouldn’t have helped. The shooter broke into the theater through a fire door.