The Ultimate Movie Thread of Ultimate Destiny

TDKR is even worse than Begins, I have a very low opinion of that trilogy, but even then Rises has the biggest amountof plot holes and the most paper thin characters of the trilogy.
 
To be honest, I usually give superhero films an excuse for being...well that, superhero films. I don't really expect mind-blowing storyline or characters, any sort of depth to it. I just expect good fun which doesn't turn out to be a fest of tasteless choices by the director.

I've never felt that Nolan did any of those things, and considering the character he has taken upon, I feel he did just fine (I'm not a big Batman fan, but I've read a comic a bit, seen films, seen cartoons, and know a bit about the character in general and its various incarnations...since there is a lot to him, from great moments to pure shit, I think Nolan did it fine, and frankly, don't understand a good deal of negative comments he's been getting).

Like I've said, in the end, the film kept my attention and I enjoyed it, but I hope Nolan won't go lower than this...
 
The Batman in the Nolan films is pretty much, not Batman. I prefer to call him swaman because that's all he is, some dude in armor that doesn't do detective work, or thinks for himself. I mean he spent half the second movie getting ordered around by Gordon and Dent. And in the third one he gets outsmarted by every single character, even falling for Catowman's obvious trap.

And that is just one of the many things that put me off about those movies.

The Batman movies feel like Nolan just wants the paycheck so he dresses up some half assed idea he had for a movie that he never got to complete as Batman and expects the costume to keep it afloat.
 
Atomkilla said:
^

I'm looking forward to the day when Del Toro directs At the Mountains of Madness.





As for actual films...last night I've *finally* seen The Dark Knight Rises.

I suppose Nolan decided to make a fine ending to the new trilogy, but I believe this is the weakest one of the three.
The story felt a bit rushed at moments, which is further *improved* by those awful, annoying fast-paced shots which may save a lot of screen time, but are quite irritating to watch.

I like how Hardy played Bane, but am unsure if his voice is generated via computer or if he had done it by himself...I suppose it's a bit of both, but hands down, it's one of the few films where a voice of the certain character is so impressive that it marks the whole film.
Acting in general was okay, I didn't like Catwoman much, at certain moments. For some reason, it seemed as she was pushing it a bit too far, to the land of over-the-top-acting (or, as some would say, land of bad acting), but in the end, it was fine.

There are many minuses in the overall plot, but I'm too lazy to actually put the spoiler tags in order to point them out...but yeah, the story is far from perfect.
However, this is a superhero film, after all, and I'm satisfied.

It's probably one of the best superhero films I've seen, but it's also the worst Nolan film I've seen.




Also, I'm not sure if its symbolic, or if it is for the better visuals, but Batman flick filmed mostly in broad daylight? Not a best choice.
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Personally I find Batman Begins to be far worse. That one hadn't yet stepped completely into the new age of movie visuals. A radio reviewer somewhere in the uk whom I stumbled upon on youtube called it an arthouse film. A fucking arthouse film! It's the exact opposite!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgWCZvowEjY

In this scene for example, you can see bad acting, non exciting writing, a weird looking unconvincing gasmask design, unconvincing sets/lighting and ninjas in huge plastic ski gear. This is just one scene, yes, but the slums setting was unconvincing on the whole for me, and the villain was hugely ineffective because of the writing, cartoon henchmen and stumbling acting. There are good scenes yes, but not enough to carry the movie. Besides, a villain speaking of destroying a city because of it's crimes, whilst only gassing a small impoverished part of the city doesn't create any tension for me and isn't very logical. Yes Ras' tries to gass the whole city later on, but they didn't focus on this much at all. We don't even see what great crimes the city supposedly commits, only on a small scale. Joe Chill, the drugs storyline, the mob and that's it basically.

It wasn't wholly bad of course. The corruption shown in the scene where bruce speaks to the mob leader was effective in this.

But the whole movie is simply the same old batman origin we've already seen dozens of times. We already know this story. Nolan didn't add anything substantial to it. He simply redesigned the look of it and changed minor elements. Seeing Bruce's parents die for the umpteenth time doesn't do anything for me.
If adding a hugely simple theme to it that wasn't emphasized previously (namely the "Why do we fall? So we can pick ourselves up." theme) makes it good then it seems making stories is easier than I thought.

The movie also doesn't satisfy me on an action level. They dropped it in the sequel but this movie suffered terribly from shaky cam nonsense.

So overall I am simply unconvinced by the movie, it doesn't seem at all real to me. I didn't like origin story in which I do not care in the slightest about batman and I disliked the gas plot even more.

In the origin story there isn't much logic to be found either. We don't get a reason for Bruce Wayne doing the things he does. And you desperately need one when your story is about an illogical need to single handedly beat down on crime. Leaving psychotic behavior as a reasonable explanation is not a good thing for the hero. Bruce even blows up a building with dozens of people inside right after he explains how he never wants to kill anyone

So I would rank the movies 2-3-1. Batman Begins is a 4/10 for me, TDK a 8/10, rises a 7.

Although I see less flaws in Rises than in the Dark Knight, Rises at least is more exciting on a visual level. And I think it could have been more enjoyable than TDK if these few nagging flaws that can overshadow the whole movie weren't there.

-Bane takes over the city quite late in the movie. We don't get a chance to sympathize with the city's suffering because we see so little of it.
-That also means that Bruce Wayne's plight in the hole is oversimplified to the point where it doesn't work anymore. It's over too quickly and the breaking of his body is simply another obstacle he gets past easily. I feel that this particular point is the biggest flaw in the movie, since Bruce Wayne is finally a character you can sympathize with a little, but then he isn't given an effective arc. It wasn't incorporated into the story very well. This injury should maybe have spanned 2 movies, be given at least some seriousness and actual effect on the story and it's characters. Batman doesn't have anything more than a black and white villain v hero relation with bane(besides the league of shadows thing), and that's the most dissapointing part of the movie. This may seem like a rant, but the same thing applies (Perhaps even more) to the Joker. In the sense that there is no connection between them, and the Joker is an even shallower character than Bane. So this being the biggest flaw of the movie doesn't mean I put TDK on a sort of pedestal.
-Bane and Talia's plan was. . . I won't say that it was pointless. Because many people thought that they were simply looking to destroy Gotham as Ras Al Ghul wanted and thus thought that the plan was illogical. This is the biggest complaint I see all over the internet. This is not the case. It was a case of psychopathic revenge. There is no reason given specifically for their plan being so overcomplex and rash. But there was a reason for them doing it. They simply wanted to enact the most brutal vengeance on Batman for the death of Ras Al Ghul. But one can see that perhaps with Ras' death, the league is gone. And their rash actions are the result of them responding to the death of the league. But that bit is speculation of course.
-Catwoman and Batman hooking up. This is fine with me on it's own, but wasn't set up as well as it could have been. He like what, kisses her once? And they fight together a little? He had sex with Talia too, that isn't an issue for batman apparantly. This isn't a big flaw, so I'm willing to look past this.
-Bruce Wayne fakes his own death AS WELL as Batman's on the same day. Now this is not the biggest flaw but in my mind the stupidest. There was NO reason for him to do this and it only creates more problems. It renders the final scene illogical, since his fake death would be uncovered the moment someone recognizes him. And for a world famous billionaire that's not hard.
 
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Hey man, both you and Walp make good points, nothing to say more.

Still, like I've said, I never expected anything more from a superhero film and in the end, I'm pretty satisfied with the 2 hours of life I've spent on it. I don't care much about the film in order to dabble with its flaws too much - which are most certainly there.


Again, this film, and I perhaps the whole trilogy, are in my opinion the worst Nolan films. Not that I think Nolan is such an amazing director as many think he is - I have watched a good deal of his works, and the only one I've fully enjoyed was Memento.
 
The Prestige is really good, too. More so than any of his batman movies. In fact it's one of my favorite movies of all time.

You gotta love it even just because David Bowie plays Nikola Tesla and Andy Serkis is his assistant.
 
Akratus said:
The Prestige is really good, too. More so than any of his batman movies. In fact it's one of my favorite movies of all time.

You gotta love it even just because David Bowie plays Nikola Tesla and Andy Serkis is his assistant.
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Actually, I have never seen The Prestige in its entirety, which I regard as a hole in my knowledge of films after 2000. I never got around to it.

I will do so these days, since I have plenty of free time.
 
I swear, for me it's one of the best movies made in 2000-2010, and you miss out if you don't go and watch it asap.
 
^

They forgot to list Val Kilmer as one of previous Batmans. I won't watch that film, anyway.
Also, Doodlebug is awesome.



Anyway, I've seen The Prestige. Akratus is right, definitely one of the best films in the 2000-2010 time span, and I suppose I could, if not list it higher, then make it equal with Memento.

Superb writing, directing, and most importantly, acting. Everyone played their parts so well, Jackman and Bale have a really good on-screen chemistry, if I'm not wrong with the term.


I'm a bit puzzled by Jackman, though. He seems to me as a really good actor, but he constantly plays in some bad films. Guess picking a role isn't his strong side. Luckily, he nailed this one.
 
I watched Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho last night, for the first time in years. It's still a great movie after 53 years.

BTW, in case anyone is interested, TCM is running a bunch of science fiction movies on Friday nights in September. Here's the lineup for the month:

Metropolis
Things To Come
Escape From New York
Brazil
Soylent Green
Minority Report
Logan's Run
Mad Max
La Jetee
Rollerball
A.I.: Artificial Intelligence
Total Recall (1990)
The Time Machine (1960)
World Without End
The Omega Man
A Boy And His Dog
 
I've gone through Neon Genesis Evangelion and The End of Evangelion in less than three days.

Damn, that was enjoyable.
It looked dull in the beginning, for a moment there, but I absolutely fell in love with it.
The ending of the series/film is really...spectacular, I'd say, but I see why many didn't like it.
 
I recently watched Europa Report.

I went in thinking it was going to be some shitty POV Sci-Fi Horror movie about zombies on a spaceship.

How wrong I was, it's not even horror, its very realistic and wouldn't feel out of place on National Geographic.

Excellent movie, it gets an 8/10 from me.

The trailer is not representative of the film at all.
 
AlphaPromethean said:
The trailer is not representative of the film at all.
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I hate showing (intelligent) people a trailer for a movie I've enjoyed, because the trailer does it best to make the movie seem dumber than it is, in order to caaater to the maaasses - instead of the actual target audience of the movie. It's very frustrating, and I always have to add "Oh, by the way, that trailer is not representative of the film at all."
 
Atomkilla said:
I've gone through Neon Genesis Evangelion and The End of Evangelion in less than three days.

Damn, that was enjoyable.
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You should watch Madoka if you haven't already, you'll probably like it.
 
Courier said:
Yes.

Don't worry it's not as girly as it looks.
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I might watch it, thanks for recommendation, but later. I currently have some other anime on the list.

Ever seen Wolf's Rain?
 
I got recomended a series called Watamote, it's about a girl with extreme social anxiety and emocional issues, sounds like me, except a girl. Don't know if I should watch it, I liked Welcome to the NHK but with this one it would seem like a "Yo, Dawg" joke.
 
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