Movie Review: The Sun Also Rises on the Dark Knight (with Catwoman)

Okay, so I will admit it: I dithered on seeing The Dark Knight Rises.

Don’t get me wrong; I like comic book movies as much as the next guy, which is to say I dislke comic book movies less than half as much as they deserve. But there’s really only so many times one can spend three hours locked in a dark room with Christian “Mincing Momma’s Boy” Bale prancing around trying to be an action hero like Bruce Willis, only gloomier, before hitting one’s self in the forehead over and over with a hammer starts to sound like more fun.

But it came to pass that the movie ended up at the second-run theater. We’re in the middle of rearranging the house, and I couldn’t find my hammer, so we decided to go.

The movie was…um, what’s the word I’m looking for? Oh, right. Predictable. Two and three-quarters hours, and not one surprising thing happened. It all goes something like this:

The CIA puts a RUSSIAN SCIENTIST and some FREAKY-LOOKING PEOPLE on an AIRPLANE
CIA DUDE: Wait, what? I thought we were just supposed to have one guy.
EXTRA: These are some terrorists who were trying to kidnap him. One of them wears a freaky mask. What could go wrong?
CIA DUDE: What are you going to do now?
BAIN CAPITAL: Mrrrr mrr mr mph mrr mpph mpph mr.
CIA DUDE: What?
BAIN CAPITAL: Sorry. First, I’m going to kidnap the Russian scientist. Then I’m going to crash this airplane and kill everyone aboard. Then I’m going to outsource your jobs to China.
BAIN CAPITAL kidnaps the RUSSIAN SCIENTIST and crashes the AIRPLANE and outsources JOBS to CHINA

Cut for spoilers… To read more, clicky here!

The MAYOR slags BATMAN and babbles something about HARVEY DENT. The dialog WEDGES, which is an OMINOUS SIGN for a movie that’s nearly THREE HOURS LONG.
MAYOR: And now here’s Jim Gordon to talk about Harvey Dent.
JIM GORDON fails to talk about HARVEY DENT
ALFRED: Servants aren’t allowed to use the main staircase.
CATWOMAN: I’m not a servant. I’m a master thief.
ALFRED: Oh, right. Mr. Wayne’s suite is at the top of the stairs, second door on the right.
BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE: Why are you wearing my pearls?
CATWOMAN: You look like the sort of man who’d like to give a woman a pearl necklace.
BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE:
The dialog WEDGES
CATWOMAN: This dialog sucks. I’m out of here.
CATWOMAN beats up BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE and leaps out a WINDOW
BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE: Ow.
CATWOMAN hops into a SENATOR’S CAR and they DRIVE OFF

ALFRED: What are you doing?
BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE: That servant just cracked my safe, took my pearl necklace, and lifted my fingerprints. Then she kicked me and jumped out the window.
ALFRED: Master Wayne, I hardly think it’s appropriate to be giving pearl necklaces to the staff.
BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE:

CATWOMAN: Here are the fingerprints you wanted.
EVIL CRIME BOSS: Haha! I have outsmarted you! I am not going to pay you for these. Instead, I am going to shoot you. Haha!
CATWOMAN: Haha! I double outsmarted you! I left the thumbprint behind!
EVIL CRIME BOSS: Haha! I triple outsmarted you! I am going to shoot you if you don’t give it to me!
CATWOMAN: Haha! I quadruple outsmarted you! I kidnapped a senator and brought him here with me! Plus, you just sent a text from his cell phone! The SWAT team will be here any second!
EVIL CRIME BOSS: Haha! I quintuple outsmarted you! I will take these fingerprints and run away down the alley, and you still won’t get paid! Ciao!
CATWOMAN: Haha! I hextuple…heptatoup..hexta…oh, fuck.
The EVIL CRIME BOSS runs AWAY with BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE’S FINGERPRINTS

SWAT TEAM DUDE: The Evil Crime Boss is running away! I think he went down this manhole cover!
JIM GORDON: I’ll go after him. With, like, one or two other people.
OFFICER BLAKE: Wait, what? The police commissioner tags along on a SWAT raid? And then dives down a manhole cover after a bad guy? Without, like, body armor or anything?
DEPUTY COMMISSIONER: You obviously have no idea how we do things ’round here.
OFFICER BLAKE: Wait, what? The police commissioner and the deputy commissioner tag along on SWAT raids?

COMMISSIONER GORDON is captured by some THUGS
BAIN CAPITAL: Mph mrr mrrrrr mr mrr mrr.
JIM GORDON: What?
BAIN CAPITAL: Sorry. I see you have discovered our secret underground lair. First, I’m going to shoot my henchman, to show you what a badass I am. Then I’m going to shoot you. Then I’m going to outsource your job to China.
BAIN CAPITAL shoots his HENCHMAN. JIM GORDON dives into a convenient RIVER flowing through the middle of the SECRET LAIR and ESCAPES.
OTHER HENCHMAN: It’s okay, I’m sure he’s dead.
BAIN CAPITAL: Then find his body, so I can outsource his job to China!

OFFICER BLAKE: Jim Gordon has been shot. He keeps babbling something about a secret underground lair and Darth Vader and somebody’s father.
BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE: Why are you telling me this?
OFFICER BLAKE: Because I know you’re Batman.
BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE:
OFFICER BLAKE: And I know that Soylent Green is made out of people.
BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE: Wait, what? How do you know that?
OFFICER BLAKE: Dude, everybody knows what Soylent Green is. There’s that one movie, see, and…
BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE: No, I mean about the Batman thing.
OFFICER BLAKE: Well, you see, I grew up as an orphan myself. My mom died in this car crash, see, and…
The dialog WEDGES
ALFRED: Master Wayne, where are you going?
BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE: To check myself into the hospital.
ALFRED: Why?
BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE: Did you hear that dialog back there?

DOCTOR: Dude, you are so messed up like whoa. Whatever you do, don’t go rappelling out the window or anything.
BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE: Okay.
BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE goes RAPPELLING out the WINDOW
JIM GORDON: Who are you?
BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE: I’m Batman.
JIM GORDON: Why are you wearing that pillowcase on your head?
BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE: Batsuit’s in the dry cleaners.

Somewhere around here, CHRISTIAN “MINCING MOMMA’S BOY” BALE probably has some kind of MELTDOWN, but sadly nobody RECORDS IT to put up on YOUTUBE

MORGAN FREEMAN: Check out this awesome urban flying hoverbatmobilething.
BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE: Cool!
MORGAN FREEMAN: You need to fix the autopilot.
BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE: Oh, god damn it, Morgan, did you really have to do that?
MORGAN FREEMAN: Do what?
BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE: Foreshadowing. Now we all know that the autopilot is going to be a big deal in this movie.

BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE: I totally want to start being Batman again.
ALFRED: That’s a terrible idea. I think you should move on.
BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE: I like being Batman. Plus, I do it for Rachel.
ALFRED: Well, err, um, about that…she, err, kind of left you a note that she wanted to go back to Harvey Dent. And something about “polyamory” and “triad” something something, I don’t know. Anyway, I burned it. Um, was that bad?
BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE: Wait, what?
ALFRED: I totally did it for you. I used to go to this cafe in Florence every year, see, and I always hoped that I’d see you there with, like, a wife or something.
BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE: Oh, god damn it, Alfred, did you really have to do that?
ALFRED: Do what?
BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE: Foreshadowing. Now this movie is totally going to end in a cafe in Florence, and I hate Florence. Couldn’t it have been, like, London or something?
ALFRED: London’s cold.
BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE: You’re fired.
ALFRED: You can’t fire me, I quit!

Some HARMLESS DELIVERY BOYS show up at the STOCK EXCHANGE
SECURITY GUARD: Please remove any metallic items you’re carrying, keys, loose change…holy shit!
BAIN CAPITAL: Surprise! We’re not harmless delivery boys. We’re bad guys with machine guns!
STOCK BROKER: This is a stock exchange. We don’t have money here.
BAIN CAPITAL: It’s okay, I’m just here to execute some trades. And outsource some jobs to China.
STOCK BROKER: Oh, right. Carry on.
BAD GUY WITH MACHINE GUN: The SWAT team just knocked out the phones.
BAIN CAPITAL: Okay, let’s take some stock brokers hostage and put them on motorcycles and keep making trades from a netbook while we’re running away on motorcycles with hostages, because that totally makes sense.
BAD GUY WITH MACHINE GUN:
BAD GUY WITH MACHINE GUN: What do we need the stock brokers for?
BAIN CAPITAL: Hostages. So the police don’t shoot us while we’re running away and making stock trades.
BAD GUY WITH MACHINE GUN: What makes you think the police won’t shoot at stock brokers? I mean, they’re just stock brokers.
BAIN CAPITAL: Who do you think controls their pensions?
BAD GUY WITH MACHINE GUN: Oh, right.
They put some STOCK BROKERS onto MOTORCYCLES and RUN AWAY

BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE chases the BAD GUYS on the BATCYCLE
DEPUTY COMMISSIONER: Hey! It’s Batman! Forget the bad guys and the stock brokers, everyone chase after him!
The POLICE all chase BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE down a DARK ALLEY
DEPUTY COMMISSIONER: Yay! We have him cornered!
BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE comes FLYING OUT of the DARK ALLEY in a FLYING HOVERBATMOBILETHING

AUDIENCE: Wait, if you had a flying hoverbatmobilething, wouldn’t it have been easier to chase the bad guys on bikes with that instead of on a motorcycle?
BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE:

MORGAN FREEMAN: Guess what? The bad guys used your thumbprint to make a bunch of really bad stock trades. You’re broke!
BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE: Wait, what? Some guys attacked the stock exchange with machine guns and stole some other guy’s ID badge to make a bunch of trades, and they’re actually considering those trades legitimate?
MORGAN FREEMAN:
MORGAN FREEMAN: …yes?
BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE: Well, that makes perfect sense.

MORGAN FREEMAN: The Evil Crime Boss is trying to take over our assets.
BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE: Wait! I have an idea! I’ll turn over control to Miranda Tate!
MIRANDA TATE: Wait, what? Why?
BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE: Because we have a secret fusion reactor that a Russian scientist said he could make into a fusion bomb.
MIRANDA TATE: Well, it’s a good thing there are no Russian scientists in this movie, huh?
SCIENCE CONSULTANT: Wait, what?
SCIENCE CONSULTANT: First, fusion bombs already exist, you idiot. They’re called H-bombs. H as in hydrogen. As in hydrogen fusion, get it?
SCIENCE CONSULTANT: Second, fusion reactors can’t be made into fusion bombs. If they lose containment, the fusion process just…stops. Uncontained fusion reactions require an atomic bomb as a thermal igniter. That’s the “thermo” part of “thermonuclear bomb.”
SCIENCE CONSULTANT: The fission bomb heats the fusion part to the point where it goes all fusioney. Thermo-Nuclear. Get it?
SCIENCE CONSULTANT: Does nobody who worked on this movie ever read fucking Wikipedia, for fuck’s sake?
CHRISTOPHER NOLAN: STFU.

MIRANDA TATE: I would be happy to take over Wayne Enterprises.
BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE: Good. I’m trusting you with the fate of all of us.
AUDIENCE: Oh, god damn it, Bruce, did you really have to do that?
BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE: Do what?
AUDIENCE: Foreshadowing. Now we all know Miranda Tate is going to be a villain.
MIRANDA TATE: Who, me? Do I look like the sort of person who would do something bad?

BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE: Do you like pearl necklaces?
MIRANDA TATE: I thought you’d never ask.
BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE and MIRANDA TATE have SEX and look at each other’s SCARS

BAIN CAPITAL: mrrrr mff mrr mrrrr mph mrr.
EVIL CRIME BOSS: What?
BAIN CAPITAL: Sorry. I don’t need you any more, Evil Crime Boss. I’m going to consolidate your redundancies and outsource your job to China.
BAIN CAPITAL consolidates the EVIL CRIME BOSS’ REDUNDANCIES with his BARE HANDS and outsources his job to CHINA

BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE: Take me to Bain Capital.
CATWOMAN: Find him yourself.
BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE: I would, but I just got a new iPhone, see, and the maps are kinda rubbish.
CATWOMAN: Oh, right. Okay.
CATWOMAN double-crosses BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE and hands him to BAIN CAPITAL

BAIN CAPITAL: Mrr mrr mrrrrrr mph mrr mr.
BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE: What?
BAIN CAPITAL: Sorry. I am going to beat you up in the name of the League of Shadows.
BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE: And then outsource my job to China?
BAIN CAPITAL: Turkey, actually.
BAIN CAPITAL beats up BATMAN and breaks his BACK and outsources his job to TURKEY

BATMAN wakes up in a PRISON CELL at the bottom of a DEEP WELL
BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE: Where am I?
BAIN CAPITAL: Mrrph mrr mr mrrr mpph mrr
BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE: What?
BAIN CAPITAL: Sorry. You are in a prison cell at the bottom of a deep well. I’m going to execute a leveraged buyout of Gotham City and strip the assets of your soul. Then I’m going to flip it for a two thousand percent profit before it goes bankrupt. Oh, and I have a TV set up in your cell here.
BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE: So that I can watch you destroy all that I love?
BAIN CAPITAL: No. So you can watch reruns of Friends on repeat.
BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE: Nooooooooooo! Do not want!

TURKISH DUDE: Ne kadar seni öldürmek için bize ödeyecek?
RANDOM PRISON DUDE: How much will you pay us to kill you?
BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE: Huh?
RANDOM PRISON DUDE: Ha ha ha! Sorry, prison joke. We’re already getting paid two cigarettes a day to keep you alive.
TURKISH DUDE: Uzun, anlamsız fuar zamanıdır.
RANDOM PRISON DUDE: It is time for long, pointless exposition.
There is much EXPOSITION about the backstory of BAIN CAPITAL. The dialog WEDGES.
RANDOM PRISON DUDE: Don’t tell Bain Capital I told you all of that.
BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE: Why? Do I now know all his innermost secrets, which I can use to find his weakness and defeat him?
RANDOM PRISON DUDE: No. This movie cost $250 million to make. If he knew how much screen time I just spent on long, pointless exposition, he’d outsource my job to China.

BAIN CAPITAL places EXPLOSIVES all over the CITY and then lures the ENTIRE POLICE FORCE into his SECRET LAIR in the SEWERS

OFFICER BLAKE: It’s a trap!
ADMIRAL ACKBAR: That’s my line!
BAIN CAPITAL sets off LOTS OF EXPLOSIONS that trap the ENTIRE POLICE FORCE in the SEWERS and then takes all of BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE’S STUFF and also blows up a FOOTBALL GAME

BAIN CAPITAL: Mrr mr mrrrrr mrr mph mrr mrrr.
SPECTATORS: What?
BAIN CAPITAL: Sorry. I have a Russian scientist and also a fusion gizmo that has been turned into a bomb. Russian scientist, tell these folks who you are.
RUSSIAN SCIENTIST: I am a Russian scientist.
BAIN CAPITAL: And tell them who can disarm this fusion reactor that’s been turned into a bomb.
RUSSIAN SCIENTIST: I can. Or Morgan Freeman can. Or any MIT grad student can. Or, really, when you think about it, anyone with a pocket screwdriver can. See, even if we buy this whole notion that you could turn a fusion reactor into a bomb–which you can’t, by the way–such a device would, like a fission reactor, depend on a very special set of circumstances to explode. All you need to do to disarm such a device is take it apart. Or take any part of it off. Or just release the hydrogen from it. And since it doesn’t even contain a fission bomb as the igniter, you don’t even have to worry about a dirty explosion if one of the primary explosive charges detonates. Which, by the way, you wouldn’t have in a power reactor to begin with. Does nobody who worked on this movie ever read fucking Wikipedia, for fuck’s sake?
BAIN CAPITAL: Bother me not with your talk of science, Russian scientist! I will kill you now.
BAIN CAPITAL kills the RUSSIAN SCIENTIST
BAIN CAPITAL: I have given the detonator for this bomb to someone that you don’t know who it is.
AUDIENCE: But I bet we can guess.

BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE: I will now climb up the wall of this prison and jump to freedom.
MOUSE: No one’s ever made their first jump.
SWITCH: What if he does?
APOC: He won’t.
BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE tries to CLIMB UP THE WALL and jump to FREEDOM, but FAILS
MOUSE: What does it mean?
SWITCH: It doesn’t mean anything.
CYPHER: Everyone falls the first time. Right, Trin?
TRINITY: Wrong movie, dumbass.

BAIN CAPITAL: Watch, as I take over the city and become a warlord like some weird love child of John Galt and the Occupy movement, only with less exposition and more shooting people.
BAIN CAPITAL becomes WARLORD like some weird LOVE CHILD of JOHN GALT and the OCCUPY MOVEMENT, and SHOOTS PEOPLE
OCCUPY WALL STREET: Because that’s totally what we want to do, shoot people and put nuclear weapons in trucks.

Some SPECIAL FORCES DUDES sneak into the CITY
SPECIAL FORCES DUDES: We are here to save you.
The SPECIAL FORCES DUDES get SHOT

BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE: I will now climb up the wall of this prison and jump to freedom.
RANDOM PRISON DUDE: What, that again? Didn’t you just, like, fall eighty feet with a rope tied around your waist a month after you’d broken your back?
BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE: It’s only a flesh wound.
BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE tries to CLIMB UP THE WALL and jump to FREEDOM, but FAILS
BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE: Do you know what I need?
RANDOM PRISON DUDE: A miracle?
AUDIENCE: A script rewrite? Continuity checking? A full-body cast? Wikipedia?
BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE: A MONTAGE!
BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE has a MONTAGE of him doing PUSHUPS, because that totally fixes a BROKEN BACK
BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE: I will now climb up the wall of this prison and jump to freedom.
BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE climbs up the wall of the PRISON and jumps to FREEDOM
TURKISH DUDE: O kırık bir geri ve hiçbir dizleri ile bir dostum için çok iyi tırmanır.
RANDOM PRISON DUDE: He climbs pretty good for a dude with a broken back and no knees.

MORGAN FREEMAN and the other GOOD GUYS get CAPTURED
SMUG HIPSTER: Cake or death?
MORGAN FREEMAN: Death.
SMUG HIPSTER:
SMUG HIPSTER: You were supposed to choose cake.
MORGAN FREEMAN: The cake is a lie.
SMUG HIPSTER: Very well, death by cake!

BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE: I am here to save you from the cake.
MORGAN FREEMAN: Where have you been?
BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE: In a Turkish prison. I escaped.
MORGAN FREEMAN: Not bad for a dude with a broken back and no knees.
MORGAN FREEMAN: But wait, how did you get from Turkey back here with no money and no passport?
BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE:
BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE: I, um, I just…err, I…the script…I just…
BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE: …elfin magic?

MORGAN FREEMAN: This gizmo will jam the radio signals and prevent remote detonation of the bomb.
BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE: Wait. If they have the bomb in a shielded truck that totally blocks its radiation signature, then wouldn’t the truck already block radio signals, too?
BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE: And why would there be a radiation signature from a fusion reactor, anyway? Either it’s actively fusing hydrogen, in which case it would stop working as soon as you take it out of the rest of the reactor, or it’s not, in which case it would have no radiation signature.
BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE: In neither case would it be able to explode.
BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE: Does nobody who worked on this movie ever read fucking Wikipedia, for fuck’s sake?
MORGAN FREEMAN: Oh, all right, I’ll put the radio-jammer thing on the bomb myself.

BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE: Take the Batcycle and blow stuff up.
CATWOMAN: I still want your pearl necklace.
BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE: There’s no time for sex now. I have to go beat up Bain Capital.
CATWOMAN: What?

BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE beats up BAIN CAPITAL
MIRANDA TATE stabs BATMAN
GURNEY HALLECK: The slow blade penetrates the shield.
BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE: What?
The dialog WEDGES
MIRANDA TATE: This dialog sucks. I’m going to set off the bomb now.
MIRANDA TATE tries to set off the BOMB. Nothing HAPPENS.
MIRANDA TATE: Damn you, Bruce! How am I supposed to escape this terrible dialog without the sweet, sweet release of death?

The COUNTDOWN TIMER on the BOMB ticks down in a cheap attempt to create DRAMATIC TENSION, which makes no SENSE because nobody builds FUSION REACTORS with COUNTDOWN TIMERS on them

MORGAN FREEMAN: This bomb is full of plotonium! Quickly, somebody do something before the plot explodes!

CATWOMAN shoots BAIN CAPITAL and outsources his job to PAKISTAN
CATWOMAN: You’re all clear, kid! Now let’s blow this thing and go home!
BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE: You mean stop it from blowing. We’re trying to stop the bomb from blowing.
CATWOMAN: I wasn’t talking about the bomb.
BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE:
BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE: What?

BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE gets in the FLYING HOVERBATMOBILETHING and chases the BOMB around for a while
MIRANDA TATE: You think you can put the bomb back into the power plant and stop it from blowing up. Haha! Watch as I press a button and destroy the power plant! Then suffer as I give a long, incoherent dying speech about fulfilling my father’s destiny!
MIRANDA TATE destroys the POWER PLANT and then gives a long, incoherent DYING SPEECH about fulfilling her father’s DESTINY. At no point does CATWOMAN tell her to STFU and SHOOT her, which would have made the audience CHEER
MIRANDA TATE DIES

BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE: I will put the bomb on a cable and tow it out to sea with my flying hoverbatmobilething.
AUDIENCE: Is this the part where the foreshadowing about the autopilot comes in?
THE PEOPLE OF GOTHAM: We are saved!
JIM GORDON: Bruce Willis Wayne is dead.
MORGAN FREEMAN: Someone fixed the autopilot in the flying hoverbatmobilething.
AUDIENCE: Wait a minute. How can you possibly know that? It was towing a nuclear bomb! There wouldn’t be any wreckage left to examine, remember?
ALFRED goes to FLORENCE and sees BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE chilling in a CAFE with CATWOMAN, who has a PEARL NECKLACE
ALFRED: Master Wayne, I still think it’s inappropriate to be giving the staff pearl necklaces.
BRUCE WILLIS WAYNE:

OFFICER BLAKE: I quit.
OFFICER BLAKE: Plus, my name is really Robin.
STUDIO EXECUTIVES: Cha-CHING!
AUDIENCE: Oh, c’mon, like we didn’t see that coming.
The movie ENDS

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