Clare Henney: January 2013

Let me get one thing clear: I’m not a big fan of these superhero movie franchises. The only superhero franchise that I like is the Superman films of the Christopher Reeve era. Will I like the new version? I don’t know…we’ll have to see about that. I’ve seen the two previous Batman movies Batman Begins and The Dark Knight before. I didn’t go to see them in the cinema but waited until they were on cable. They’re entertaining, but they’re not the kind of movies I’d go out to the cinemas for. Over the holidays I got the chance to finally see The Dark Knight Rises, the last of the Christopher Nolan franchise. I surprised myself because I was not bored at all while watching the almost 3-hour film (which says a lot considering that I was bored midway through the similarly long Cloud Atlas, but that’s another story). I liked this movie and it’s my favorite of the three. Here are the seven reasons why I think this is the best one:

The movie is full of familiar faces. Apart from the main cast, there are several familiar faces from TV that I spotted doing small roles in the movie. TV stars Reggie Lee (Prison Break), Will Estes (Blue Bloods), Desmond Harrington (Gossip Girl), Josh Stewart (Criminal Minds), Daniel Sunjata (Grey’s Anatomy), William Devane (24, Knots Landing) and actress Joey King (Ramona and Beezus) all have small but significant parts in the movie.