The Dark Knight Rises Musings

Christian Bale looks almost exactly the same as I did prior to cutting my hair a month ago, Anne Hathaway is Catwoman, Tom Hardy (funny dude from Inception) is Bane

I've started writing this post the night before since I was thinking about it and had a few good ideas. Obviously the number one question is can this possibly be better than the Dark Knight. The short answer is no, the long answer is not without Daniel Day Lewis. Nolan's Batman series has several top notch actors already but it really needs an extremely impressive new performance to possibly outdo the Dark Knight (supporting role like Harvey Dent not necessarily required but still strongly approved).

While it appears a bunch of the cast of Inception will be appearing they will require a strong villain or dramatic foil or both to emerge to rival TDK. Inception had one great performance via Dicaprio, the rest of the cast was okay-good and functioned well in that specific movie design where it only needed the one great performance to tie it all together. This film requires multiple good performances and 1 or 2 great performances to reach TDK's level. While Christian Bale is certainly capable of incredible roles like Dickey Eklund and Patrick Bateman I think most can agree his Batman is good at best and merely serviceable at worst.

Anne Hathaway as Catwoman is a decent selection I suppose. Natalie Portman, the best young actress in Hollywood by far, was also up for the role and probably would have made the film more interesting. Conversely Anne Hathaway is swiftly becoming Hollywood's most desirable Whore (TM) and while this will probably sell more tickets (particularly if there's nudity in the film) than Natalie Portman would she isn't quite at the "good actress" stage of whoring yet. Previous Whores Julia Roberts and Angelina Jolie are now quite competent actresses but mostly only became so past around age 32-33, and poor Anne is just 28. I very much doubt she'll either A) Die after filming to guarantee an Oscar win or B) Actually deserve an Oscar for the role. Obviously the previous major villain did both.

Heath asks an interesting question

Okay Okay fair enough, this movie does not have to be as good as The Dark Knight to be a good/great superhero movie. Batman Begins is still excellent and easily top 5 amongst other superhero movies. But I still say Nolan is improving film after film so why not make this better than just enormous profit sequel-bait, why not make it uniquely good in its own right? This is why the film needs Daniel Day Lewis. Having already used Liam Neeson I don't think there is another Hollywood actor as proficient as Lewis, at least not one who is capable of playing an excellent villain's role. I drink your milkshake Baleman, I drink it up! Alas, it doesn't much look like that's going to happen.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Security dude from Inception) has also very recently been announced for the film. Presumably he will play a major supporting role, but while he is a promising young actor I don't think he's done nearly enough cocaine to match Heath's performance of legends. Of course, this film is still a year and a half away from release so mayhap the mighty Nolan will listen and procure the services of Monsieur Plainview. If not this film has a very solid chance of reaching the top 5 best Superhero movies but virtually no chance of becoming the best.

Random Favorite Song: Passenger