The highly anticipated "The Dark Knight Rises", the final in the Batman trilogy, will hit screens this Friday and early movie reviews are giving this soon-to-be summer blockbuster stellar reviews.
The movie, directed by Christopher Nolan, picks up from the 2008 hit "The Dark Knight," and maintains its dark, brooding feel to it. The movie seems to offer something for everyone. It's suspenseful, it's dramatic, tragic and sometimes just downright sinister.
Earlier this week, RottenTomatoes.com, a website where users can rate movies and write reviews, have suspended user comments on "The Dark Knight Rises" on Monday following a fan uproar after two critics posted negative reviews of the movie. Marshall Fine of Hollywood and Fine wrote that the film was "grandiose not grand," and the Associated Press' Christy Lemire said that the film "lacked the spark that gave 2008's 'The Dark Knight' such vibrancy."
Here are some snippets from "The Dark Knight Rises" Movie Reviews from around the web:
Los Angeles Times - Potent, persuasive and hypnotic, "The Dark Knight Rises "has us at its mercy. A disturbing experience we live through as much as a film we watch, this dazzling conclusion to director Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy is more than an exceptional superhero movie, it is masterful filmmaking by any standard. So much so that, its considerable 2-hour, 44-minute length notwithstanding, as soon as it's over, all you want to do is see it all over again.
Associated Press - There's so much going on here ... that "The Dark Knight Rises" feels overloaded, and sadly lacking the spark that gave 2008's "The Dark Knight" such vibrancy. The absence of Heath Ledger, who won a posthumous Oscar for his portrayal of the anarchic and truly frightening Joker, is really obvious here. It retrospect, it makes you realize how crucial Ledger's performance was in making that Batman movie fly. By comparison, "The Dark Knight Rises" is plot-heavy, obsessed with process, laden with expository dialogue and flashbacks that bog down the momentum and -- dare I say it? -- just flat-out boring at times.
New York Times - As the title promises, day breaks in "The Dark Knight Rises," the grave and satisfying finish to Mr. Nolan's operatic bat-trilogy. His timing couldn't be better. As the country enters its latest electoral brawl off screen, Batman hurtles into a parallel battle that booms with puppet-master anarchy, anti-government rhetoric and soundtrack drums of doom, entering the fray as another lone avenger and emerging as a defender of, well, what? The action interludes are more visually coherent than in his previous Batman films and, as in "Inception," the controlled fragmentation works on a pleasurable, purely cinematic level. But it also serves Mr. Nolan's larger meaning in "The Dark Knight Rises" and becomes his final say on superheroes and their uses because, as Gotham rages and all seems lost, the action shifts from a lone figure to a group, and hope springs not from one but many.
Tribune -"The Dark Knight Rises" is not dull, or even overlong, despite its running time. It's more an example of what one character, in a cameo, refers to as "the decadence of Gotham" - Gotham in this case meaning Hollywood. Nolan amalgamates the second movie's9/11 breakdown vibe with rampant, murderous visions of class warfare and economic despair.
"The Dark Knight Rises" opens this Friday, July 18 nationwide. It's rated PG-13 for scenes of violence.
Directed by Christopher Nolan; written by Christopher Nolan and Jonathan Nolan, based on a story by Christopher Nolan and David S. Goyer; director of photography, Wally Pfister; edited by Lee Smith; music by Hans Zimmer; production design by Nathan Crowley and Kevin Kavanaugh; costumes by Lindy Hemming; produced by Christopher Nolan, Emma Thomas and Charles Rove; released by Warner Brothers Pictures. Running time: 2 hours 45 minutes.
WITH: Christian Bale (Bruce Wayne/Batman), Michael Caine (Alfred), Gary Oldman (Commissioner Gordon), Anne Hathaway (Selina Kyle), Tom Hardy (Bane), Marion Cotillard (Miranda Tate), Joseph Gordon-Levitt (John Blake) and Morgan Freeman (Lucius Fox).
