6. THE DARK KNIGHT RISES
Now before any of you DC fans kill me
for this, let me just make one thing perfectly clear... I really do
like this movie. In the end, is the Dark Knight Rises better than The
Dark Knight? Probably not, but that's a tough act to follow and for
what it's worth, Christopher Nolan delivered with the final entry of
the Dark Knight trilogy. Of course, I can't talk about this movie
without addressing what most people are saying is the biggest issue
of the whole movie and that is its plot-holes and yes, there are a
couple. There are two that stood out to me. One is when Bruce Wayne
is in the Pit after Bane breaks his back. Apparently, all he needed
to do in order to heal it was to have one of the inmates tie him up,
hit his back once, leave him hanging there for a while, and that will
do the trick. But then once Bruce escapes the Pit and returns to
Gotham, a bigger question arises. How the hell did he manage to not
only get back to Gotham so fast (this Pit he was in being located in
a far-away country), but to also get back into the city when Bane has
blocked off Gotham from the rest of the world?
But the way I see it, looking into
these plot-holes any further would just ruin the movie. There are
other reasons why I like it so much and the first is how the
character of Bruce Wayne/Batman is portrayed. As this film starts,
Bruce Wayne has become an enigma to the people of Gotham. After all
that he has been through in the last two movies, he's a broken-down
man and a shell of his former self as he looks to get back on his
feet. This is also Christian Bale's best performance as Batman, as he
captures the emotions that Bruce is going through perfectly. One
scene in particular is extremely powerful and that is when Alfred
tells Bruce that he's leaving because he knows that Bruce hasn't
moved on from being Batman. While I'm sad that Michael Caine isn't in
the movie much (though I understand why, as there's nowhere Nolan
could really use the character after that), the emotions that him and
Bale convey in that scene are extremely powerful.
You can't have a great superhero movie
without a great villain, and this film has a great villain in Tom
Hardy's Bane. While comparing Bane to the Joker is inevitable, it
should be noted that Bane is quite different from the Joker. Bane's a
more subdued villain than the Joker and is easily the strongest
villain that Batman has ever faced. You really have to give Nolan
credit for doing the following; he actually has Bane defeat Batman,
which is then followed by him taking over Gotham. As far as I know,
no other superhero film has had the villain actually defeat the main
hero. I won't say Bane is the best out of the 'Dark Knight' villains,
but needless to say this is a vast improvement over the portrayal of
the character in 'Batman and Robin'. Speaking of better portrayals,
Anne Hathaway nearly steals the show as Catwoman, and all while Nolan
doesn't even refer to her as Catwoman in the movie.
But there are two characters in this
movie who are sort of left in the dust. The first is Deputy
Commissioner Peter Foley, played by Matthew Modine. In this case,
this is only a minor character, but if his role was cut, then that
wouldn't affect the movie as a whole. But the big one in question is
none other than the woman who becomes one of the main antagonists,
Talia Al Ghul, played by Marion Cotillard. Like Liam Neeson in
'Batman Begins', she goes through most of the movie under an alias of
'Miranda Tate' (and I'll be honest, I saw that coming as soon as her
'character name' was revealed back in 2011) until the end when she
reveals her true intention. I feel that she should have first
appeared in an earlier film in the trilogy. In fact, maybe she could
have been Bruce's main love interest in 'Begins' and 'The Dark
Knight' instead of Rachel Dawes but that's just me.
Even with the gripes I have, there's no
denying that this is still a really great film. The most important
thing to take from this is that Nolan ended the series at not only
the right time, but in the right way, effectively ending the story
arc of Bruce Wayne. More importantly, this film now leaves more to be
desired, especially after the ending when Gotham cop John Blake,
played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, whose real name is revealed to be
'Robin' (not exactly the character we're familiar with, but a great
nod by Nolan either way), discovers the Bat-Cave, effectively
continuing in Bruce's footsteps as the next iteration of Batman. Too
bad he won't be in the upcoming Justice League.
So what five films are better than 'The
Dark Knight Rises'? Well, you may have already figured out what one
of them is because it's from the same genre, but there are still four
other movies to talk about, which brings us to Number 5 on our list.
This one also happens to star 'Robin' from The Dark Knight Rises,
Joseph Gordon-Levitt, in what is hands down the best original film of
the year.
5. LOOPER
Like J.J. Abrams last year with 'Super
8', 'Looper' is only the third film for director Rian Johnson
following 2005's 'Brick' and 2008's 'The Brothers Bloom' and yet it's
safe to say this film makes him a force to be reckoned with. 'Looper'
is one of the best-written films of the year, which is
thought-provoking as much as it is edgy and thrilling. The whole
movie revolves around these hit men called Loopers who execute
targets that were sent from the future by criminal organizations. But
when a Looper's contract is up, the next target sent to them happens
to be their future self, therefore the Loopers 'close their loop'.
But Johnson throws a curve-ball by showing that most Loopers
celebrate after killing their future selves, even after they know
that one day they will be the one that is sent back in time to be
killed by their past selves.
As violent as the movie does get, there
is still a emotional core to the whole story, particularly in the
second half of the movie when the main character Joe, played by
Gordon-Levitt, arrives at a farm run by a woman named Sarah, played
by Emily Blunt, who is looking after her son Cid, played by Pierce
Gagnon (hands down the best child performance of the year) . These
two are the heart and soul of the movie, but of course we can't talk
about this movie without mentioning Gordon-Levitt, whose performance
channels that of his co-star, Bruce Willis. Willis is also
well-utilized in this film, through a whole other subplot where
future Joe is on a mission to stop the Rainmaker, the crime boss in
the future. Looper is a film that can leave a huge impact on you, and
that is why it lands the Number 5 spot on this list.
What do you get when you take an
Academy-Award winning director, a star-studded cast, and one of the
most famous musicals of all time? You get this next film, which takes
the Number 4 spot on this list.
4. LES MISERABLES
I went into this movie having not read
the original book by Victor Hugo and I did not see either the musical
or any of the other Les Miserables films. But I have to say, in the
end this will certainly end up as one of my favorites. The 2012
adaptation of Les Miserables from The King's Speech director Tom
Hooper is a musical like no other and of course, this is due to the
technique Hooper uses to record the songs. Instead of recording them
months before shooting is supposed to happen and then have the actors
lip-synch to the music, he has the actors sing the music live. Now
obviously this means that the end result is going to sound a little
different than what fans of the musical will remember, but this gives
Hooper and the cast an advantage in that this allows them to really
display the true emotions behind the characters. There's no better
example of this than Fantine's solo, I Dreamed a Dream. As Fantine,
Anne Hathaway avoids going for the pretty version and instead does it
in a way that shows how Fantine is literally at her lowest low.
Of course, the performances themselves
are stellar across the board. Anne Hathaway steals the show as
Fantine, who is literally in the film for only 10 minutes. In the
lead role of Jean Valjean, Hugh Jackman carries the movie on his back
and like Hathaway also gives an Oscar-worthy performance. Heck, even
Russell Crowe can belt out a tune as the main villain Javert. As a
whole, there is not a single bad performance from any member of the
cast, including Amanda Seyfried, Eddie Redmayne, Samantha Barks (who
makes quite an impression in her film debut), Helena Botham Carter,
and Sacha Baron Cohen. Overall, Les Miserables is easily the best
musical to have come out in years and is well-shot, well-acted, and
well-directed and that is why it lands the number four spot on this
list.
Check back for my picks for the Top 3
best films of 2012
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