The Dark Knight Rises

Hello everyone. This is going to be a short review, but reviews are going to come in more quantity in the next few weeks.

I watched The Dark Knight Rises yesterday. I'll start this review off quick by saying that it wasn't as good as the second one. But it was still awesome.

I'll try my best not to spoil anything, here it goes.

Rises combines storylines from Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. So before watching this movie, watch them, or at least brush up on your memory of them.

Anyways, the acting was amazing. All the main actors played their characters perfectly well. Anne Hathaway beat all predictions and played a sassy Catwoman excellently. Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman: all legendary actors made this movie what it is. The bar was set high by Heath Ledger as Joker in the second movie, but Tom Hardy brought us another magnificent performance, as he did in other movies, such as Inception. Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Marion Cotillard, also actors from Inception, were excellent.

The movie itself was written and directed well, but I felt as if some scenes were way too predictable. There were so many close calls, with someone bursting in at the last second to save the day. The story made a lot of references to and relied on Batman Begins, which I haven't watched in years. I was a bit clueless on the story, but reading up on it after the movie, it made sense.

The music was excellent, as with most Nolan films, but it did not live up to the expectations as I had from the 2nd movie.

Overall, I'd give this movie a 8.5/10. If you like Batman, watch it!

2001: A Space Odyssey

Hello my peoples, I am back with another exciting review of one of my newly found favorite movies. 2001: The Space Odyssey contemplates the mysteries of the universe, and being made in 1968, was a very early film on this topic. Now, I normally don't talk about the story, but this one just needs it.

Now, this movie is not for the impatient. If you're looking for a quick thrill, this is definitely not for you. This is also my one criticism with this movie. The long drawn out scenes of spaceships backed by The Blue Danube Waltz will probably ward off many people. Even I think that it was excessive. My one theory is that it was just a show off for their amazing special effects.  [spoilers past here, skip to next paragraph for review] Nevertheless, the movie starts out with a tribe of man-apes. After being warded off by a rival tribe from their water hole, they are forced to retreat. Upon the dawn of the next day, they are greeted with a gigantic black monolith. Howling, the tribe reluctantly approaches the rock and begin touching it. This rock is one of the main symbols of this film. The movie cuts to a scene where feeding upon the bones of a dead animal, the leader realized his new ability to use tools. They go back and retake their old water hole, bellies full of raw meat taken from the animals they killed. The next scene begins with a space montage. Then it shows Floyd Heywood, an astronaut traveling to the moon base Clavius. According to other astronauts, there has been an epidemic at that base, and communication has been cut off. When Heywood arrives, it is revealed that they have discovered a strange magnetic rock. The same as the ones the man-apes had found. Now, the movie's most exciting (which is not saying much) sequence begins. Aboard a spaceship destined for the far reaches of Jupiter, Dave Bowman and Frank Poole are relatively bored. Manned by the supercomputer, HAL 9000, known for its mistake proof record, they don't have to do much. But when HAL 9000 reports an error which turns out to be a mistake, well, I don't want to spoil that much for you, but the rest is history. 

The thing that first drew me to this movie was the connection between the last scene and my favorite band, Pink Floyd. Their song Echoes apparently matched up perfectly with the last sequence of this movie. I had to try this out, and it was amazing. The song is truly spectacular anyways, but listening to it while watching a journey through the stars was just, amazing. To any Pink Floyd fans, I highly recommend watching the whole movie just to experience this. The cinematography was great for its time, and the special affects were astounding! The acting was perfect. The sounds of the movie was spot on. I heavily recommend this movie to anyone that could withstand its boring first-half. If you do, this movie is worth it, and the end will not let you down. This movie gets a 9/10. Thank you Stanley Kubrick for this influential masterpiece.