The Dark Knight Rises

You can make a comic book come to life on the screen and even take a few commercial liberties with it and have a movie like the Avengers or you can use the brand of a well known comic icon as a vehicle to use as your Trojan horse so make a gangster movie drenched in social commentary. Chris Nolan is not in the 99% no matter the moral of this story. Bat-man on your poster sells tickets you don't even have to have him in the bulk of your film. 1 minute of Bat-man on a cycle in the car garage. Roughly 3 more mins of quick cuts of him on his bike in a chase scene. 3 more minutes cavorting with Cat-woman. So if you are keeping score at home that's only 7 minutes of onscreen Bat-Man in the first hour. Then we get almost 7 minutes of the bat as well as the first awkward Bane vs Bat-man fight which i have seen plenty of pro wrestling better choreographed. The design of the Bat-man suit lends it's self to very restrained and stiff movements...now you see why they wear spandex. I get why Bane is the villain. Nolan wanted a physical threat. Given the insulated nature of his Gotham, Clay Face, Man-Bat or Killer Croc could not fit the no powers rule. Tom Hardy's Bane, grandstands in an annoying Dracula like accent through more of the film than Bale is in the suit. His dialogue is more tell less show, and breaks a few writing rules and not in a creative manner. Anne Hathaway's "Cat-burglar " is more appealing than most characters i n this film and not just because of her costume, in fact she lacks the sexuality that even Halle Barrie's version had. Then a thirty mind lag until Bat-man appears again, subtract about 15 minutes of now Bat-man , and you still have under an hour of Bat-man in the entire two and a half hour movie. Some of the Bat-man scenes in the last hour are just flashes of him piloting the Bat-wing. The bat-wing's chasing Talia Al-Ghul in the climatic build or what should have been a climatic build would have been more exciting if it had played off more genre cliques , it was flat enough as it was and seemed very uninspired. Already speculation around Christopher Nolan's next project might be already swirls the inner webs and I am concerned about his involvement with Man of Steel at this point, as I would not want it to resemble any of his previous project which devolve into over blown bores.Fandom has rallied around Nolan as they try to convince themselves the few creative scraps he casts off are more worthy than taking the time to seek out quality entertainment beyond the multiplex parking lot. While this movie was not as bad as I had fear, I still offended by it's lack of Wayne in costume and the apologetic manner Nolan continued to handle the source material.I am glad his hands are off of this franchise and hope after Man of Steel , his involvement in the super hero genre is non-existent, the way he handles spandexed heroes like a fat girl he doesn't want to be seen talking in public with give me some hope.

DC for May 16th's Releases

With Pirate Bay down it took me a minute to get these so while I'm waiting on Marvel lets do this. CatWoman #9-This continues to be one of the best out of the new 52, great art and while I don't like her sparky new sidekick, the balance of action and story is perfect, the Owl arc in this makes sense as a cross over from the Bat books, this book only fuels the disappointment of how coll Cat Woman could be on the big screen in what I have been predicting to big the big movie flop of the summer. Green Lantern Corps # 9- The art is appreciated, though in some panels less inspired than others, here the murk of space opera begins to catch up with the book, but the Star Trek spin off shows bored me, so I might not be the target audience this writer is going for now. JLA # 9- This book has taken the right turn was a little apprehensive about this villains journey arc but it's off to a good start, the art is consistently great and I love that Bruce Wayne texts Clark Kent. Legion of Super Heroes- #9- I really like the art for this book, as it's suited for the tone of the book, it would also work for the X-men but not the Avengers, this book is much less of a cluster fuck than it use to be pre-52. Nightwing #9- This book took a turn for the epic big thanks in part to the one page action shots, the art was fantastic, though the cross over was not as fluid as the cat-woman was it was a good book nonetheless. Red Hood & friends #9- Nightwing was better, this books has stayed the course , the Bat-girl appearance as ell as freeze made it all feel like Gotham. Supergirl- the weakest issue yet, but it was bound to rise and fall, the art's alright i suppose the story, meh..not impressed typical dc murky mess. Wonder-woman #9- the story isn't half bad , even with zero action, the art just doesn't work for the book too Hell-boy

march 28th in comics -Assembling your Avengers

All of this weeks Avengers books except for the secret avengers were heavy on the Avengers vs X-men promo AVSX 0...didn't add much to the tale we didn't know from the preview except for Scarlet Witch's un-welcomed home coming which is to say she looks to be written out of the main story there though ,not surprised if she appears as a wild card along side her family. New Avenger's wrapped up the dark avenger thread, Avenger's 24.1 focused on the Vision who goes and confronts Magneto...I would write Vision about as emotional as Dexter Morgan as he is an android, the break down at the end was a little much,Secret Avengers continues on this Apdaptoid war, the art continues to suck like Hulk's has been, Uncanny X-men brings the Avengers in to sort through and unexplained burst of random cartoon villany but it was entertaining and the Emma Frost training sequence was pretty hot , that works lots better as a uniform for her than her Victoria Secrets.
Moon knight-which i read for some reason was entertaining but confusing as to why Madame Masque can kick his ass, the art though is in the gritty pencil stuff i hate on secret avengers and hulk ... in news of good art Avengers art was improved and a skim through the ultimates the art was excellent to bad its being wasted on something non-canon
now onto d/c Aqua-man seven the art is outstanding black manta is back, thought arthur has always deserved a better nemesis but there you go , this introduces the mysterious the others in the soap operatic way geoff johns can get. the art in Teen Titans 7 continues to be incredible but they are kinda losing me with some of the scattered action. Dark knight 7 though was a great read art and story an example to D/C how it should be done .