2012 King of the Hill: July Wrap Up

The Dark Knight Takes On Two More
July came to an end twelve days ago and I need to cover the last few movies I saw in July.  The Dark Knight Rises proved to be quite the movie.  But can it stand up against a racist Clint Eastwood and America's First Avenger?  July proved to be a month of many movies.  As I move into the month of August, it looks like the number of movies I am watching has dropped significantly.  It's time for the July wrap up of 2012 King of the Hill Movie Challenge.

For those who do not know, the 2012 King of the Hill Movie Challenge is my system for determining the best movie of year that I saw. One movie from each month will be selected and, at the end of the year, I will do a tournament style showdown where they will take each other on until the final movie has been selected. Bracket placement will be determined by the number of movies the monthly movie faced and won.

Gran Torino v The Dark Knight Rises
In all fairness to Gran Torino, there was a problem with the DVD.  A chunk of one scene and the whole of another would not play.  I did later find the script for the movie and read the missing scene.  Gran Torino is a movie about the story of Walt (Clint Eastwood) following the death of his wife.  He lives in his well tended home in a neighborhood slowly being taken over by Korean families.  Walt has an openly racist attitude to his neighbors and, well, everyone else. As the story progresses, he begins to bond with his neighbors, particularly Tao (Bee Vang).

If you ignore the fact that Clint Eastwood plays the same freaking character in every movie, this was a good film.  I loved the story.  I love the character development.  I loved the banter between Walt and, well, everyone he interacted with.  I found myself wondering up to the very end what was going to happen.  When the ending finally came, it felt me leaving satisfied.  There were a few things I'd have liked to see differently.  I think the movie could have done without Walt's granddaughter.  It seems like her point to the film was to setup a scene at the end and could have been worked out differently.

Compared to The Dark Knight Rises, the movie simply doesn't stand.  Both films had great stories, but The Dark Knight Rises left a feeling in the end that has stayed with me even weeks later.  Gran Torino, also admittedly left me feeling uncomfortable at times.  Walt is extremely racist.  The racist jokes and their delivery were hilarious, which only left me feeling bad.  I personally feel that racist jokes, even if appropriate for the story being told, should be left behind as much as possible.  I don't believe in sugar coating history, but at the same time it is something that can be cut down on and/or underplayed in our media.

Winner:  The Dark Knight Rises


Captain America v The Dark Knight Rises
Captain America is the origin story of Captain America.  Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) is a short, little guy who is always getting knocked around, but refuses to let himself be kept down.  Eventually, his desire to be a true hero is recognized and he joins a super soldier program.  The program is sabotaged in the middle of the operation, destroying all equipment and leaving him as the only super soldier.  For some reason, the government refuses to use him as a soldier.  Instead he has him do stage acting to raise money for the military and to entertain troops.

The prison break scene is the only really phenomenal part to the film.  Steve Rogers learns that his friend was one of the troops reported missing and presumed to be held captive.  He goes on his own to try and free the prisoners.  He succeeds and proves that he is a capable soldier.  After this, the movie goes into a series of fighting montage scenes were he and his crew begin shutting down factories and laboratories in Axis controlled territory.  I have never liked montages.  But in this case, the montages seemed to skim over the greater story.  Steve Rogers may have the heart of a hero and the strength of a hero, but learning to be a soldier and work in combat is an area of growth I'd have liked to see.  All this montage did was served to rush the story to it's conclusion where Captain America must make a sacrifice.  I'll stop describing here in the off chance you haven't seen both Captain America and The Avengers.

In summary, Captain America is a rushed movie to give the audience an origin story of Steve Rogers before the release of The Avengers.  This rush job is obvious and left me highly disappointed.

Winner:  The Dark Knight Rises

2012 King of the Hill: I'm Batman!

- SPOILERS - SPOILERS - SPOILERS - SPOILER - SPOILERS -

The Dark Knight Rises Above The Grey
Yes, you heard that right.  I announced the winner in the freaking title.  This movie rocked.  It was two hours and forty five minutes of pure awesome.  The story is very busy and there are a lot of details that were cut to keep this movie from being a week in film length.  The gaps are obvious, but the transitions are handled respectfully.  The movie jumps eight years from the second film and has an almost three month jump in the middle of it.  You miss pieces of that-  wait, hold that thought.

For those who do not know, the 2012 King of the Hill Movie Challenge is my system for determining the best movie of year that I saw. One movie from each month will be selected and, at the end of the year, I will do a tournament style showdown where they will take each other on until the final movie has been selected. Bracket placement will be determined by the number of movies the monthly movie faced and won.

There we go.  Now where was I?  Oh yeah, spoilers.  Spoilers.  And more spoilers.  The Dark Knight Rises is the final installment of the latest Batman releases.  And it provides you with a very satisfying conclusion.  There are spoilers further down in this review for both this movie and The Avengers.  Honestly, I could talk about many points about this film, there is a lot to discuss, but instead of getting into the finer details, I'm going to talk about a tweet I made.

The Dark Knight Rises and The Avengers
I made tweet after seeing the movie about The Dark Knight Rises does something that The Avengers did not do right.  Before I get into this deeply, you need to know that I firmly believe Iron Man is Marvel's Batman.  Both are millionaires without super powers that rely on their use of inventions to fight crime.  Through complete coincidence, The Dark Knight Rises and The Avengers both have a nuclear device as part of the plot.

In The Avengers, a nuclear missile is fired at Stark Tower to destroy the aliens and shut down the portal.  Iron Man responds to this by navigating the missile into the portal and ultimately defeats the aliens.  The weapon is incidental, adding a bit of tension and providing a last minute tool that can be used as a weapon to win.  Iron Man's choice to fly the weapon into the portal is a bit of character development.  Though the development is nice, the act is weakened by the fact the weapon is a last minute, external addition to the conflict that conveniently used to resolves the conflict.

In The Dark Knight Rises, the bomb is part of the plot from the very first scene though you don't realize it until half-way into the film.  It is the reason the government (and any other DC Super Heroes) aren't involved in the events in Gotham City.  It is the reason why the citizens of Gotham can't leave the city.  It is the reason why everyone has to work through blood, sweat, and tears to stop Bane.  After everything else has failed, the ONLY option is for Batman to remove the bomb from the city.  It isn't development either.  We know that Batman has given everything  for this city but his life.  It is inevitable that this is what must be done.  No one tries to talk him out of it.  It is understood.  And in this act, the Bruce Wayne Batman is no more.  A permanent, necessary sacrifice.

So, in The Avengers, Iron Man is given a convenient threat used for character development and conflict resolution.  In The Dark Knight Rises a similar threat exists, but throughout and the conclusion is not development, but the resignation that we the viewers must accept.

The Dark Knight Rises and DC Comics
In the same tweet mentioned above, I also said that The Dark Knight Rises did something that DC Comics could not do.  Actually, the truth of the matter, The Dark Knight Rises does multiple things better.  First of all, it passes the mantle.  If (and this is a pretty big if) Warner Brothers plans to do a Justice League movie properly, they can bring in a new Batman.  Even if they decide to not do the Justice League, they still have an opportunity to do more Batman with a new man behind the cape.  And, at the same time, they can end with the third movie and it ends, perfectly.  DC, however, cannot seem to bring themselves to end the Bruce Wayne reign of Batman.  Sure, he has had people wear the cape before.  Sure, Bruce Wayne has retired.  However, between the reboots, the new universes, and the inability to end a legend, Bruce Wayne is always back and behind the mask.

That's not the ONLY thing that The Dark Knight Rises did better.  The Dark Knight Rises actually surprised me when Bane detonated the explosives.  I jumped up in my seat as I watched the bridges explode and collapse.  You see, I actually have read the No Man's Land arc of Batman.  In No Man's Land, an earthquake severs Gotham from the rest of the world.  The city turns to chaos and the government declares it  a wasteland, unable to be saved.  In the story, Batman is gone from the city for three months as he, as Bruce Wayne, tries to get the government involved.  The city is without Batman for all that time and only underground police work is providing any sense of hope.

Yet, at the same time, the movie also managed to cover the events of Knightfall.  Knightfall is, well, basically the story of Batman getting his back broken by Bane.  It isn't a paraplegic break, but enough to disable him for a good portion of the movie.  If that's not enough, the movie actually managed to secretly slip in ANOTHER classic bat villain.  But, unless you are really sharp, you probably won't know it's coming until it is revealed.

The point here is that Christopher Nolen took TWO classic Batman stories, merge them together, make them better, and slip in another classic villain in such a way that it isn't painful.  And, then they end the legacy of Bruce Wayne all at the same time.  If that isn't impressive, I don't know what is.