The Dark Knight Rises (Warner Brothers, 4,404 Theaters, 164 Minutes, Rated PG-13): This will be a sad weekend. An era of unparalleled excellence is coming to an end, and leaving an uncertain future.
There seem to be some people, for no other reason than their own unfounded hatred of Christopher Nolan, who spend most of their time on the Internet in a crusade to let everyone know that Nolan’s Batman films aren’t really that good. Quality is in the eye of the beholder, and if they really truly believe that, well, more power to them. I beg to differ. But I think Nolan’s trilogy is more important than just its quality.
The Nolan Batman films were one of the most valuable tools in getting respect for the comic book medium from a wider audience. Nolan tried to make this trilogy a great movie first, a great superhero movie second. He was able to wring as much pathos and angst from character as he could. The result is a weightier take on the character, which caused those who were only familiar with the BAM! POW! BOFF! era of Batman to completely rearrange their way of thinking.
This might be Nolan’s last Batfilm in the director’s chair, but he will producing the inevitable franchise reboot. Hopefully, Batman’s cinematic future will be as bright as his past.
“There seem to be some people, for no other reason than their own unfounded hatred of Christopher Nolan, who spend most of their time on the Internet in a crusade to let everyone know that Nolan’s Batman films aren’t really that good.” No offense, but the pendulum swings both ways. I’d feel remiss reading the above quote without pointing out that there are just as many people out there (actually, I’d wager a good deal more) who, likewise, for no other reason than a blind, obsessive devotion to Christopher Nolan (and, more distressingly, a frenzied sense of single-minded zealotry that… Read more »
In all due respect, the behavior described in those links show a behavior that is endemic of the Rotten Tomatoes commenters as a whole than just Christopher Nolan fans in particulars. I have seen similar behavior attached to other non-Nolan films as well, especially the whole “attacking the first review that caused a particular film to lose its 100% fresh rating” thing. The quest for the illusive 100% fresh rating for a summer blockbuster is an obsession for the RT commenters. They engage in this kind of behavior all the time, not just with Nolan movies. It’s just that this… Read more »
Oh, I didn’t intend to make it sound like this is a problem solely related to Nolan fans. The same thing happened when The Avengers came out and the first less-than-glowing reviews appeared. I just wanted to bring up the fact that there are Nolan-obsessives who act in the exact same way and that there are always hardcore zealots on both sides of any hugely anticipated blockbuster movies like this. To mention the anti-Nolan zealots specifically makes it seems (I understand it likely wasn’t intentional) that the implication is that this is something unique to Nolan. I do, however, think… Read more »