The Dark Knight Rises - Film Review

*CAUTION - The following review contiains potential spoilers. If you are yet to see The Dark Knight Rises (and by extension Batman Begins and The Dark Knight) but wish to do so, proceed with this in mind*

Very few films have arrived in cinema with the huge expectation that The Dark Knight Rises has upon it.

The runaway critical success of 2008’s The Dark Knight meant that anticipation for it’s sequel – the last in the Christopher Nolan/Christian Bale trilogy – had reached fever pitch when it was merely announced. What they have created for a sequel is a very intriguing end to the trilogy.

We open with two parallel sequences - one where the villain emerges, and one where we find the seldom-seen Bat. Nolan's Batman films are dense in keeping the Bat under wraps and this is no exception.

Eight years have passed since the events of The Dark Knight, where the Joker and Harvey Dent ran riot in the streets of the city. Batman has taken the fall for Dent's crimes, and Bruce Wayne, shorn of his extra-curricular activity of donning his cape and patrolling Gotham, has turned into something of a recluse.

The villain who emerges is Bane (Tom Hardy), who combines enough brute force to literally break Batman, and a clever strategy to get the populace of Gotham to destroy the city from within. It is particularly impressive despite Hardy’s voice having an almost Darth Vader-sound that sometimes drowns in the relentless percussion and chant-heavy Hans Zimmer soundtrack. Despite this he makes a compelling adversary.

After being robbed by Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway), who is Catwoman in all but name, and becoming aware of Bane’s rise, Wayne returns to his cape and flightsuit and is immediately plunged into desperation after he loses a fight, a back in one piece and is confined to a pit somewhere in the deserts of Africa.

Many people said both of Nolan's Batman films so far have taken a very realistic approach to their protrayal of the Bat. However this one has what feels like the contents of news bulletins for the last four years serving as the basis of its story.

 

There are three big fish that serve as plot points - green energy, economic crises and social unrest.

 

The expenditure of green energy gets an early reference when it's revealed Bruce Wayne has sunk all his cash into a nuclear fusion project that quickly turns out to be a nuclear bomb in waiting. Theoretically nuclear fusion could be a sustainable energy source that could last for 3000 years depending on how much lithium is used, but fusion has the potential to create a deadlier weapon than the existing process of nuclear fission.

 

However, its the economic crisis that drives the big attention. It starts with a raid on a stock exchange where Bane bankrupts Wayne Enterprises with a series of dodgy trades while holding the exchange hostage, and blossoms into the after effects.

 

The Nolan brothers wrote this film before the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street movements began dominating the news media. As it is there is still major anger and some protestations against the global economic giants perceived to have caused the crisis everyone is suffering through their greed.

 

Here it is taken to the extreme - the idea if either of these groups (I'm not even going to attempt to guess which side of the spectrum they belong on) being rallied by an evil figurehead and taken to try and destroy society.

 

This, however, is one of the plot holes that has been picked at the most. If you saw a masked man strut into the middle of a football stadium seconds after he has blown up the pitch beneath the players and is proclaiming "we come not as a conquerors but as liberators". Equally true though is the fact that fear will drive this - if someone is pointing a gun at you, or in this case, threatening to blow you up with a nuke, and essentially says "if you try to be a hero you die", you'd be in their power.

There are a few gaping plotholes that the film's length stretches out. 3 hours is an almost absurd length for a movie and unlike Inception, which remains Nolan's masterpiece, the construction is not quite so stable.

The plot, despite all the political baggage, also ends up being surprisingly straight forward. By the time Batman returns from his jail, it has turned into a stop-the-bomb story worthy of the first half of a series of 24.

It's a different environment to the usual stop the bomb film though - trapped policeman, destroyed bridges, people killed left, right and centre and a roving nuclear bomb all set for detonation.

Exactly why Bane wants to obliterate Gotham ties in with Batman Begins - a visitation of Liam Neeson's character ties the knot fall circle.

 

A few months on and with the DVD release looming, it feels there is a less of a ridiculous energy around the film in and calm discussed can now occur. With Batman fans sending death threats to critics who hated it - in turn forcing the closure of the film's entry on Rotten Tomatoes - and  long thinkpieces appearing every day in newspapers taking the film unbelievably seriously, it felt like rationality had flown out of the window.

 

As pure spectacle it is a good film and there is plenty to admire, and even love, about the film. There are plenty of performances that are impressive - newcomers Hardy, Hathaway and Joseph Gordon-Levitt are all delightful and Bale delivers his best performance as the billionaire Bat.

Just don't try to dig in too seriously, otherwise your head will hurt with intent to take the film to bits.

Rating: 4/5

Coming Off The Rails

As previously noted, November is often a cruel month in football. The increase of miserable weather and shortening of daylight hours bring people down, and it seems to have this effect on footballers too. A series of poor results can increase the pressure on teams tenfold, leading to break point and, ultimately, a change in manager.

This seems to be heading towards this at Newcastle, or at least would be if it wasn't for one key element. November has been a terrible month for the club, with a pile of injuries and many poor performances.

The 3-0 defeat to Manchester United was an exceedingly frustrating afternoon but since then displays have remained in their underwhelming state.

The team were unlucky to only draw against Sunderland and exceedingly lucky to beat West Brom after a lucky deflection of Papiss Cisse gave the Toon three points.

But since the win over the league's surprise package, the form has not picked up. Instead, the win over the Baggies seems like being the exception - that result is the only win since late September.

Coincidentally this is also in the period since an eight year contract was handed to manager Alan Pardew. It is easy to draw a link between them but the manager was able to construct a team capable of holding its own at the top of the division.

The team that was fielded this stage last season would be able to destroy the current crop despite the fact they largely consist of the very same players. This comes after a hugely deflating game at Southampton, where the newly promoted side could well have reached double or triple the 2-0 margin they eventually finished with.

Post-Southampton was the usual amount of "ah this guy is terrible why is he playing for us get him out of our club" sort of thing. This is always present, but it is always the same failings. They have been aired a lot this season, with many underwhelming displays getting fans both at the ground and watching elsewhere up in arms.

So what has changed in the past year at St. James' Park?

You can point to a potential wide variety of failings. Chief gripe amongst fans on matchday is purely tactical. Last season the team principally played in a 4-4-2 system until the mid-season signing of Cisse, at which point a 4-3-3 tactic took over with Hatem Ben Arfa taking wide right and Demba Ba in a wide left slot.

This bought a great spell with the side dominating proceedings and winning most of their games to seal their top five slot.

This season has seen a more disoriented version of the 4-4-2 revert to the main tactic, reportedly at the insistence of Ba. The striker cut a frustrated figure in the wide left slot last season and apparently insisted on a switch back to the 4-4-2.

The change has suited him, but it's not suited anyone else. Instead it proves our limitations. Jonas Gutierrez is a good defensive winger but changing to this system revealed he had lost some of the pace in his first season, while on the other flank Ben Arfa has reverted to trying to win games single-handedly.

Up top, Cisse and Ba do not click. The two strikers simply get in each other's way and are too similar to work as a coherent front pairing. The only real solution could well to be drop one, as it seems that pairing both is getting us nowhere, but beyond them the team struggles for goals.

Injuries are also, as ever, unhelpful. Last time Newcastle were in European competition was in 2006/07 - a season that saw the team finish 13th in the Premier League having been 1 point off bottom spot early on in the campaign. It also saw us struggle with a staggering 13 players injured during the season, with midfielders and youngsters making up both the defence and strikeforce.

We have struggled with injuries a lot this year too, and it means that once again youngsters are having to fill in with Shane Ferguson, Sammy Ameobi and Gael Bigirimana all playing way more than probably expected.

But this is window dressing behind the issue - the fact we simply do not have enough players and did not buy enough for the Premier League-Europa League rigours.

Last season, players like Ryan Taylor, James Perch and Mike Williamson performed admirably in the absence of other senior professionals. However this led to the strategy of Mike Ashley and Derek Llambias they presumably nicked from a casino.

The strategy is that they have 11 "purple" players, which is basically the most valuable eleven. This is easy to work out as an eleven of Tim Krul, Vurnon Anita, Fabricio Coloccini, Steven Taylor, Davide Santon, Hatem Ben Arfa, Yohan Cabaye, Cheick Tiote, Jonas Gutierrez, Demba Ba and Papiss Cisse.

Beyond that are senior reserve players like Danny Simpson, Ryan Taylor, Perch, Williamson and youngsters. This is slightly give or take - it is debatable who of Simpson and Anita take the right back slot - but the basic admission is they have put the eggs in having a stellar first eleven and reasonable back-up talents.

This is a huge gamble that is definitely backfiring - other clubs make sure they have more than 11 concrete first teamers. Last season the only "purple" with a long term injury was Steven Taylor, who was spent six months out injured.

This time the only game we theoretically had a full host of purples was the Sunderland away game, where Tiote earned a red card.

The mix of all three categories has flavoured the tactical problem. The tactics are purely left to suit who's available, but the players left seem to struggle creating a system.

Pardew wants new players to join in January, and a failure to invest in January will leave us with a dreadful second half.

It is a big problem. We wanted to sign Mathieu Debuchy, Douglas and Luuk de Jong and signed none. Granted de Jong would've been an expensive splurge at eighteen million quid, weezling out of paying an extra million or two to sign Debuchy and/or Douglas was a faintly poor affair.

Failure to invest in the squad in January is not an option - if there are no players bought in we will have a long, miserable second half of the season. Despite the preference for high-class continental options, some half-decent lower league backup is worth an option, but players are still needed.

But until then, something needs to be done to regain the lost coherency. Obviously injuries impact - Cabaye and Steven Taylor are out until February - but something has to be done to at least gain results, nevermind the lack of dominating displays we played last season.

Stoke away tomorrow night is a terrible game to try to regain form, with memories of an incredible win there last season negated by our more recent form. But all we can do is try - one goal can make all the difference, and a win could be the elixir to kick us up the arse and reboot our flagging campaign.

Over to you, Pardew...

The Sack Race

November is usually a time to fear for a football manager who has started out badly. With the dense Christmas period and January transfer window looming large, managers that have started badly can see an opportunity to reboot an underwhelming campaign. But by this stage supporters have usually tired of the old boy and want out. It is normally now that the owner agrees.

This week has seen the axe fall in two corners of West London - one which follows this script, and one that follows half of it.

QPR and Chelsea have already met under the managers perceived to be failures, when they drew 0-0 at Loftus Road in September. This was the first time Roberto Di Matteo's Chelsea failed to win in this early season, while QPR continued a start of no wins.

Since then, QPR still haven't won any Premier League outings. Chelsea went back to winning until a defeat by Shakthar Donetsk in the Champions League heralded a miserable run of form for the European Champions which has seen them lose top spot in the Premier League and face the prospect of being the first defending Champions League holders to go out in the group stages.

The final blow for Di Matteo came in Turin earlier this week, when his Chelsea side were ruthlessly dispatched by Juventus. The Italian champions represented a tough test for Chelsea, and in the end it proved an easy win for the hosts.

Chelsea's loss in Ukraine a month ago is seen as the moment megalomaniac owner Roman Abrahmovic decided that Di Matteo was not the man for the job. On the showing of results since then, there has been little to convince the Russian to keep the incumbent that he had to be persuaded to keep as manager. The club's only victory in this spell was an extra time Capital One Cup victory over Manchester United that came three days after a league defeat to the same side on the same pitch.

At the same time though, every team will have a blip in form over a season. Di Matteo bought FA Cup and Champions League success to the club - a double many clubs would envy. This surely would've deserved him a longer shot in charge of the side, not least given Abrahmovic's dreams of bringing in ex-Barcelona coach Pep Guardiola were not going to happen this season.

It is certainly a very harsh sacking, both in light of what he achieved last season and the fact one of his sacking's reasons appears to be not playing Fernando Torres. The striker has represented possibly one of the worst value for money signings in history, with 19 goals in two and a half years at Stamford Bridge. When Abramovic said Di Matteo would have to stick with him rather than his dream signing of Radamel Falcao, who promptly scored four against Chelsea in the UEFA Super Cup, it was seemingly inevitable that Torres' form, or lack of it, would end up being crucial.

Sure enough it is - both in the fact Di Matteo is now jobless, but also in the fact that Rafael Benitez is the new man in the dugout. Abramovic is banking on the fact Benitez bought Torres to England and got him firing for Liverpool will help him come good, but questions have to be asked if Torres is just no longer good enough.

Not that getting Torres firing is Benitez's only challenge - aside from rescuing their Champions League campaign and catching up with the two Manchester clubs, but winning over a Chelsea fanbase that is largely against his presence in their managers office is a massive one. The fans largely disagreed with the sacking of Di Matteo, and then further disagreed the decision not only to replace him with another interim manager, but in Benitez, who made various anti-Chelsea comments while Liverpool manager.

Naturally three points against Manchester City on Sunday, which would bring the Blues to within a point of Roberto Mancini's side and their unbeaten league record. But his challenge is a long road to counteract the fact that he is quite lucky to be in a position that Di Matteo, arguably, should still hold.

His challenge is certainly easier, and reaps bigger rewards, than the one facing QPR's new manager. Mark Hughes has spent the last few weeks resembling a lost cause at the foot of the division despite repeated assurances from owner Tony Fernandes his job was secure.

Defeat by Southampton last weekend, which left them marooned on just 4 points at the bottom of the league and still without Premier League victory, has obviously changed his mind. It is reported he was asked to resign on Monday by the QPR board, which Hughes flatly declined. Obviously resignation would have waived a five million pound pay-off for failure, which has now been paid after his sacking.

As well as commanding pay-off figures Fred Goodwin would have been proud of, Hughes has basically rebuilt the entire QPR team with a side that seems to be unable to do more than the sum of its extremely talented parts.

There is no denying they have talent. Goalkeeper Julio Cesar is a Champions League winner with Inter Milan, their midfield is loaded with talents such as Esteban Granero, Junior Hoilett, Ji-Sung Park and Adel Tarrabt and they have goal threats in players like Djibril Cisse and Bobby Zamora.

So where has it gone wrong? Well, aside from the fact changing an entire team in the space of a weeks is never a good thing to keep momentum going, there is also the feeling that they have a weaker defence and once the defeats begun - a 5-0 opening day mauling by Swansea was the perfect pre-season optimism killer - it was always going to be a struggle.

Long before the killer blow was dealt by Nigel Adkins' Saints, the fans have grown restless with Hughes. The manager has resemebled something of a David Brent style figure convinced his team were still going to finish midtable even as evidence became clear that Hughes would be lucky to finish December as QPR manager, let alone the season.

Fans are calling for ex-Spurs manager Harry Redknapp to take his place and certainly there is little to argue with the claim that he can't be any worse than Hughes. Fernandes seems keen to agree, with reports he will be installed in time for QPR's game against Sunderland next Tuesday.

But aside from the faintly ridiculous timing - he was sacked just a day before a game, let alone the fact this game was against Manchester United - it seems Hughes was onto a loser. He may have bought skillful players but with the players failing to gel and fans wanting him out, there was only going to be one outcome. His ridiculous form of just 6 wins from 30 was also always going to count against him, with the omens appearing that QPR would've been better off persisting with Neil Warnock rather than removing him as they did in January.

The jokes have been flying - one Tweet indicated that Hughes was so poor he failed to win the sack race - but there was never going to be any other outcome.

More of a surprise is the sacking of Hughes occured after the one four miles down the road at Stamford Bridge, but both basically have fallen victim to the fact that, as November turns into December, the owners feel they have not fulfilled their ambition and will be unable to do so. While it is harsh in one case, it is ultimate in the end that the owner's ambitions are unfulfilled and once owners see the end, there really is no going back.


Predictions:
Chelsea: Benitez will not be in the manager seat next season despite coming close to at least two trophies and most likely winning the Club World Championship.
QPR: Harry Redknapp to take over, win some games noone expected them to win and buy yet another new team, but to face a huge struggle to keep them in the top flight.

Skyfall - Film Review

*CAUTION - The following review contiains potential spoilers. If you are yet to see Skyfall but wish to do so, proceed with this in mind*

James Bond may well be a cinema icon but over his previous 22 outings it's not always been plain sailing.

Skyfall is Bond's 23rd outing but this almost didn't happen, given film studio MGM almost bit the dust. But in terms of actual content, a lot of critics felt that Bond had something to prove after 2008's Quantum of Solace. This may have had a lot to do with timing - while The Dark Knight had become seen as the perfect film alongst critics, the Jason Bourne movies vied for action-genre supremacy and were seen to hve won their battle.

Now, following a Bourne movie that didn't seem to generate excitement following the departure of Matt Damon, Daniel Craig returns for his third outing as film's biggest secret agent.

The writing seems to have been sampling the (real and screen) world around it and cramming it in. Repeated government losses of sensitive data serve as plot points, while the gritty realistic action that fuelled the Dark Knight trilogy also gets an airing.

In a nod to the frenetic past Bond films, there is high action from the word go. Bond and his new fellow agent Eve (Naomie Harris) pursue a baddie through the streets of Istanbul, then on the rooves of the city, and then on a train heading away, and all before Eve, on M's (Dame Judi Dench) orders, unintentionally kills Bond.

Or at least she thinks she does - Bond is instead, in his words "enjoying death", drinking with scorpions in a tropical island bar. And boy does he drink - during the course of this film, he drinks Heineken, tequilla, scotch and his classic vodka martini. In his returning physical that baddie Silva (Javier Bardem) later takes glee in reading, he is listed as having an alcohol dependency.

Before a morning boozer, he realises the news Thames House has exploded. M is on her way back from attending a meeting with Gareth Mallorry (Ralph Fiennes), who has suggested she leave the agency.

Bond, as a result, comes back to Blighty and, after a fitness test and a meeting with Q (Ben Wishaw), it's off on the globe-trotting adventures Bond normally goes on. Not to the same extent as usual though - while previous Bond films have seen him traverse the globe and spend minutes in the UK, his foreign trips are minimal, with the early Istanbul visit, trips to Shanghai and Macau and a sojourn on Silva's island the only foreign action to occur.

There is further emphasis on the characters beyond the heros. Ordinarily Bond is the king of the castle but here, Dench gets a chance to drive proceedings. M is the real star of the show here. As well as the dynamism between her and Bond that fuels many films, she also gets to venture out the office and makes her presence felt at the heart of the film.

The others are also impressive. Mallory is a very impressive and competent man, while Q is an intriguing counterpoint with a run of youth that keeps things well-grounded in the face of the experienced counterpants running around him.

Bond of course is running the show, whether involved in all manner of action scrapes, or delivering a large amount of dry one-liners that would seamlessly fit into a comedy show. Craig certainly makes the role his own - he has had two very impressive performances so far to hone in on his character but here he really shines.

This amount of dry quippery and action scenes are needed to keep his head in the face of his enemy, who reveals an hour into the piece. Silva, when he surfaces, is a slick man looking to gain revenge after M decided to cut him loose, holding her responsible for his capture, imprisonment and torture by the Chinese.

Silva is also a very clever man. He relentlessly manipulates the world to his desires of revenge, manipulating the electronical world. It is a very relevant threat - cyber-terrorism is becoming a major threat to global security, and is seen as the next big threat to individual countries.

He is also very clever - just as it looks that Bond, Q and the rest have him in a corner after he is captured from his island, he breaks free. After this, he runs under London and blows up a tube tunnel to lose Bond before he breaks into Whitehall for the purposes of shooting up a select committee hearing that M has been bought to. But his goal of revenge doesn't pull off here, although he is close to success.

This swiftly leads to the end game, as Bond and M flee to Bond's childhood home - Skyfall Hunting Lodge. He lures Silva and his henchmen there before engaging in a final shootout.

It brings into it two cliches of modern cinema - 1. the tortured backstory of the hero and 2. bad guys are really terrible shots.

But by this point and the surprise ending, the intricate plotting has paid of.

Many critics have trumpeted this film as possibly one of the best Bond films since the notable theme song first made it out the speakers in the 1960s. 50 years on and Bond has not only retained its sense of adventure and fun, but has updated itself - making a delightful film with the talent performing the part and making a late contender for a possible film of the year.

Whether the Oscar people agree is another matter...

4/5

The Battle Of The Dons

Lots of pundits blither on about the perceived notion of FA Cup romance - the desire to see the underdog trump the big gun, the prestige of the world's oldest knockout competition and, of course, the eventual moment when a team (usually one of the top 6 in the Premiership) lifts the unmistakable FA Cup trophy to mark victory.

There hasn't been too much of this in recent years - the big guns are more interested in taking the Champions League, while smaller fish are either more interested in staying in the Premier League or getting into it.

This has led to a few surprise upsets in recent years as big guns' weaker sides get upset by a hungrier lower competitor but its all to play for in the early stages as the non-league teams try to hold out and land the biggest fish.

The draw has presented some such chances - one of non-league sides Harrogate and Hastings is going to be in Round 3 - but one tie between league opposition, normally ignored at this early stage, has caught attention if only for the implications and the recent history behind it.

Provided they win replays, we could be about to see AFC Wimbledon travelling  to take on Milton Keynes Dons, the team who replaced the old Wimbledon FC in 2004.

This is not a tie AFC Wimbledon wanted. They still hold the view that MK Dons represent the Football League-supported annihilation of the old Wimbledon FC and that such franchising is not for the good of the game - a view shared by a lot of the footballing community.

There is certainly ill feeling amongst the supporters of AFC Wimbledon ahead of a prospect of meeting the side that is legally seen as the continuation of Wimbledon FC. They maintain their view that MK Dons, as an entity, should not exist and the club should still be based in south west London or they should not have automatically started in the Football League place vacated by Wimbledon.

10 years have passed since the formation of AFC Wimbledon and they still have a massive ill-feeling to the new club, to the point where they tried to convince the new team to drop the "Dons" name earlier this year, saying that it reminds them of the incidents that saw their club relocate. This move was rejected at the time by the club and by Milton Keynes Council, although further talks are likely in 2013.

It doesn't take too much understanding of the history of the move to understand why Wombles are angry. They view that the Football Association colluded to make a move that wasn't beneficial and feel that their club was stolen. While AFC Wimbledon have made incredible progress since their formation and admission into the football league system, this will obviously not have dulled the fires amongst the South West Londoners.

In contrast, the MK Dons supporters aren't so bothered. Their fans certainly feel excited to take on the fans club. They also hold the view that Wimbledon were deserted by their fans when their club was sliding into bankruptcy and that such an extreme move was required to stop them imploding.

This circumstance is certainly what led to Wimbledon's decline into administration and eventual move in 2003. AFC Wimbledon certainly feel touchy about this viewpoint but it is hard to see any other potential end to what happened to Wimbledon when everything building up within the club threatened to destroy them whether they moved or not.

It is not that clear about whether or not the move has succeeded - at first fans seemed turned away and disinterested, but the new team has begun gradually gaining local support in a new stadium (albiet not quite to full capacity yet) and consistent placing at the top of League One.

In any case, this circle of hatred has led to massive ill-feeling by Wombles towards the Dons, to the point where they do not want to take the Milton Keynes side on. The club's board admitted as such, saying that they would go ahead with the fixture despite their admission they do not want such a fixture to take place. There is already talk amongst their supporters of a refusal to travel up the M1 to the New City, although it appears a small contingent is likely to travel.

The Milton Keynes team are certainly more interested in such a game taking place than their counterparts are. Manager Karl Robinson was quoted as "dancing in his front room" when he heard the draw on Sunday afternoon and chairman Pete Winkleman is also excited at the prospect. They recognise that they need to get through their replay first, but they obviously understand that such a tie would be big sporting news.

Anticipation is high amongst those outside the two clubs for a meeting, although the vast majority of neutral supporters are likely to cheer on the "wronged fan-powered underdog" against the "franchise". Some fans seem like they could provoke the possibility of violence beyond the almost-certain poor taste chanting that such a fixture will be accompanied with, assuming any turn up, and the game will be massive.

It will almost certainly likely to make television picks for either ITV or ESPN. Certainly press coverage from those same pundits would consider it a further tale of cup romance if AFC Wimbledon won, as it would be viewed as a fan triumph over the bloated mess of modern football.

To outsiders of the sport and a reasonable portion of people who support neither, it could be interpreted as "just another game", and certainly a lot of fans would be prepared to just ignore the politics and see that is just a game with a potential money-spinning game against a big team.

Of course, there is also the factor of Cambridge City and/or York City upsetting the apple cart and ensuring this fixture does not happen. But all the same, whether we like it or not, such a tie would have added emotional baggage and the perception of modern vs old football is all set to be given a physical outing rather than a topic for column arguments.