Dark Knight Rises (spoiler free)

This is THE most anticipated film of 2012 and it seems like it took forever to get to our big screens. Theres been speculation, criticism but mostly excitement.

Firstly, the choice if casting in Anne Hathaway was excellent. She stole the show as Cat-woman despite being so criticised when she was announced for the role, but Hathaway made the character the most believable yet. Although we may not steal as much as she does everyone who isn't rich understands where she's coming from and in this day and age most people agree with her views, but her wit is brilliant and it's a pleasure to watch a female character that is just as good as the males in this film.

The second thing that jumped out at me was the brutality of the film. The battles between Bane and Batman are very physical and resembles the brutality to the extent of bare knuckle boxing. It was nice to see a villain in Nolan's film that could challenge Batman physically but it's a demonstration of Nolan's creativity of great characters by making him a mastermind. The the mask wasa a clever touch giving  him  this anamalistic edge and his accent didn't suffer for it, you could understand him all the way through the film in contrast to earlire complaints. But it was Hardy's acting that bought a very 3 dimensional character to the screen, the way he could act just through his eyes was very impressive and on learning his back story it doesn't make him any less of a monster but just someone you understand as to why he's a monster, he definitely deserved a more fitting end.

Even though this film is a sequel to the dark knight it's more of a stand alone film and Bale and Caine bring the emotion to the screen which was a lovely contrast to the agression in the movie. Do not be comparing it to the dark knight, its a very different film with very different villains but non the less just as good, athough there are a few niggling bits about it. Regardless, Bane is a very scary villain and the Bat Cat banter is more than enough reason to give a watch.

The Amazing Spider-man Review

When Sony announced they were going to reboot the whole spider franchise rather than carry on with Raimi’s Spider-man it was received with alot of criticism, worrying that it was way too soon to be remaking these films, 5 years is way too soon.

Well, it is a far cry from anything people thought it was going to be. It had something that Raimi’s spider-man lacked in the form of Andrew Garfield. Toby Maguire was great as spider-man and they were great films but Garfield IS spider-man, the wise cracking spider-man that was missed in the first trilogy. He seemed perfect physically as well to be Peter Parker and he played the part well, the geeky kid in school and the nervous teenager.

The Re-boot was more to the origin story from the comic books and delved into his back story alot more focusing on his time in high school. The story is driven by Parker’s search into why his parents left him and especially into what his dad was researching before he left. It was good to see how effected he was by the loss of his parents it wasn’t really touched upon in the original but it needed to be explored and they did it well.

However, it did feel like it was lacking something. The villain which in this case would be Kurt Conner’s, Peters dads old research partner aka the lizard. He takes a formula thinking it will regrow his arm and turns into a huge lizard but he’s never really that crazy. He should scare us when he’s human, the whole evil genius should be what pushes him into embracing the lizard but here he’s always conflicted one minute he’s nice then he’s saying its better to be lizard than human?!?!

He’s never a serious threat, although the lizard is well done for example how he was part human not just a senseless animal was a valid factor to add for a decent villain. Another questionable part were when the citizens raised together to help him. It seemed a  tad forced in my opinion, it almost seemed quite patronising and cliche for a film thats trying to achieve the opposite

HOWEVER! the characters a much better in this film, whoever said Mary Jane should be in this film hasn’t seen Emma Stone’s ‘Gwen Stacy. She brings alot to the character, which is shown in an awkward scene with her dad about periods, that you completely forget about the bad attempt at this character in the 3rd installment. And the relationship between her and Peter is so well done. The chemistry is great and the awkward conversations are done so well because of the humour the actors bring to the role.

What this spider-man does really well though is the relationship between the characters. When Uncle Ben died in the first adaptation of spideman audiences wern’t that bothered, it was skipped over really fast but in this one Martin Sheen’s death is very emotive and Sally Field is a lot less annoying as Aunt May.

Overall, it is a great film and the relationships especially the core one with Garfield and Stone is really palpable, the Lizard is a half decent villain and its great to get back to the original story of the comic books, definetly recommend but its just missing something for it to be perfect.