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ny to the story world director johnson s latent christianity suggests a christ parallel but it s far more likely given the thematic significance of cycles that the yogic and by extension buddhist interpretation better fits the film joe s self sacrifice is analogous to ego death which in yogic philosophy ends the painful cycle and liberates consciousness an individual so liberated brings balance to his or her surroundings and reduces suffering exactly like joe it gets better not only does johnson s take on time travel befit mysticism it speaks to an effective storytelling ethos old joe in trying to prevent a tragedy attempts to rewrite history we process time as narrative splicing memories like film strips into logical order so old joe s mission is to tell a new story however like his younger self ego blinds him he sees only the historical narrative s tragic impact on his fortunes all other persons and interests become expendable before his ego he is therefore unable to tell a new story young joe receives enlightenment when he realizes that old joe s selfish not to mention murderous rewriting actually ends in the same way that old joe tries to prevent hence the loop the only way to write a new story then is to wrest the pen away from ego truly inspired effective storytelling is by nature generous transcending one person s interests and harmonizing within the larger human community looper works because johnson embraces a thoughtful conceit and lets it structure the film like dna every scene character and subplot relates obliquely to this dna strand even embedding time travel s mystical dimension into virtuoso sequences of sex and violence an all around brilliantly conceived and executed film looper vindicates its conceit genre performers and director reflect on share on reddit opens in new window reddit share on x opens in new window x share on facebook opens in new window facebook email a link to a friend opens in new window email print opens in new window print like loading posted in action adventure best by auteur drama film noir r johnson sci fi fantasy tagged albert einstein arts bruce willis joe joseph gordon levitt looper philip k dick philosophy physics ray bradbury rian johnson time travel leave a comment blown out of proportion the dark knight rises posted on october 11 2012 by patrick zabriskie by contributor patrick zabriskie a great burden has fallen to nolan s batman films in a genre dominated by successful affirmative super hero films like the avengers they remain the only deconstructive superhero films to still be successful with audiences and this is no easy task because it is fundamentally harder for audiences to like a film that challenges their faith rather than rewards them for it other attempts at superhero deconstruction like 2009 s watchmen failed miserably the secret to both batman begins and the dark knight i think was that they sat precariously but perfectly on the edge of a knife between philosophy and entertainment too much generic action and they would have become a confusing mess too much overt philosophy and it would have become pedantic and muffled it s a miracle that both previous films stayed so balanced but in the dark knight rises the series has wobbled let me be clear here this is by no means an awful film i don t think it s possible for nolan to make such a thing he fills the dark knight rises with many great elements a great villain relevant social themes clear and concise action it s all there it just doesn t mesh the way it should like the child who puts too much sugar in a recipe because he thinks it will be sweeter nolan fails in this film to remember that balance and proportion means as much as the ingredients itself nolan s batman films as a whole intelligently ask the question is batman a good thing batman begins consists of bruce wayne s initial decision to become batman the dark knight deals with the consequences of that decision now it s up to the the dark knight rises to answer whether or not batman is still worth it this is the conflict of this film it should drive it we see it with bruce wayne s butler alfred with a young cop with commissioner gordon and with many other characters everyone it seems except bruce wayne the film begins with a robbery at wayne manner that rather suddenly sends bruce wayne a recluse who hasn t put on the batsuit for eight years back into batman mode there s very little sense that bruce wayne is at all conflicted about this decision even as alfred begs him not to perhaps this is motivated in part by a young cop blake who inexplicably knows that bruce wayne is batman because of a gut feeling and tells wayne to be batman again afterwards there s no real doubt in wayne s mind that he should be batman and so the fundamental question of the entire series is answered very early on two things come to mind after watching this section of the film first how is it that this cop is the only person that could figure out that bruce wayne is batman in the past nolan found clever ways to get around this issue but here it just seems like lazy writing second and more importantly this film s decision to answer the key question of the entire franchise so early feels like a mistake yes most of us were probably expecting bruce wayne to conclude that batman is necessary to inspire people to remind them that the only true defense against either anarchy as represented by the joker in the last film or tyranny as represented by bane in this one lies in an individual s choice to do good but this should have been a grand climax to this film it is not so here the events of this first half hour of the film could compromise the entire plot but instead we are given the shorthand version and it seems so strange nolan had all the ingredients there he just forgot about balance and proportion despite this error in the first half hour the next two hours of the film which consist of batman battling the villain bane still play out well despite now being devoid of the series main question nolan gives us a lot of good action and some great character moments though bruce wayne is no longer struggling with the idea of batman s existence he still learns a few important lessons catwoman as portrayed surprisingly well by anne hathaway is a lot of fun in particular nolan does a brilliant job with bane whom he creates to be an anti batman someone with all the training and resources of batman who also wears a mask who uses his abilities for the complete opposite goal this dichotomy really works well and on the strength of this section i was willing to forgive the film for its earlier blunder though he miscalculated earlier nolan remembers balance very well here and then in the last fifteen minutes of the film things go down hill once again it begins with a plot twist that derails bane as the main villain revealing that he was working for someone else all along and this someone else i m trying to avoid too many spoilers for those who still haven t seen the film is then killed five minutes later so that there isn t really enough time to develop this twist it feels cheap and tawdry and it is something that nolan should have known better than to do a twist is fine you just need enough time to make it mean something and it doesn t do so here i really loved bane as a villain and to mark him down to number 2 so close to the end just doesn t work and the ending itself is a little confusing still more plot twists manifest as nolan tries to manipulate the audience from somberness to joy in a matter of seconds it s a little too much even for nolan and so this part falls a little flat not a lot but a little and a little is all it takes sometimes as in the beginning nolan makes the mistake of mismanaging elements all the ingredients are there he just didn t have a sense of proportion and balance in that sense the dark knight rises is ultimately a disappointment the series which for two films had sat precariously on the edge of the knife finally loses balance and slips off and so this film falls short of being truly groundbreaking but to take some of my own advice let s keep things in proportion the dark knight rises is still good it is still entertaining and there are still ideas and themes in it that are worth examining by writers much more capable than i and so while it is not what it should be it is good for what it is and it ultimately doesn t hurt the legacy of the earlier films nor nolan as an auteur this is still the definitive batman saga and it will be a long time before anybody tops it in one more bit of reflection let s look over this summer as a whole in regards to the superhero genre right before the avengers came out in may i recalled thinking that this summer with the ultimate affirmation the avengers what i thought would be the ultimate deconstruction the dark knight rises and a reboot of spider man the amazing spider man would be legendary and represent the height of this genre and financially at least it was as all three films did very well which shows that the public still has a lot of faith in super heroes but because of my disappointment with the amazing spider man which was edited out of greatness and the dark knight rises which was mismanaged i can t say with full conviction that this was the best summer for superheroes ever still as heimdall said in thor there is always hope and with the continued success of superhero films i still find myself excited for what the likes of marvel and dc have in store for us in the years to come reflect on share on reddit opens in new window reddit share on x opens in new window x share on facebook opens in new window facebook email a link to a friend opens in new window email print opens in new window print like loading posted in action adventure better epic nolan pg 13 movies sci fi fantasy tagged bane batman batman begins bruce wayne christopher nolan dark knight dark knight rises nolan leave a comment the not so amazing spider man posted on july 13 2012 by patrick zabriskie by contributor patrick zabriskie review let s get the elephant in the room out of the way first it is incredibly strange that in 2012 we are already getting a reboot of the spider man franchise quite simply it feels way too soon as sam raimi s spider man trilogy ended just five years ago also most people seemed to like raimi s films and his interpretation of spider man his spider man 2 routinely ranks as one of the best superhero movies ever made even if the last film spider man 3 was something of a mixed bag it s not as if there was a desperate outcry from the fan base demanding a whole new version of the character so what exactly sony is doing by giving us this reboot as if we either forgot about or completely hated raimi s films is a complete mystery to me i suppose it comes down to money and the rights to the character you know the dark side of capitalism but hey as long as this film is a fresh original bold new take on the spider man mythos it s a welcome addition in my book too bad it isn t which isn t to say that it s completely awful either it has some good things going for it most notably the performances of andrew garfield and emma stone who are both exquisite in their respective roles as peter parker and gwen stacy garfield with his perfect mix of insecurity and bravado has the potential to be a better spider man than tobey maguire and stone s gwen stacy is a more interesting character than mary jane ever was in the raimi films also the film boasts some impressive visuals and cinematography which contribute to fun action scenes if you can see this film in imax 3d in short it is entertaining but there s one big problem here that cripples this film plot instead of taking the opportunity to give us a completely different and exciting adventure the filmmakers decided to use the origin story from 2002 s spider man as the template for telling this one the result is that the amazing spider man feels almost like a carbon but inferior copy of spider man following many of the same plot points way too closely seriously so many of the events in this movie mirror those of its decade old predecessor but whereas raimi knew how to give dramatic weight and importance to those events here they come off as shallow and derivative scenes feel rushed critical moments feel disrespected plot threads that should be of utmost significance are dropped never to be spoken of again and despite the film s impressive leads the other characters are grossly underdeveloped and underutilized i cried when uncle ben died in 2002 i couldn t care less when he died in 2012 it all comes across as a cheap imitation rather than a reinvention now before i get attacked for not knowing the comics let me just say that maybe the filmmakers didn t actively decide to use the 2002 spider man as a template maybe both movies just draw on the same classic origin story of spider man and this film is just being faithful to the original premise ordinarily i might applaud such a thing but again we ve already seen this story and it was done better in 2002 the amazing spider man as a reboot is supposed to be new and different if they were going to do the exact same thing that raimi did why are they bothering to reboot this at all commercial reasons i know it was a rhetorical question why not pull a james bond and have this be a continuation of the raimi series but with a different director and actor behind the mask or if it must be a reboot why not pull a batman 1989 and have this story already start with peter parker as spider man why not skip the origin thing all together and just jump into an original story or have the origin be in flashbacks or something anything other than spoon feeding us a watered down version of what we saw in 2002 anyways that is the critical failure of this film that it chooses not to take any kind of risk and instead gives us more of the same except that it s actually a little worse this time around it feels more like a remake than a reboot and only an okay one at that even without the raimi series to compare with if this film had come out as is it would still seem only average average but entertaining despite my incredible frustration with the creative decisions behind this movie it is fun and is worth seeing for garfield s and stone s performances as well as the action and it is doing well both critically and commercially so obviously a lot of people aren t as frustrated as i am about it you out there might very well enjoy this film more than i did personally i actually do want this film to be a success because then like star trek the motion picture with which it shares many of the same problems it might get a nice wrath of khan treatment if and when garfield and stone s characters are let loose in an all new spider man epic that breaks free of the trappings of raimi s films i m all in until then i m sticking to the older spider man trilogy which i already own on dvd if nothing 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