Nysa11

I really don't see what all the fuss was about with The Dark Knight Rises. Like The Dark Knight, it was a good story and the acting was solid, but it was not great. Batman Begins is the under-rated film of this trilogy, it was the best, mostly because it was not trying so hard to be more than it really is.

But for this installment. Most movies lately have been edited half to death, presumably to make them run no longer than 90 minutes out of fear of losing audiences with shrinking attention spans. The Dark Knight Rises swings far to the other side, it is in desperate need of some editing. A few sequences are painfully drawn-out, many are just a bit draggy.

Additionally, while the movie attempts to be psychological and complex (quite successfully in some scenes), some rather juvenile elements interrupt the storyline. Other scenes try so hard to be deep that they border on being a spoof, making you wonder if the screenwriters are laughing at themselves (and the audience) a little.

Lastly, the actions scenes are mostly flat. They are not bad or outlandish as many comic book action scenes are, they just are not very interesting. Most of the fights are little more than boxing matches where you don't even see much of the actual contact of the hits. And you always know how the fight will end before it starts.

That said, it has some excellent elements as well. Some of the new characters are dynamic and interesting. The overall "feel" of the movie, including lighting, music, & special effects, are spot on, adding to the story without being distracting.

In the end the movie has it's ups & downs, but is certainly worth your time... just not all the fuss that has been made of it.

The Brothers Grimm is a very well written story of scam artists learning that there is more to the folk tales they use to trick people out of their money than they thought, unfortunately it was completely ruined by a badly failed attempt at humor. The brothers manage to find their honor when they have to rescue a village from a very real fairy tale curse, but the movie never manages to do the same.

The acting is terrible, the tempo is nauseating, the dialog is just silly (not fun silly). The biggest redeeming feature (other than the solid storyline) was the visual appeal, the sense of place & history was great. If only the filmmakers had taken the story seriously, or had even taken the humor seriously, it could have been very good. I wanted to like this movie so badly, but it was impossible.

The previews and commercials for Dream House led one to believe it was a horror film, it is not, not at all. I think that is where a lot of the disappointment is coming from. It is a pretty good thriller, once you get used to the fact that that is what you are watching. The storyline, basically that horrible things have happened and we the audience have to figure it out along with the main character, is not the tired thriller standard, or at least the details are different enough to not seem tired. It's actually intriguing and the answer to the mystery is not obvious miles out, even if the climax sort of is. The acting is really quite good too. People who like mystery thrillers should enjoy the film, fans of scary movies will mostly not like it.