I saw an interview with Bear Grylls recently where the adventurer praised The Revenant’s realism, saying it accurately depicts a grim struggle for survival in an inhospitable landscape. He liked it so much that he went straight to a travel agent afterwards, booking a nice winter break for himself and the family in the frozen wilderness of Canada where The Revenant was shot.

Everyone seems to have an opinion on the movie, including ridiculous ones like a histrionic piece in The Guardian calling The Revenant “pain porn” and drawing a comparison to ISIS. All news is good news for “Team Revenant” in the run-up to the Oscars, and all those column inches about bear rape and liver eating will surely keep it fresh in everyone’s minds right up to the ceremony.

I don’t really understand why some people are getting so hot under the collar about the film. While the content is gruesome and often brutal, the stylistic choices made by Alejandro Iñárritu keeps the action at a removed distance, even when the camera is shoved up someone’s nose. We’re never given the opportunity to get to know the characters, so we just sit there, observing Hugh Glass’ ordeal with cool detachment, waiting for him to get his revenge so we can all go home. Mel Gibson got the job done about an hour less in Payback, and it was a bit more fun.

DiCaprio and Co. keep talking about what an arduous location shoot it was, which leads me to my main beef with the movie: Iñárritu puts his cast and crew through hell for the sake of authenticity, but makes so many flashy choices that keep drawing our attention to the artifice of the piece. Here are five of them.

1. Long, Long, Long, Masturbatory Takes

Iñárritu and Lubezki are up to their Birdman tricks again, filming long sequences of The Revenant in elaborate takes. The film’s opening set piece is immense, a stupendous tracking shot through the mayhem of an Indian raid on Leo’s fur trapper camp. It’s a little too perfect, as the camera glides clinically through the bloodbath, taking the time to pan and tilt at just the right moment to capture people getting their heads caved in.

Some call this immersive; I call it showboating. It’s like watching a demo reel for a hyper-realistic first-person shooter, and the technique calls attention to the whereabouts of the camera rather than making it disappear. The trouble with long takes is that it goes against the usual visual rhythm we expect in a film, so when the cut doesn’t come, it makes us more conscious of the director’s decision not to cut. Because of this, I’m spending more time admiring the craft than getting involved in the action.

By comparison, look at George Miller’s virtually invisible direction in Mad Max: Fury Road. There are no such flourishes from him. Miller’s only interested in orchestrating his team in service of the story, and that is far more immersive. Iñárritu’s choice of long takes serves his ego rather than the story.

2. Stuff-on-Lens Syndrome

Another thing some people find “immersive” that I find a bit too video game-like is stuff getting splattered all over the lens. It worked in Saving Private Ryan because it felt like some ultra-intrepid film crew was documenting the battle. It doesn’t make sense in The Revenant. Cameras didn’t exist back then, so what is getting spattered with blood, water and misted up by Leo’s breath? The viewer’s eyeballs? It just brings attention to the fourth wall, and once you do that, it makes the viewer conscious of that transparent barrier between them and the action.

3. Ridiculous Dream Sequences

You know when someone at work starts telling you about a dream they had last night, and you take it as an opportunity to think about something else? Dream sequences in movies almost always have that effect on me. Because they’re dreams, the director can throw any old nonsense in there, or use it to fill in some back story that decent writing could have covered in dialogue. We didn’t need a dream sequence in Jaws to show Quint’s harrowing experience on the USS Indianapolis.

The Revenant gives us some very repetitive dream sequences to show us what happened to Leo’s dead wife. It’s pretty hackneyed, and it gets comical when she starts floating around above him like a possessed Sigourney Weaver in Ghostbusters.

4. Tom Hardy’s Accent

Hardy’s talent as an actor is undeniable, but he’s a very odd duck. In interviews, he looks like he’d rather be wringing the life out of the interviewer with his bare hands than answering their banal questions. And Hardy goes through accents like Inspector Clouseau goes through costumes and silly wigs. The Peter Sellers comparison is apt because one has to wonder—does Tom Hardy need to hide behind these crazy voices the same way Sellers needed to with his characters?

Hardy picked up a Supporting Actor nomination for this year’s Oscars, and he certainly immerses himself in the role of Leo’s nemesis John Fitzgerald. As a Brit, he could have chosen any kind of American accent. Instead, he chose the most outlandish, impenetrable accent he could muster, basing it on Tom Berenger in Platoon. It struck me as such an ostentatious acting choice that every time he spoke it took me out of the movie—like Iñárritu’s directorial choices, the accent feels too much like self-indulgence.

5. “What the hell are you looking at?”

Having spent a couple of hours getting splashed, splattered and breathed on, the fourth wall is finally shattered when Leo peers right down the lens at us in The Revenant’s final frames.

It’s reminiscent of 12 Years a Slave‘s most sanctimonious moment when Solomon Northrup casts a challenging gaze into the camera. That movie spends about an hour showing us that slavery is a bad thing, then Brad Pitt shows up to tell Michael Fassbender that slavery is a bad thing. Then Northrup looks straight out of the movie at us, as if to say, “Shame on you, don’t you know slavery is a bad thing?” Well, no shit, it’s only been abolished for a hundred and fifty years or so.

At the end of The Revenant, Leo fixes us with a similar meaningful gaze, although his message seems to be more universal.”Mankind…bunch of assholes, huh?”

In Alejandro González Iñárritu‘s The Revenant, Leonardo DiCaprio plays survivalist legend Hugh Glass, a frontiersman betrayed by both his land and fellow man, left ripped and ravaged without anything left to live for. Inch by inch we watch Glass crawl and tumble across miles and miles of picturesque Great Plains scenery, and little by little it becomes clear that, despite the film’s impossibly grandiose, elaborate, labored production, its story is relatively uncomplicated. Sitting firmly in the annals of American Myth, Glass’ journey is about little more than the unexpected fruits of grit and resilience, a classic survivalist tale through and through.

It’s an interesting thing marrying such a straightforward narrative (based loosely on Michael Punke‘s 2002 novel The Revenant: A Novel of Revenge) with Iñárritu’s overblown sense of spectacle and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki‘s floating, balletic long-takes. The combination works, but on a level that likely isn’t as high-minded or deeply spiritual as the filmmakers intended. The sights are soar, the sounds swirl, but what keeps things grounded and compelling are the hardworking actors and the simple satisfaction of watching a man on a mission, fighting tooth and nail to reach his target.

The target is a cantankerous, slippery brute called Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy) who earns Glass’ ire thoroughly. The rivals are a part of an expedition for the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, scouring the land for pelts to trade. While gathered on the Missouri river, the group is attacked by the Arikara tribe in a dizzying, dazzling bombardment of grotesque tomahawk and arrow kills punctuated by blood-curdling screams of agony all around. The men barely make it out alive, their numbers severed. When a grizzly bear mauling leaves Glass fatally wounded, the captain of the hunting party (Domhnall Gleeson) deems it too dicey to transport him via stretcher across the rocky terrain, leaving him under the care of Fitzgerald and a boy scout-ish tagalong (Will Poulter). They’re offered extra pay to stay behind and give their dying comrade a proper burial upon his all but inevitable death, and while Fitzgerald hasn’t got an ounce of compassion in him, he needs the cash considering they were forced to abandon their precious pelts in the escape from the Arikara. Once the rest of the party leaves, however, he plots a scheme more befitting of his nefarious attitude.

Glass was a real man, though what we see in The Revenant has gone through three filters of fictionalization—the history books, Punke and Iñárritu. After the Fitzgerald betrayal, the film follows Glass as he uses his frontier skills to nurse himself back to health while he tracks down the man who left him for dead. It’s a big, heaping plate of revenge and outdoors survival that’s meaty enough on its own, though Iñárritu and Lubezki add unneeded garnishes (shallow spirituality and white-guilt symbolism) that almost spoil the meal.

DiCaprio’s performance is tremendous in that he uses every inch of his body to tell Glass’ story. It’s a mostly non-verbal role that sees him expressing a wide range of emotion with his eyes (in the chunk of the story where Glass is incapacitated) and with his entire body as he slowly rehabilitates and traverses the unforgiving terrain. Overwhelmingly, this is a story of despair and tragedy, but we do get to see love in Glass’ eyes early on. In flashback, we see his Pawnee wife and their teenage son (Forrest Goodluck), who he raised to be a tracker like himself. Their fates, of course, aren’t sunny because…Iñárritu. DiCaprio. Tragedy is their jam, man.

Iñárritu and Lubezki teeter on the line between visual splendor and artistic arrogance so precariously that it adds to the excitement of their films in an almost meta way. Sometimes the imagery is ingenious; when Glass is all but crippled, Lubezki presents the surrounding landscape as not beautiful, but paralyzingly frightening in its endlessness. But then a bird flies out of a dying woman’s chest and you can’t help but laugh at how silly it looks. The ambition is bloated and these guys are totally caught up in their artsy maestro bullshit, but even the weakest shots in this movie (most of them involving iffy CG elements) have enough flair to them that you can hardly turn your attention from the screen.

Subtlety and thematic complexity aren’t Iñárritu’s strengths, so when The Revenant lets go of its “big ideas” and focuses on Glass’ manhunt, things get really good. Hardy plays a terrific scumbag, so when Glass finally get his hands on Fitzgerald, it’s both gratifying and insanely intense. Admittedly, the pleasures found in the excessively gory final showdown are decidedly testosterone-driven, but if you approach the movie as a primal tale of bloody revenge (á la Kill Bill and Mad Max: Fury Road, for example), there’s no reason to apologize for reveling in all the limb-hacking and eye-gouging.

If there’s one thing about The Revenant that irked me, it’s Iñárritu and co-writer Mark L. Smith‘s decision to push the story as a revisionist western in which the sins of the Native American genocide are examined through the eyes of a bunch of white guys. It’s an insult to both the Native American perspective, which is almost always grossly underrepresented in these kinds of stories, and to the real Glass, whose extraordinary ordeal is more than worthy enough of a movie on its own without faux-mystical themes muddying everything up.

A new trailer has surfaced for The Revenant, the highly-anticipated film from Alejandro G. Iñarritu (Birdman) which stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy, Domnhall Gleeson, and Will Poulter. We already got a glimpse of the beautiful cinematography from the masterful Emmanuel Lubezki in the first trailer, and there’s some gorgeous shots in this one too, but now we’re starting to see some of the actual plot.

The story is inspired by true events of one man’s grand adventure for survival, as legendary explorer Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) is abandoned by his own crew after getting mauled by a bear. The Revenant showcases his survival of life-threatening injuries in harsh winter conditions as well as his pursuit for redemption.

The Revenant opens in limited theaters on December 25, 2015—just in time for Oscars contention—then goes wide on January 8, 2016.

Can we have more musicals like this, please? Rufus Norris adapts Alecky Blythe’s and Adam Cork’s stage musical, London Road, for the big screen, and the result is a jolt of much-needed electricity into a dreadfully deflated genre. It tells the true story of the “Suffolk Strangler” murders that shook a tiny community in Ipswcich. An alarming number of prostitutes started blemishing the refined reputation of this quaint little British town, until someone took it upon themselves to start killing these women. Now, murder and crime get added to prostitution and the residents decide to do something about it.

What makes this such a mirthful experience is the genius choice of turning real-life testimony from witnesses and bystanders into songs, verbatim. In doing so, every “um,” “like,” and “you know” become integral parts of the lyrics, blending tragedy and comedy into wholly unique ways. The magnificent Olivia Colman and Tom Hardy are the name-actors, but Hardy’s only in it for a minute, while Colman thankfully gets to do, and sing, much more. The real stars, however, are the interviewees and the TV anchors, whose harmonies over Adam Cork’s various pop and dance beats give London Road its verve and vitality. A musical unlike any other, you’d do well to seek this one out as soon as it plays near you.

Less than a year removed from his Best Director and Best Picture Academy Award wins for Birdman, director Alejandro G. Iñarritu has refueled his addicition to risky filmmaking through another ambitious collaboration with cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki. The Revenant, shot over the course of a few months in the largely untouched wilderness surrounding Calgary, was filmed entirely using natural lighting at the expense of the production’s flexibility. This expectedly facilitates some stunning long take camerawork from Lubezki, though much of the trailer more closely resembled the cinematographer’s chaotic work on Children of Men and not his more recent contributions to Birdman.

Starring Leonardo DiCaprio as a trapper in the 1820s who is mauled by a bear, DiCaprio’s Hugh Glass survives his injuries, the harsh winter, and a hostile environment in order to take revenge against his traitorous partner (Tom Hardy). Domnhall Gleeson and Will Poulter star as well. The Revenant is not expected to début until December 25th (in limited release), so you will have to wait nearly half a year for the context of this exhiliarting and epic footage.

Watch the new trailer for The Revenant below:

It’s a world gone mad in Mad Max: Fury Road, and director George Miller wastes no time establishing the no holds barred, kill or be killed state of living in his post-apocalyptic vision. A brief montage of sound clips outlining civilization’s downfall plays before Max Rockatansky (Tom Hardy) shows up, looking over a desert wasteland before fleeing in his car. He’s chased down and captured by a few “War Boys,” devout followers and henchmen of Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne). Joe is the cultlike leader of The Citadel, a desert city where he controls the oil, water and food supply. He’s barely living, with most of his body made up of machinery designed to keep him alive, and he rules over his impoverished masses with no mercy.

Just as Max is taken prisoner, Joe sends out his War Rig (a massive truck/war machine) to get gasoline from their supplier. The truck is driven by Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron), whose shaved head and black war paint immediately establish her as someone not to be messed with. She drives off, but at a certain point makes an unexpected detour. Joe and his minions soon realize that Furiosa has taken Joe’s five young wives (called “breeders,” for reasons that should be obvious), and his only chances at getting a male heir, with her, prompting Joe to chase her down with everything he’s got.

And with that, Mad Max: Fury Road starts its nearly two hour long car chase, with Furiosa and her five companions driving across the desert in the hopes of escaping Joe’s fast-approaching army of cars and War Boys. Max winds up tagging along with Nux (Nicholas Hoult), a dying War Boy hoping he can go out in a blaze of glory.

It’s hard not to see the onslaught of marketing for Mad Max: Fury Road and believe that the film will represent some sort of transgressive alternative to the usual homogeneous pile of tentpoles unleashed every summer. Fury Road only delivers on that promise to some degree; the production design offers plenty of neat things to gawk at, implying there’s plenty more to this world than what’s on screen, and the minimal exposition is a breath of fresh air. What’s disappointing is how much of Miller’s film feels familiar and formulaic. It’s the same old story, just dressed up in a spiky, oversaturated outfit.

It’s not that Miller is just copying and pasting another film’s plot—I’m having a hard time thinking of any other movies where ghoulish men hunt down their leader’s pregnant sex slaves. The familiarity comes from the structure and story beats, which emulate what’s been done plenty of times before: character development and themes boiled down to one word statements (survival for Max, redemption for Furiosa), a romantic subplot with no bearing on anything, a second act tragedy putting our protagonists’ success in doubt, and a “crazy” last minute plan acting as a transition into the final act and climax. And when your film literally moves down a straight line through a flat, two-colour landscape, a lack of variety will drag things down considerably.

Action films with a simple, one-track mindset can be far from a bad thing (both The Raid: Redemption and Dredd are great, recent examples of the KISS principle in action), but Fury Road never successfully establishes any stakes. It’s easy to know where and how things will end up, and for that reason it’s easy to detach from the onscreen spectacle. There’s a point in the climactic car chase where Furiosa comes face-to-face with Joe, and angrily says “Remember me?!” It’s played as a cool, kick-ass moment, but I found it a strange thing to say, considering this is the first time both characters actually share the screen together. There’s no weight or purpose to this moment, but it falls in line with the expectations and structure of an action film, so it has to be there. That safeness, that feeling of Miller eccentrically colouring within the lines, is Fury Road’s downfall. It’s a world gone mad, but this film is anything but.

Mad Max is making an unexpected stop in France on his wild path of action and mayhem. The newest film in George Miller‘s wonderfully manic saga, Mad Max: Fury Road, is scheduled to premiere out of competition at the Cannes Film Festival. The film will be presented at the Grand Théâtre Lumière on May 14th, one day ahead of its May 15th U.S. release date. Tom Hardy stars as the titular hero (taking over for Mel Gibson) along with Charlize Theron and Nicholas Hoult. Mad Max: Fury Road was produced by the Kennedy Miller Mitchell company and is distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures.

Mad Max: Fury Road is sure to be one of the most explosive and interesting action films of the year. If you’re like me you’ve already watched the trailer about 50 times in anticipation, but in case you haven’t or you just want to watch it for that 51st time then check it out below.

Saturday at Comic-Con is the closest thing to being in one of the many fictionalized dystopian futures of literature and film that keeps the fans coming out to the convention. Comic-Con-ers camped out the afternoon of Friday and over-night in order to finally gain access to Hall H at 9am Saturday morning. Some of them are “Hobbit Heads” — fans of Peter Jackson’s Tolkien franchise — and thus were anticipating the first panel of the day, but the majority of those sleep-deprived, un-showered fans were looking forward to an entire day of movie news and insider scoops, especially the end of the day’s Marvel panel.

And boy were they rewarded.

Warner Bros. Pictures

The first panel of the day was anything but subtle. Immediately beginning with what fans would most want to hear about: Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice. Director Zak Snyder brought in Batfleck himself, Ben Affleck, along with Superman, Henry Cavill, and the film’s third superhero, Wonder Woman, played by Gal Gadot, though why she has a sword and not a whip is beyond us. Curtains on either side of the hall revealed extra screens, the better to provide a sensory immersive experience for Snyder’s Batman v. Superman teaser.

The very short teaser showed Batman on a rooftop on a dark night, his eyes glowing through the mask of his Batsuit. He turns on his Batsignal, illuminating the sky and revealing Superman floating in the air, red eyes fixed on Batman. The two stare each other down a moment and it’s over. Hardly anything at all, but it was more than enough to excite the crowd of over 6,000.

Along with character shots, including a look at Wonder Woman’s outfit, Snyder showed off the film’s logo and assured the crowd filming is going “amazingly well”. Plan is to release the film May of 2016.

Next up, they jump straight into the Wachowskis’ Jupiter Ascending. No Wachowskis in the house but out comes Channing Tatum to say hello and show some footage. Tatum’s eye-makeup-ed Caine, talking to Mila Kunis’s Jupiter Jones about her role as monarchy in the universe. Lots of cool visual elements, great fight scene between Tatum and a winged-monster. It looks like the sort of visual fare we love from the Wachowskis, let’s hope the story doesn’t get in the way too much. They move quite quickly into the next big project for WB, Mad Max: Fury Road. Charlize Theron says hello in a video and then they show a video recap of the previous Mad Max films… which transitions into footage from the new film. A canyon and lots of post-apocalyptic vehicles. Director of all the Mad Max movies, George Miller, comes to stage and tells us that he considers chase scenes to be the purest form of cinema, and so he wanted to make a film that was one long chase scene. No Tom Hardy, but Miller reveals their won’t be a lot of dialogue in the film. They close this portion with more footage, a chase involving lots of tornado dodging.

And then, with still an hour to go in the panel, they move on to what people most wanted to hear about: The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. And that’s when Stephen Colbert takes over the panel as moderator, dressed in head to toe Hobbit-wear. First some funny video, mostly a gag reel from all of the movies. Then a huge chunk of the cast takes the stage along with Peter Jackson: Andy Serkis, Elijah Wood, Evangeline Lilly, Benedict Cumberbatch, writer Philippa Boyens, Luke Evans, Lee Pace, Orland Bloom, and Cate Blanchett. They joke about each LOTR movie deserving two more films with Colbert saying “You owe me 6 more Lord of the Rings films,” “If Warner can find a way to do that” Jackson pokes. After some discussion they finally play the trailer for the new film which features a decimated Laketown as Smaug blows fire all over it. Lots of soldiers and armies assembling. The song Billy Boyd sang during Return of the King plays in the background as we see a chase scene on ice, a flash of Sauron, and Bard asks Thorin “Will you have peace or war?” to which Thorin responds “I will have war!” The panel ends with an announcement for TheHobbitFanContest.com, a chance to go to New Zealand to see the latest film before it’s released.

Legendary Pictures

After two hours of WB, the crowd is obviously not as enthralled for Legendary picture’s announcements, but there is plenty to be excited about. Thomas Tull, CEO of Legendary comes out. A video from Godzilla director Gareth Edwards where he says once he’s finished with “a little sci-fi film” (the Star Wars spinoff) he’ll return to Godzilla with the second film. They tease us with a little video that reveals the potential new monsters Godzilla will fight: Mothra, Rodan, and Ghidorah. “Let them fight” it says. Crowd likes that.

They show an extended preview of As Above, So Below, the new horror film in the catacombs of Paris. You can see the trailer here. Moving on, Michael Mann makes his first Comic-Con appearance to discuss Blackhat, a cyber hacker thriller. The footage they show is interesting but a bit generic. Chris Hemsworth, star of the film, comes out to chat but mostly just proves he doesn’t know much about coding and computers. Wrong audience dude.

Finally someone we can get behind, Guillermo del Toro (who we saw in Thursday’s Book of Life panel) comes out to talk about Crimson Peak. Apparently excited not to be discussing a children’s film, del Toro takes the opportunity to make use of colorful language. He gives us a brief first look, though the film is a year and a half away, so not much. The logo covered in blood, Tom Hiddleston’s voice, “Houses as old as this one become, in time, a living thing. They may have timber for bones and windows for eyes, and sitting here all alone, it can go slowly bad. It starts holding onto things. Keeping them alive when they shouldn’t be. Some of them good. Some bad. Some should never be spoken about again.” It’s satisfyingly creepy, along the Pan’s Labyrinth route. Even more satisfying is del Toro’s use of a female lead, Mia Wasikowska, and his comment that he wants a story about a woman that shows their life beyond getting the man, that there is more to a female then her love interests. We can’t wait. He teases about Hellboy 3 (which gets a huge audience reaction) and At the Mountains of Madness (which gets decent applause).

Next up is Warcraft. Director Duncan Jones explains they wanted a LOTR style set with Avatar-level CG. They show some brief footage that does show some decent CG art. Thomas Tull ends the panel telling Guillermo to finish Pacific Rim 2 and then they can discuss his other projects. Then he shows a brief clip of King Kong and the title “Skull Island.” Looks like we have a prequel or sequel on our hands?

The Boxtrolls

All day people were joking that Boxtrolls got both a great spot and bad spot for their slot at Comic-Con. For one, they were guaranteed an audience as no one would leave Hall H before Marvel, and yet all those fans would be extra tired by the time Boxtrolls was up. And sure enough, plenty of sleeping people in the audience during this panel. But they did show an adorable clip of the Boxtrolls digging through garbage and playing with a ragged teddy bear. Cuteness overload and the stop-motion animation looks absolutely flawless. A short panel with Elle Fanning, Sir Ben Kingsley, and Isaac Hempstead along with creators Travis Knight, Anthony Stacchi, and Graham Annable allowed them to describe in greater detail just how long (8 years) and strenuous it is to make films like this.

Frank Miller’s Sin City: A Dame to Kill For

A strange follow-up to so cutesy a film, next up is the gritty sequel to Robert Rodriguez’s Sin City. A bit strange to see a sequel 10 years after the original, but when you’ve got all the original creators and actors working on it, no one is complaining. Rodriguez and Frank Miller were both on hand to discuss the film along with cast members Rosario Dawson, Jessica Alba, and Josh Brolin. The extended preview they gave us looks just as cool as the original, which really hasn’t yet been recreated successfully in other films. All the skin, guns, cars, and well placed color you’d expect. It looks incredible, but we’re still a bit dubious Miller and Rodriguez are going to get the reception they hope for. Let’s hope 10 years is enough time to build up some good nostalgia.

Marvel Studios

After what was almost exactly 24 hours of waiting for many in Hall H, the fans finally got what they were waiting (and chanting) for.

The panel began with a reel of all the Marvel films, edited together to effectively show the many ways they have all crossed paths and fit together. In it was a little bit of footage from Age of Ultron, teasing the audience for what they most wanted info on. The reel morphed into a Guardians of the Galaxy trailer which ends with Thanos floating through space on a throne. Kevin Feige, President of Marvel, came out and told audiences we’d be talking about 2015. And he meant it. Not much beyond next year was covered.

First up was Ant-Man, and he brought out Peyton Reed, the film’s new director (after Edgar Wright’s drama-filled exit). Determined to assure audiences he was the right man for the job, moderator Chris Hardwick asked about Reed’s past with Ant-Man, and he showed the audience a drawing he once did, where he turned himself into Ant-Man for a band picture. Reed also admitted this was his 20th time at Comic-Con. Clearly they are out to prove Ant-Man is in good hands. Out comes Paul Rudd who will star as Ant-Man, along with Evangeline Lilly, who they’ve just revealed will play Hope Pym, Corey Stoll (who they revealed will be Yellowjacket), as well as Michael Douglas as Hank Pym. After a few comments from the actors — Lilly knows almost nothing about her character as she’s not yet seen a script, Stoll alludes to his character being the scientist bad-guy, and Rudd prepares for superhero stardom — they played a video made just for Comic-Con, as the film hasn’t started any filming.

In it they pan around a laboratory while Michael Douglas’s holds a conversation with Rudd as Scott Lang, Ant-Man’s alter ego, asking Lang to do a “small” job for him (Lang is a thief). They jump to a costumed Lang running through a room, then a hallway, a man holds a gun up to him and he morphs into the tiny version of himself landing on top of the gun. Then more footage of him riding the back of a flying ant. The perspective is great, and even if this is conceptual footage, it looks really good.

Moving on to what fans most wanted Michael Jackson’s “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” plays as the cast of Avengers: Age of Ultron take the stage. Robert Downey Jr. charms the entire audience with flowers (which he handed out to his female co-stars as well). Most exciting was the newest Avengers, Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Quicksilver, Paul Bettany as Vision, James Spader as Ultron, and Elizabeth Olsen as the Scarlet Witch. The only notable missing persons were Scarlett Johansson and director Joss Whedon who just had knee surgery and couldn’t attend. After some fun banter with the entire panel — Hemsworth joked about the new sex-change of his character being his chance at an Oscar, Elizabeth Olsen says she’s been practicing staring at pencils for months willing them to move, and Robert Downey Jr. asks that she soon release him from the spell she cast on hims as “it burns” — we finally get a trailer for Avengers: Age of Ultron.

It begins with a dinner party with all the Avengers playing a party game where each tries to pick up Thor’s hammer. Tony Stark jokes that if he can do it, he gets to rule Asgard, right? It doesn’t budge, he tries again with the Iron Man glove, no dice. Not with the help of Cheadle’s War Machine hand either. No luck from Bruce Banner, but he wasn’t in Hulk mode, so… Hawkeye is a no go. Black Widow says that’s not a question she needs answered and Captain America gets the hammer to budge slightly which causes Thor obvious alarm. He picks it back up himself, satisfied, when suddenly a voice booms out at them. James Spader’s mechanized voice of Ultron, telling them that the only path to peace, is their extinction. As the hyper aware robot, built by Stark, Ultron plans to wipe them all out as the only way to solve their war problems. Cut to devastation, battle sequences and a creepy rendition of the Disney Pinocchio song “I’ve Got No Strings” sung behind the footage. Ending with a shiny new Ultron saying “I’ve got not strings on me.” The puppet has become the puppet-master. It looks awesome.

There’s nothing else to say. And that’s the end of the panel, except, a quick appearance by Josh Brolin donning Thanos’ Infinity Gauntlet. Which the audience loves. Especially when Downey Jr. offers him a flower, and Brolin commences to tear it up in his mouth and chew on the petals. Oh yeah, he should do nicely for ultra-villain Thanos. You can watch the panel (minus footage) here.

That’s Saturday at the con folks. Crazy long and so much happening. That pretty much concludes the film events of Comic-Con so it’s time this girl went and caught up on a heck of a lot of sleep.

Shooting for the new 50s & 60s-set period gangster piece Legend, starring Tom Hardy in dual roles. Based on the non-fiction John Pearson book “The Profession Of Violence: The Rise and Fall of the Kray Twins,” Legend stars Hardy as both Reggie and Ronnie Kray during the height of their power. From even this first image there’s a clear sense of the differences between the two twins that should allow Hardy to demonstrate his flexibility as an actor, although expect Hardy to bash in a couple skulls regardless.

Written and directed by Oscar-winner Brian Helgeland (writer, L.A. Confidential & Mystic River), Legend will see Hardy star alongside Emily Browning, David Thewlis, Christopher Eccelson, and Chazz Palminteri. Legend is being fully financed by Studiocanal and comes from production company Working Title Films, both companies UK-based. The movie is expected to be released in late 2015. Check the photo of Tom Hardy below:

Nowadays, superheroes punching each other in the face and flipping over cars is the hottest ticket in Hollywood. Steven Knight’s Locke takes an actor, Tom Hardy, who’s no stranger to the comic book movie landscape, and dares to not punch him in the face. Virtually the entire movie, in fact, focuses on his face in medium close-up as he drives in a BMW at night on an urban motorway in England. A BMW that, in fact, does not flip over at any point in the movie. What is this? Witchcraft?!

No, Mr. Knight hasn’t employed the dark arts to conjure up this riveting piece of concentrated cinema. It is magical in it’s own way, though: After spending 99% of the film in a cramped space, watching Hardy gab on the phone and blow his runny nose periodically, not for one second does the experience stagnate or disengage. On the contrary, the film is utterly gripping.

Knight has reduced the modern notion of movie storytelling to its bare essentials, without sacrificing entertainment value in the slightest. There are twists, turns, and close calls throughout, but none of them have to do with Hardy swerving to avoid disaster on the road. They’re all figurative, emotional, and brilliantly written by Knight, primarily known in the industry as a screenwriter, though that may change quickly if Locke is any indication of his directorial capabilities.

Hardy plays Ivan Locke, a bearded, successful (judging by his slick ride) family man and construction manager who we at first see leaving a massive construction site (the most important project of his life) at night, his destination revealed gradually throughout the film. Locke is a man who operates on the calm–cool–collected side of the alpha-male mindset, priding himself on maintaining unwavering pragmatism in the face of adversity. When problems arise, he habitually reverts to seeking out “the next practical step.”

His even temper is pushed to its breaking point, however, as phone conversations with panicked co-workers, distressed family members, and a mysterious woman reveal that he’s perilously close to losing his career, home life, and reputation, all while driving on the two hour stretch from Birmingham to London. (Locke plays out in semi-real time, suggesting small passages of time through strategically implemented edits.)

At first, Locke seems well equipped to handle the cellular juggling act, assertively dictating orders to his fidgety co-worker Dolan (Andrew Scott) and easing the nerves of his anxious wife Katrina (Ruth Wilson) and the mystery woman (Olivia Colman) with soft-spoken, deliberate confidence. But as the calls grow in urgency and frequency, with Locke scrambling to resolve one issue while another freaked-out caller waits on the other line (signaled by a panic-inducing “call waiting” message), cracks begin to form in his rock-solid exterior and a menacing side of him begins to show. Locke’s world is hanging by a thread, and he’s trying very, very hard not to lose his grip. “The traffic is okay. It’ll be okay,” he says to Katrina in his easy Welsh accent, and one wonders if he’s trying to abate his wife’s hysteria or his own.

In films taking place entirely in enclosed spaces (Buried, Phone Booth), casting of the lead role is paramount, as their face is almost all we see. Hardy, with his deep, soulful eyes, and unique bone structure, is a perfect choice. He’s perhaps the best shape-shifter working in Hollywood today, and a lot of his chameleon-like versatility can be attributed to his fascination with off-kilter accents, of which he’s tried on many in his career. His vocal performances always elevate his onscreen presence to great heights, and the potential of his gift is maximized here. His Welsh accent is round and assuring, elegantly English, and yet also rough around the edges; his rolled r’s sound like the deep purr of a lion.

Hardy’s most astonishing flashes of brilliance happen when he makes us believe he’s going to erupt in a fit of rage at any moment…and then doesn’t, putting a cap on his rage at the very last second. In a standout exchange with Scott, the two engage in a furious debate, which instead of boiling over dissipates in a wonderful way: The two begin to laugh with and at each other because, well, there’s simply no where else for them to go. It’s smart, organic choices like this that make Locke much more than a close-quarters gimmick movie.

Visually, Knight rises to the main challenge the man-in-a-box format presents, keeping the film visually interesting top to bottom. The boozy, blurred lights that dance and swirl on the windows of the car are moody and expressionistic. It’s unavoidable that the film runs the danger of visual monotony, but Knight sidesteps this pitfall with the phone conversations, which transport us from the theater of the car to the theater of the mind as we visualize what’s going on on the other end of the line. It’s a brilliant device. Riding shotgun with an actor as mesmerizing as Hardy is an enthralling moviegoing experience that shouldn’t be missed.

 Locke trailer

In Steven Knight’s experimental chamber piece Locke, we follow construction manager Ivan Locke (Tom Hardy) who, while driving on a highway late at night, has his whole world crumble around him as he desperately tries to keep his calm, cool exterior. Locke’s composure is tested as he juggles ongoing phone conversations with his wife (Ruth Wilson), his co-worker (Andrew Scott), and a woman with whom he’s been inextricably, unwillingly, linked. The entirety of the film takes place in Locke’s car on his night drive from Birmingham to London, with Hardy occupying the screen at virtually all times.

In our sit-down interview, Knight spoke with us about his fascination with cars driving on highways at night, keeping the one-location film visually interesting, Tom Hardy’s accent, why the movie isn’t quite in real time, and more.

Locke opens this Friday, 5/2 in San Francisco. Check back then for our full-length review.

What is it about a car moving through an urban environment at night that you love?
Steven: I’d just finished directing a conventional film. We tested the ALEXA cameras before we started shooting to see how sensitive they were to light at night when filming in London. We drove around with a camera and shot roads and buildings at night. When we sat in the cinema to watch that footage, I found it absolutely fascinating. I thought it was beautiful. One of the first thoughts was that it could be an art installation where you just leave the camera and just see stuff. The lights go by, the cars become spots of light as they go out of focus…Maybe it’s just me.

I thought, maybe you could make that car a theater. The screen then becomes a theater with those images on it. That’s your theater. You then put an actor into that theater and shoot a play as he drives. I write a lot of conventional film scripts in all kinds of different genres. This is a deconstruction of the journey, the character arc, the three acts…all of those things. The car journey is a real journey. The character arc doesn’t change much, but we’re completely looking at his character. I sincerely believe that, no matter what the budget and no matter what special effects, when people look at the screen, they look at the eyes of the actor. That’s where they’re looking. That’s where the answers are; they want to know what’s going on inside that person’s head, no matter what the film is.

I just thought, is it enough if you concentrate it down to that? Everything’s simplified: The journey is a journey. The eyes of the actor are all you’ve got. The future is through the windscreen and the GPS. The past is the rearview mirror. Everything’s simple in the car, and the world around it is chaos: lights and movement. You have a concrete man in the middle trying to bring order to it. Of course, it’s not possible, but he tries.

“It’ll be okay.”
Steven: “Let’s move on to the practical next step.”

The obvious challenge for films shot in a single, enclosed space like Locke is that there are only so many spots you can place your camera, and yet you have to keep the film visually interesting throughout. There’s a great shot where the camera is planted on the side of the car, you can see Tom in the side mirror, and he looks a million miles away.
Steven: It was fun. For everybody concerned, it was sort of a holiday from what they do, including myself. People dread doing car stuff. It’s so difficult and painful, and continuity is so difficult, normally. With this film, the initial thought was that all of the phone conversations have to take place on the same part of the same motorway, for continuity. That’s nonsense. Who cares what the lamp posts look like? You can get rid of continuity and do anything you want. We had three cameras rolling at all times: one that was conventional, one that was a bit less conventional, and one that was having fun. You set up these cameras while it’s still daytime, you get it all ready, and off you go.

The Red camera has a memory card of 30 minutes, so every 27 minutes we’d pull over like a Formula 1 pitstop. Everyone knew what they were going to do: change the memory card, change the lens, change the angle. Everybody leaves Tom alone because he’s in character. Then, you set off.

We got all of the other actors into a conference room in a hotel, opened up a phone line from that conference room. I was on the back of the truck with Tom, and I would cue the actors in sequence to make their calls. We shot the whole film, beginning to end, twice a night. We didn’t always manage to get twice a night–some were lighter–but we ended up with 16 movies.

And you’ve seen them all!
Steven: Yeah. The one we chose has all the best bits. We found that we kept returning to the same nights, the same sequences. It was usually around 2, 3 in the morning when everyone was a bit down. Suddenly, everything worked perfectly. Then, we just cut between the three cameras that were rolling.

Tom has a fascination with accents.
Steven: Yes!

He loves trying them on. Is it a Welsh accent in the film?
Steven: The point was that I wanted him to be from a poor background, a difficult upbringing. Most British working-class accents come with a lot of baggage. They’re quite harsh. With the Welsh accent, it’s very plausible that he’d be from a poor background, but it’s quite lyrical. He listened a lot to Richard Burton reading “Under Milk Wood”, the Dylan Thomas thing, before we’d start shooting. Rather than do accents, he’ll do someone with that accent. He knows someone with a Welsh accent, so he just becomes him for a bit, in terms of the voice. There’s no voice coach saying, “This is what a Welsh accent sounds like.” I think that’s death for any actor. Welsh was perfect.

Some of the best moments in the film are when you feel, “Any second now, he’s going to burst. I can see it in his eyes. Any second now.” But then…he doesn’t. The few times he does erupt are great, but the times when he doesn’t are so much fun.
Steven: If you’re going to have someone on screen the whole time, they’d better be good, and I think Tom’s the best we’ve got. Before writing the script I was meeting him for something else, and I said, “I’ve got this idea for the theater of this moving image. A man’s life unravels, and he’s the most ordinary man in the world.” He was really engaged. You need someone who people want to look at for that long. You also need him to keep the emotion down…keep everything under control. Everybody else can go mad and break down, but he can’t. “You’re the driver. You can’t.”

My favorite scene is when Locke is so frustrated with Donal, and they’re both absolutely furious, screaming at each other. Then, they begin laughing, because it’s the only place for them to go from there!
Steven: They’re good friends Andrew and Tom. We did it various ways, and one night, Andrew just started going, “FUCKIN’ HELL YOU FUCK!” Tom just started laughing and we went with it. It’s brilliant. It’s the only time you see him laugh, in that moment. The world is falling apart, but we’re human, and when something funny happens, you just laugh. Andrew is so good.

The supporting actors in the film deserve a lot of credit. They’re great.
Steven: In the UK, they’re the best character actors we’ve got. Our first choices all said yes, which is amazing. All we were offering them was 9pm to 4am in a conference room with some red wine and some biscuits. That was it, and they all said yes. Olivia Colman, Ruth Wilson and Andrew Scott are the best.

What’s great about those conversations–especially in a movie like this–is that, as a storytelling tool, you can transport us from the theater of the car to the theater of the mind, where we’re visualizing what these other characters are doing even though we can’t see them.
Steven: Absolutely. Absolutely. One of the best comments that I get from people who have seen the film is that they forget they haven’t seen the other characters. They’ve made them up themselves. The way films are made with budgets and special effects is, you sit in a room, they turn the lights off, and there onscreen is someone else’s imagination. It’s complete. You don’t have to do or add anything. It’s all there. With this film, it’s more like you’re telling a kid a story, and they’re staring off into space because they’re seeing it in their mind. People see the house where Locke’s wife is and the kids are watching football on the TV. They see it all themselves. I think it’s really good to have to use your imagination like that.

The movie’s not quite in real time.
Steven: The reality is that the journey he makes from Birmingham to London is about 2 hours. As a personal policy, I don’t want to make people sit in the cinema for 2 hours. I think it’s too long. In other words, I suggest that there are gaps between calls that we edited. We believed we’d need to pull the camera out and see the car objectively, often, to give people relief. When we showed that to people, they really rejected that. They wanted to stay in the car. It was the reverse of what we thought people wanted.

If I understand correctly, Tom didn’t have enough time with the script, so he didn’t memorize all of his lines.
Steven: We met in November and were shooting by February. I wrote it in between. It’s a 90-page script, which would have been impossible to learn. We put teleprompters in the car. I thought that he’d want to go off script and ad lib. I said that that was perfectly fine, but he said that he prefers to go off the page, which is great for me as the writer. The end product is word-for-word the script, with a couple of small exceptions. The great thing for him was, once he had the teleprompter in front of him, he didn’t have to remember the lines, which causes such anxiety in actors. He’s reading from the page, and it also means that he’s liberated to improvise the performance of everything. I think it works really well.

The production sounds like it was a lot of fun.
Steven: It was cold and wet, but because it was short, everybody gave me a burst of enthusiasm and excitement. It didn’t grow stale. It didn’t matter if they got no sleep, because they knew it was going to be over soon, so they gave it everything they had.

This film ostensibly seems like it would be a compact, restricted production, but in reality, it was quite the opposite. It seems it was freeing for you, creatively.
Steven: It was great. We were left alone completely by IM Global, who financed it. They were brilliant. On the back of two paragraphs, they financed it fully. None of us knew if it was going to work or not, and we didn’t know until Venice, the first screening to the public. The lights went up and it was overwhelming. There was no negativity. There was emotion and tears, a standing ovation. We were completely astonished.

You were surprised?
Steven: Sort of. I thought it was good. Then we showed it to people we liked. Middle aged men who were dragged to the screening were like, “Oh god, this is me. This is my life. I’ve done this. This is my dad’s life.” Really personal stuff. But, maybe it was just because they were people we knew. Then, in Venice, it was again a lot of people I suspected didn’t want to come, but saw something of themselves or their life in the film. Sundance was fantastic. Then, we went to Salt Lake City. Middle America. I thought, this is quite a religious place. It’s not going to go well. But it was the best reaction. You know, long handshakes after the screening. It was always some personal thing.

You weren’t expecting personal reactions to the film?
Steven: Not at all. I was really pleased. It’s certainly not an arthouse response we get. It’s not, “The film was experimental and it’s made me wonder about how we make films.” That’s fine, but it was much more, “That’s made me think about my dad a lot,” do you know what I mean? Really personal comments like that. “This is really close to home.” It’s great. It’s exactly what you want.

John Hillcoat’s Lawless, which feels more like it belongs on HBO instead of theatre screens, is a mediocre attempt at a crime drama. Assembling a strong team of people in front of and behind the camera, Hillcoat has the materials to make a good period piece but, as the saying goes, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.

Set in 1931 during Prohibition, Lawless takes place in Franklin County, Virginia. Thanks to some awkward exposition-filled narration at the beginning, we learn that Franklin County is referred to as the “wettest county in the world” due to its massive production of moonshine. The Bondurant brothers are one of the most popular bootleggers in the entire county. Forrest (Tom Hardy), Howard (Jason Clarke) and Jack (Shia LaBeouf) make and sell some of the best liquor in the area, and a brutal fight early on establishes Jack as the weaker brother in comparison to Forrest and Howard’s brute force.

Trouble comes from the law when Special Agent Charlie Rakes (Guy Pearce), a corrupt representative for the District Attorney, tries to intimidate the brothers into paying him off with some of their profits. Forrest refuses, and in no time people start getting killed. Meanwhile Jack manages to score a distribution deal with a mobster (Gary Oldman) which leads to more money and, for Jack, an inflated ego. Love stories also come into the mix as Forrest falls for a city girl (Jessica Chastain) who works at his bar, and Jack constantly tries to court a preacher’s daughter (Mia Wasikowska).

It’s obvious that Hillcoat and screenwriter Nick Cave are going for classical storytelling with its formulaic approach, but nothing is brought to the film that elevates it beyond its generic foundation. When Chastain’s character is introduced, her coupling with Forrest is inevitable. As an audience we see point A and can immediately figure out point B, but Lawless makes the journey between those two points a dull one. Once we get to point B, none of it feels earned or believable. The only reason why all of Lawless’ point A’s get to their respective point B is because it’s what’s expected of them and nothing more.

The cast, while impressive, does little with what they have. Tom Hardy spends his time grunting loudly, and Clarke screams more than he speaks while Chastain and Wasikowska simply play their parts. Guy Pearce’s transformation into Nicolas Cage levels of insanity appears complete with his hilarious, campy performance as Agent Rakes. Gary Oldman, taking the same route as Pearce, hams it up in his small role.

The only exception in the cast is LaBeouf, who has yet to build up a resume as impressive as his co-stars. His performance comes across as someone desperately trying to prove themselves as a serious actor. It might have worked in a more somber film, but with Pearce flailing about and Oldman smacking people with shovels LaBeouf looks like he’s unable to have any fun.

Lawless’ late-August theatrical release came as a surprise to some. Despite its presence in Cannes’ main competition, the film was getting released in what’s usually referred to as a dead zone. Most late August releases are reserved for mediocre fare, the kinds of films that are burned off from studios instead of being hyped up like their summer releases. Although the talent involved suggested a different outcome, Lawless turned out to be a perfect fit for the late-August release window.

Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy comes to a close with The Dark Knight Rises and if anything the series is done being nice. Long gone are the days when little one liners would pat the audience on the back and let them know it’s going to be alright. Gone too is the series’ sense of excitement and adventure. The Dark Knight Rises is instead filled with a flat out serious tone that prevents the series from ending on a high note.

The Dark Knight Rises begins with Gotham in a grand state of peace. Essentially all organized crime led by the Joker in the previous film has been shut down with literally thousands of criminals locked up under The Harvey Dent Law. It’s been nine years since the last events took place. Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) has become secluded to his mansion with no one seeing him for years except for his always faithful butler Alfred (exquisitely played by Michael Caine). Wayne now walks with a cane after years of crime fighting have taken their toll on his body.

We get introduced to a couple of new characters early on, one of them being Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway). Faithful followers of comics and Batman will know her as Catwoman, the slinky sexy antihero of the Caped Crusader universe. I don’t feel guilty giving this tidbit away since virtually everyone knows this and it is revealed very early in the film. Another character we meet is beat officer John Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt). Levitt probably gives the best performance in the film other than Caine. Blake becomes a trusted ally of Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman). One of the few he can trust. Blake eventually gets promoted to the role of Detective after impressing Gordon when he hunts down certain clues that ultimately reveal what’s really happening in Gotham.

Miranda Tate, played by the luscious French vixen Marion Cotillard, is a mysterious billionaire who is trying to work with Wayne Enterprises on a new secret project that could allow Gotham to live in a more energy efficient manner. I had suspicions about her character early on, mainly because she reminded me of a character from the Batman cartoon that aired in the 90’s. However, I’m done talking about her character.

We all know by now that the main villain in Rises is the mask wearing, muscle bound brute known as Bane (Tom Hardy). Nolan’s version of Bane is a far cry from the abomination Joel Schumacher used in his terrible Batman & Robin. In that film he was a doping bumbling idiot of a bodyguard. Here he is cold, calculating and most of all, uncompromising. He is an out and out terrorist. Where he comes from and he thirst for destruction I will not reveal here as it is one of the better pieces of the film.

The opening scene of the film holds a lot of promise. It’s unfortunate that the rest of the film never quite reaches these heights, except for once. The CIA takes a few men in hoods aboard a small plane and flies them over some truly beautiful landscape. But make no mistake. This is no site seeing trip. They want to know the mystery behind Bane. Little do they know that Bane is actually one of the hooded men. All of a sudden a bigger plane is flying above them. Men drop from this second plane hooked to wires and grab onto the smaller plane eventually busting the wings off it and let it dangle like a carrot from a string. Bane makes a grand escape from this plane with a mystery man in tow.

Along with his thirst for pain and his conquest for destruction, Bane is a man made of rock. With his massive shoulders and gigantic biceps, he intimidates anyone who crosses. In most cases he would just grab someone’s head and snap their neck. He is remorseless. Where the Joker’s agenda was to playfully offer ways out of his traps for his victims while he would gleefully chuckle at their inevitable failures, Bane is here to merely destroy any kind of system. Whether it’s that of a city or that of a man’s soul, Bane simply does not care about anything or anyone. He is the meaning of destruction.

After the film’s hair raising opening, the film then settles into a weird rhythm that it unfortunately doesn’t break away from during the film’s remaining runtime. Other than one scene in the middle of the film, Rises is not exciting for a second. Gordon, one of the series’ best characters, is bed ridden for most of the runtime while he has the Levitt character running all over town for him.

The best scene of the entire film is a showdown between Batman and Bane in an underground fortress controlled by Bane and his henchmen. Nolan handles this scene with pure brilliance. Instead of letting the loud and intrusive score (by Nolan faithful Hans Zimmer) and flashy editing intrude on the scene, he lets the scene unfold in silence. Only the sounds of a waterfall ignite the soundtrack as Bane verbally and physically decimate Batman. Shots of Bane’s henchmen as they watch, almost ashamed to follow such a crass leader, are inter-spliced with the action showing how ruthless Bane truly is. The look on their faces as they watch Batman beaten to a pulp is at times hard to watch. Even they can barely watch such reprehensible evil exist.

Unfortunately after the showdown, the film settles back into a state mediocrity. The film trudges on for what feels like forever to a final conflict that feels way too sprawling for the series. I know what we are essentially watching is a comic book/superhero movie, but the final hour seems too illogical to ever really happen. Bane’s ambitions are not unimaginable, just the way he goes about them. Some of these scenes are interesting, but they always require a lot of faith from the viewer. For me it was too much. For the sake of the virgin viewer’s eyes, I will not go into detail.

After everything that happens with these climactic and insanely sensational scenes we are given a closing montage that is a little too ridiculous. One character is revealed to be a crime fighting torch bearer in a stupid wink wink moment and another is given a second life after we are lead to believe of his demise in a stupid gotcha moment. It’s too much and it feels like Nolan, who is a director who almost never comprises, has finally given in to his audience’s demands. I don’t think The Dark Knight Rises is a bad film at all. It’s very well made. All the dollar signs are on the screen and Christopher Nolan is still one of the best and brightest Hollywood directors working today. The film simply does not rise out of its consistent state of complacency. It takes itself too seriously and lacks the straight up excitement of the first two films. A summer blockbuster can be brainy and serious while it hurtles itself through explosions and vibrant action if it wants to, yes. But you still have to have fun while you do it too. Unfortunately, The Dark Knight Rises flies to close to its villain’s coattails to realize this.