Kevin Smith Dark Knight Rises Recap w/ Scott Mosier

And Fatman on Batman, I've been, I mean [ __ ]. I'll be honest with you, I started the podcast 'cause I was like, I can't wait for The Dark Knight Rises. I can't wait to even talk about it. So, we're going to talk about it. Um, and when I talk about movies, I'll be honest with you, the person I love to talk about movies the most in this world is a guy that I made movies with the most in this world, man. He's my co-host from Smodcast. Um, he was the battery and still is in so many things that I [ __ ] do, the enabler, uh, the guy that was always there who's like, "Yeah, [ __ ], let's go make some [ __ ] art and whatnot." Uh, my partner in crime, my bro, Scotty Mo. Say hi to the kids. Uh, hello.

Okay, now Scott, you know, traditionally, Fatman and Batman, we've spoken only to people who've been involved with Batman in some way. Um, Scott, today, today we're going to really go off the beaten path because, as I said, I couldn't think of anyone better to talk to about Batman, or any movie with, than Scott. As all of America, uh, went out to see The Dark Knight Rises this weekend, Scott was one person who was like, "I'll get there." So, Scott hasn't seen, uh, The Dark Knight Rises at all. So, I haven't. Yeah. And he's seen the other two. You've seen Batman Begins. I saw Batman Begins with you in Vancouver. In Vancouver, midnight. Up there, I think I was visiting my folks down south. I was shooting Catch and Release. Yeah. All right. So, there's [ __ ] there's something here in connection. See, kids, it is Fatman and Batman. Scott is a relevant guest. Yeah. That's right. We saw Batman Begins together, and I remember coming out at the midnight show. This is like the only midnight show I think I've ever been to in my entire life. Yeah. As you can hear, Scott's very sleepy. If you've never heard Smodcast before, you're doing yourself a real disservice, man. And, and guess what? You're going to have to hear Smodcast because I think we're going to continue this show over into Smodcast. We're going to start on Fatman Batman, go over to Smodcast. Gonna be a crossover, like when Batman and Robin met the Green Hornet and Kato. I have to put everything in terms that they'll understand. This is gonna be like, "Why are you talking to them like they're idiots?" It's about Batman. It's using Batman references. So, we'll probably cross over. But that's not new. In case you're wondering, "What do you mean you're using Batman references for everything?" It does kind of go back pretty much. I measure things in terms of, of Batman, sometimes Jaws. Yeah. But Batman is truly the moral barometer. And Scott, over the course of 20 years, has had to listen to me talk about all manner of Batman [ __ ] or say things, right? When we met, "Hey, hey, this actually, this show could work." Right? When we met, the show could work. Scott's like, "I'm just flailing out here, but you know what? I see some purchase, man." I had no idea why you invited me to do the show. When we were, um, when we first met in Vancouver, yeah, it was, um, Batman Returns was on the verge of opening. My God, you're right, man. Yeah. We got a lot of Batman in our relationship. And then we went to see Batman Returns, me, your sister, you, and what was it? Buffy? Bust? No, was it Buffy? No, it's Buffy. Is it? You're still, you're like, "Is it busty?" Busty? Well, I think, I think there's no, it was Buffy. Buffy. Uh, so anyway, we all went to see Batman Returns in Vancouver. Yeah. Yeah. I was in Vancouver on the [ __ ] on Granville at the like Famous Players. I don't remember which theater, but we did definitely go. Um, and that was, I remember, uh, being like, "Wow, that went dark." Like, that went dark. You know, compared to, compared to, well, it compared to the first Batman. Like, you got to remember, 1989's Batman, for for those of you that are like, you know, there are a lot of kids, man, who are like, "This is my trilogy. You had Star Wars, and I've got Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy." Like, it's religion for, yeah. And when you try to tell him about like, "Hey, man, back in 1989, it was [ __ ] nuts. People were cutting Batman to their heads, [ __ ] like shirts everywhere. It was M. It was huge." Um, but that movie, when it happened, we were all Batman fans were so [ __ ] delighted 'cause like, "Finally, a dark representation of our hero." We'd only really had in mainstream media the Batman Adam West show. Yeah. So when Tim Burton's Batman comes along and Batman's more dark and brooding and stuff like that, we're like, "This [ __ ]. This is the true Batman." That had a West [ __ ] was a [ __ ] abortion and it should be buried deep in the bowels of the earth. Ironically, now, [ __ ], our version of what was dark and [ __ ] is like pink and candy-coated compared to what Nolan wound up doing with it. So now you hear kids talking the same way about the 1989 Tim Burton Batman that we talked about. Started everything. Oh, it's crazy. But anyway, the 1989 one was a little gothy and emo and [ __ ]. But in Batman Returns, it went darker with the [ __ ] baby getting thrown into the sewer and, and yeah, and uh, Penguin dies at the end. The Penguin stuff, very more probably more Tim Burton-esque than more Tim Burton-y. So he, uh, so we come out of that movie, and I remember going like, "Wow, man, they went dark." My God, they went dark. I mean, did you see like when that Penguin had a missile strapped on his back? What does that say about humanity? Scott says about my soul. That Penguin is my soul. Scott. And that missile is pain. I don't think I've seen that movie in a long time. Batman Returns. My favorite moment of that movie, ironically, does involve Penguin with a missile on his back. I was just pissing on it. But it, it is there. He's in the Bat-ski boat. The Bat-skiff. And he's in the sewer heading to the [ __ ] Penguin. Which, in in The Dark Knight Rises, whole thing, there's a plot line that takes place in the sewer of Gotham. And it is a [ __ ] 180-degree portrait from cartoony sewers of Gotham to [ __ ]. But still, in both, I I got to ask, who builds sewers this big? Is there really a room in in the in every sewer system under every city that's like, like a big massive staging area? It seems like such a waste of space. Whenever you see the inner bowels of a city in a movie. Yeah. Yeah. Lot of headroom, you know? Lot of built for really tall people. Yeah. And just like all this space where you're like, "Where are the pillars? What's holding this up?" Like, it clearly the Earth would just crumble under it, you know what I'm saying? Like, there's nothing really holding. I know it's cavernous. They build these cavernous [ __ ] sewers, I guess. They're just movie sewers, man. But even in Nolan's version, his movie sewer looks like, like a movie sewer. Like, this looks a little too suspiciously big. Anyway, I digress. Um, the, uh, the, this when he's in the Bat-ski boat and he's heading to fight the Penguin in Batman Returns. Yeah. And all of a sudden, two penguins pop up with missiles. So [ __ ] candy-coated missiles. Like, uh, they look like candy canes. Yeah. Shoot them off their backs. And like, you know, little helmets come down with [ __ ] laser sighting guidance system. And [ __ ] and [ __ ] boom. The missiles go off their backs. And Batman, Michael Keaton, is Batman. Pulls back on the stick. And then you see the Bat-skiff circle the tunnel, miss the missiles. And then you go behind it. And you're also behind the Penguins who are watching him go. And then you cut into the Bat-ski boat, or the Bat-skiff. And Michael Keaton is Batman. Is writing himself. This is a horrible bit to try to do on a podcast. So I, I, because I always, when I talk about it, I always could do it visually. But he looks back slightly, like, yeah, just kind of glances. Just glances back as if to say, "I can't believe I was almost killed by two penguins with missiles." You know, it was, I love that moment in that, in that movie. Um, in that movie, had Catwoman. And that Catwoman, we were all like, "Oh man, [ __ ], finally, it's been defined." And yet she was not remotely close to the [ __ ] comic book Catwoman. Like, she was Selina Kyle, but she worked for Max Shreck. She was a secretary. Alley. And then she got killed by this guy. And she got licked by some magic cats and came back to life in the, yeah, [ __ ] up [ __ ]. Um, but, and then she started, you know, came back and, you know, "Life's a [ __ ] now, so am I." And was tough girl. But it was more like she was possessed or something. But we all love the outfit. And she had the whip. Yeah. So we all like responded to that. That was cool. And just seeing them kiss and, and [ __ ] fight on the rooftop and [ __ ]. And also, prior to that, can get pretty much like, it's, it's basically like being like a kid in, in maybe early high school and [ __ ]. And, you know, you're like, "I got third base." You're like, "Oh, [ __ ], man, everyone's like, that's amazing." And you live off that third base for like, [ __ ] months. Yeah. Till somebody else maybe let you third base. And now, in retrospect, you're like, "Third base? Why didn't you just ask, 'Can I jerk off in front of you?'" Batman Returns, the equivalent of like a little titty moral. Here, kids. Batman Returns, pretty much the equivalent of getting your dick, having having your dick photographed by a cell phone camera in the midst of your most embarrassing and personal act ever. That's the best review I think anyone's ever ever given Batman Returns, man. It's not well-reviewed. It's not. Who cares how well-reviewed it is? Nobody's ever reviewed it that way. Yeah. No one's ever talked about it. Has anyone talked about it in years? I, I, I saw Batman Returns. Batman something. What was the, what was the Tommy Lee Jones, Jim Carrey one? Batman Forever. Batman Forever. Yeah. That was where things started to slide. Uh, but then, believe me, we all missed Batman Forever when Batman and Robin came out. 'Cause that was the one. I think I saw all three of those with you in the theater. Nice to see you. That was our Schwarzenegger. And then, [ __ ], you know, everyone like craps on Schwarzenegger in that movie. And I'm not saying like, "Leave him alone," but, you know, who's really awful in that movie is [ __ ]. Thurman is Poison Ivy. And I'm not saying she can't act. We all know, um, Thurman can act. But their vision of Poison Ivy and her performance, it is so [ __ ] like huge, dude, hugely over the top. But Bane is also in that movie. That's the first cinematic representation of Bane, which is literally just like, he's like a balloon. Yes. And they just kind of inflate him. And he's a henchman. Yeah. For a woman. Yeah. Which we'll get into the similarities in the forthcoming Dark Knight Rises discussion. So, okay. We did see Batman Returns together years later in Vancouver again, ironically, but at a different multiplex. We saw Batman Begins at that new Paramount that they built. Well, it's no longer new. It's been there for a while. But when we were first in film school, there was no Paramount. When I went back to shoot Catch and Release years later, there was a Paramount. So we saw it. A big ass [ __ ] screen. Yeah. Yeah. And I remember coming out afterwards, and we chit-chatted with some dudes after the screening out front. Remember like some Randy and shits. They like, "Hey man, you're that guy." And we started chitchatting about the movie and whatnot. And I remember coming out, my big impression of Batman Begins was like, "Wow, it was earnest." Like, it's really earnest. 'Cause we were used to the Tim Burton Batman, which had some levity. Jack Nicholson as the Joker, chewing up the scenery and [ __ ] like that. Even Danny DeVito's performance was way over the top. Everything was kind of big, though, not campy as they did it in in the Batman TV series. Although it became campy by the time they got to Batman and Robin. Yeah. So coming out of Batman Begins, I was like, "Man, this shit's earnest." Like, this ain't a, this ain't a Batman movie. It feels more, and I said back then, I was like, "This feels more like a cop movie, and the cop just happens to be wearing tights." Yeah. Very serious and whatnot. That was a movie that I liked the first time I saw it, but I wasn't like over the moon about it. I was like, "All right, well, I guess that's Batman Begins." Um, but that was a movie that you revisited and you wind up liking it more and more. A movie that truly for me benefits from home video and [ __ ] because you can skip some stuff you don't want to watch, go write some cool [ __ ]. Um, it's a movie when you want this, the first time that Chris Nolan directed a Batman movie. And Chris Nolan, at that point, was known as the dude who did Memento. Memento, the movie told backwards and [ __ ]. He'd done following prior to that, but Memento was his big breakout movie. And then he did a Warner Brothers remake of, uh, Insomnia. Yeah. So they announced now, what would have been going on historically at that point was, uh, they had been developing Batman Year One with a homie that made The Black Swan, uh, Aronofsky. Darren Aronofsky. Yeah. So that was put aside. And all of a sudden, you heard, "Hey, the guy that did, uh, the the movie with Al Pacino, the [ __ ], I can't sleep movie, they're giving him the new Batman franchise." And they're calling it Batman Begins. So we saw that movie. Very earnest. Very, like, very earnest and, and real world. Didn't look like it was shot on a sound stage. No. Batman Returns, Batman, the 1989 Batman, um, all those Batman movies, the Tim Burton/Joel Schumacher Batman's all shot on sound stages. Like, you know, Gotham was built from the ground up. And Batman from by Anton Furst, who later wound up, I think he did, he kill himself? He died. I don't know if he killed himself. I don't say if he did, but he died. Anton Furst, the guy that designed the the Tim Burton build and all of Gotham City, um, wound up not living very long after that. So those Gothams were built. Suddenly, Batman Begins, this dude's used in Chicago as Gotham. You know, where you're like, "Wow, that's a [ __ ] good idea." Like, it looks real. Everything looks real. Everything about Batman Begins looked real. It was like he tried to, he rooted the movie in reality. Holy in reality. And even, you know, so much so that the villain was Ra's al Ghul. Really? Like, you know, there was a Scarecrow, but his mask was explained away, so it wasn't a dude in a costume and [ __ ]. Um, and then Ra's al Ghul, um, who was Henry Ducard, but then reveals himself to be Ra's al Ghul. And, and I should say for the record, man, we're going to spoil the [ __ ] out of all these movies. So if you haven't seen them, or you, I don't want to know [ __ ] two now, go do your duty and then come back. So Ra's al Ghul, he's not even a villain. Lends himself colorfully. Like Liam Neeson was wearing suits and [ __ ] like that. It was like, probably a nightmare for Warner Brothers going like, "These are our figures. The [ __ ] Scarecrow is wearing a suit and a bag on his head and [ __ ]. Liam Neeson is a figure. The action figure. Yes. This guy looks like Quon. What are we going to do? Where's the Jack Nicholson Joker?" But to be fair, 1989 when Batman came out, they were all caught with their pants down. They didn't have [ __ ] toy deals in place. They had one shitty little toy deal with Toy Biz, um, to make action figures. And what they did was repackaged the Batman figure from the Kenner Superpowers line. Yeah. And they did a repaint of the Joker from the Kenner Superpowers line. So they used old molds and [ __ ] and then just kind of repainted them. They added one new figure, Bob Theon. Remember that dude? A [ __ ] in in Batman who was like, Bob Gun. Yeah. Yeah. And partly responsible for the reason for the name of Silent Bob, because I was like, "Yeah, Bob Theon, man. Bob. Good name." Really. No. Little bit. All ties in, as you can see. Um, so they were unprepared toy-wise. From there forward, they got prepared for Batman Returns. They had toy deals. But Batman Returns was so dark. They had this McDonald's deal to do Happy Meal toys. But the movie was so, 1992, this was considered so [ __ ] dark that there were parental complaints of like, "This vehicle, this meal is unhappy. Nothing's happy about this. This is an unhappy meal." And this Penguin go character is grotesque. This woman has a whip. She's an S&M artist. And so people jumped on its dick and said it was dark and [ __ ]. But you could at least get toys out of those movies, man. These new [ __ ] Nolan movies, he plays it so straight. Tough to get a toy out of it, I would imagine. Like, uh, it's particularly based on when you looked at Batman Begins, like, like the gear. They're like, "Here's the Batmobile." And you're like, "That doesn't look like a Batmobile. It looks like a big tank." And then they're like, "Here's the Batman figure." And the Scarecrow figure. And, and here's the, uh, the, they didn't even call him Ra's al Ghul. I think they called him Henry Ducard because they were trying to keep the secret. And he just had three figures. And it wasn't like, "Did they did actually make figures?" They did. They did. And, and the Scarecrow figure had the bag on his head and [ __ ]. But, you know, it's cool, but you're like, "I, this ain't like no kids world on fire, not playing with this." They like a big. That's why they came out with those other like kid-friendly super, like Batman and, and Superman and Green Lantern, like Super Buddies and [ __ ]. Something for the kids, man. Because Super Buddies, I, I forget what it's called, but they do like squishy, fathead versions of like, "We're your favorite heroes. We all hang out together." They all hang out in a club and [ __ ]. You know, it's like, not like, like Justice Babies, but like little versions of the character. Got something a little more kid-friendly, 'cause you can't hand a [ __ ] kid that Scarecrow figure and be like, "Go imagine he terrorizes people with his, with with drugs." That's it. I would just [ __ ] put it there and just stare at it and be like, "What happened to you?" It doesn't lend itself to kind of like, "Joker's going to kick you in the butt." Batman, pee pee, that age is gone. But the figures, man, if you like the movie, you're like, "Ballsy, these look [ __ ] cool and [ __ ]." But that movie itself, so earnest. Yeah. So earnest. Batman Begins was, Scott, that when we walked out, that's all I could think was like, "Wow." Like, it had never occurred to me that someone would make a movie even more serious about Batman. Yeah. Than Tim Burton. Like Tim Burton, we felt like, "Wow, man, he really [ __ ] treated Batman seriously." Thank you. There was none of this "Biff! Pow! Bam!" or "Hey, little chum!" or anything like that. But then [ __ ] Nolan came in and was just like, "Oh, no. This is how you treat it seriously." Yeah. Yeah. And put it in the real world and [ __ ]. Like, uh, you know, nothing was on a sound stage. I mean, maybe there was some interior work on a sound stage, but the exteriors. And he shot like big scope. Everything looked [ __ ] cool and real. So I remember like liking Batman Begins, but not being over the moon by it until I watched it again and again and again. I'd be like, "This is kind of cool." But I really fell in love with the hardcore after The Dark Knight. Yeah. Now, Nolan [ __ ] outdoes himself. Um, and probably makes one of the greatest movies ever made. I, I called it at the point, "The Godfather of comic book movies." And even that's reductive. That Dark Knight movie. It's got plot holes and they're [ __ ] it. That's dopey. But oh my God, talk about a wonderful piece of cinema. And talk about treating it seriously. And you never imagined anyone could outdo Jack Nicholson as the Joker. And yet, Heath Ledger comes in and drops his [ __ ] psychotic science on us where you're like, "Oh, [ __ ]." It was the, you know, the Joker for our generation. Or not our generation, the next generation. But this is just epic, man. Like, he treats this movie so [ __ ] big. And he does real-world stunts. He takes an 18-wheeler and flips it. Yeah. Right in the streets in Chicago. And, you know, there's, it's not like, "Hey, look at all the CG [ __ ] I could do." Take. He dials it back. Does old school, just movie-making. And shoots a lot of sequences in 70mm. So you go see it in IMAX, and the massive [ __ ] use of the frame looks beautiful. They put out the opening few minutes of the movie, um, on top of, I think it was the, you know, the Will Smith movie where he's the, I Am Legend. I Am Legend. They put the first six minutes of Dark Knight. Yeah. Yeah. On that. So you could see the bank robbery sequence where the Joker revealed. Then they had little shots of Batman and threw out at the end. And then boom. It was quick, but it was astounding. And it was done. You could go see it in IMAX. It was [ __ ] massive. But how do you [ __ ] do a Joker where people don't go, "Oh, Jack Nicholson already did it"? Yeah. Yeah. Uh, how do you, how do you suddenly, you look at Batman Begins as like, total first act where you're like, "Oh my God, it was just setup." This is what happens when your universe is in place. Everything gets changed in a good way. The [ __ ]. You know, the Tim Burton movies and Batman Begins, they had this cowl configuration on Batman where he could never move his head or neck. And, you know, Batman's one of the world's greatest fighters. And you'd see him fighting, you'd have to turn his whole [ __ ] body. Look, he looked more like the Tin Man. "Get out of my peripheral vision if I only had a heart." But, uh, now, when Bruce Wayne goes to Lucius Fox, he's just like, "I need a new suit." And he's like, "Three buttons is a little '90s, Mr. Wayne." And he's like, "No, I'm talking about function over, for whatever." And he's like, "Oh, you want to be able to turn your hood?" And suddenly, in the movie, Batman has a new cowl configuration, different than you've ever seen in any other Batman before, where he could turn his [ __ ] head and somebody just had the brilliant idea of like, "Make it kind of like a motorcycle helmet, man. Just real tight to his [ __ ] head, but it's separate from the neck so it could [ __ ] twist his head all the way around." Yeah. Improvements are made. Improvement to the Joker character. Improvement to, uh, the mythos in general. The idea of taking this character and being like, "Nobody knows anything about him, man." The makeup. It's not, it's not [ __ ] him with pale white skin and bright red hair, you know, green hair rather. You know, done to him chemically. It's a dude who puts war paint on. He literally puts that makeup on. And the smile, the razor grin, isn't like some weird chemical reaction based on a bullet physical defect. It's, well, it's physical and as much as he cut his own [ __ ] mouth open. Well, you don't know what he did because he tells multiple versions of story. Every aspect of that movie is fascinating. And kind of, you know, even with the, there's some scenes where you're like, "Oh, it's tough." I just get to the next part. Cartilage scenes, if you will. Even those scenes are [ __ ] well done. It's the Batman movie you always wanted to see. That's what The Dark Knight is. And at the end, and even with its, you know, flaws and [ __ ] and there are some people crucify if you try to point them out. There's a couple, and they're plot holes. But even by the time you get to the end of the movie, you're like, "[ __ ], man, this is, I, what, what could you possibly do next, man? What could you [ __ ] do?" And we waited for a few years, and he did it. And it's called The Dark Knight Rises. And it just came out. I have seen it three times. So I saw Thursday night at midnight, saw it Friday, and then I saw it with my kid on Saturday. Saw it Friday for spoilers. First, I saw midnight with Muse. We went to the, all the tickets were sold out. But since we hang out Universal a lot, you know, for spoilers and [ __ ], we're like, "Hey, man, we want to go. We don't give a [ __ ] about no seats and [ __ ]." So they said, "We want to go watch in a projection booth." I said, "[ __ ], yeah." So we paid our bits and we went up to the projection booth and started watching it from there. Beautiful view. You can see the whole thing. The speakers in the room, so you can hear the whole [ __ ] thing. Problem is, you're sitting right next to the biggest film projector on the planet, so you're hearing that as well. So we did the first 10, 15 minutes there. And then at one point, went downstairs and stood in the back of the theater. The whole movie. Now, that movie's 2 hours and 40 minutes. Lot of standing. Lot of standing. But I never bitched once. Never felt uncomfortable. Never was like, "Oh my God, like I wish I had a seat." I was [ __ ]. It had me. I was there the whole [ __ ] time. When I go back to see it, I have a seat so I can actually sit there and [ __ ] enjoy it and whatnot. And then I, I watched it. Jen went. We watched it for spoilers. And then the third time, I went back with my kid and and her friend. And, uh, that second and third time, you know, you can soak up every little piece. First time is just immersion. Second time, you start looking for details and stuff and try to clear up things that you were confused about. And then third time, you know, you start going, "This is the parts that I'm going to try to memorize." And these are the parts that when I get this [ __ ] Blu-ray, like, this is what I'll watch over and over again. Scott hasn't seen The Dark Knight Rises. No. So what I'll try to do is tell Scott the story of The Dark Knight Rises. Yes. Because I don't know if, I mean, review, whatever. I don't watch movies anymore. I just have you tell me what they are. That's it. Mo's giving up on movies. He's like, "How'd it go?" I was like, "Oh, it's like this. Pew pew pew. And then bang. And then boo." And he's like, "That's good." Like, "That's fantastic." Yeah. Sounds a lot like the last movie I saw. Um, The Dark Knight Rises. Scott stars, as we know, Christian Bale is the Dark Knight. Yeah. Michael Caine is back as Alfred Pennyworth, his loyal butler. Butler. Uh, Lucius Fox, played by Morgan Freeman. This time around, they add some new characters. Selina Kyle, Catwoman, is played by Anne Hathaway. Yeah. Uh, Bane is played by Tom Hardy. Miranda Tate is played by, uh, what's her name? Marion Cotillard. Yeah. And then there's a cop named John Blake, who's played by, uh, Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Uh, Matthew Modine's in the movie. And although he does a really good job, I have no [ __ ] clue why. Um, but he's, he's good. But it's just his character's arc didn't make much sense. He is a cop that works under Jim Gordon. And he's there periodically to comment on the fact that Jim Gordon is a very vigilant cop, even in the eight years of peace we've had since the end of The Dark Knight. 'Cause that's where the movie picks up. Eight years later. Years later. Um, you know, he, even while the crime stats say one thing, Jim Gordon is still on the case and whatnot. So Matthew Modine is meant to kind of show this is the, not anti-Jim Gordon, but this is what happens when you're not Jim Gordon. You know, he's not as, he's more political than anything else. And then, oh, so he's the new commissioner? No, that's the other thing. You know, it's just kind of like, Jim Gordon is still the commissioner. But there's rumor at the beginning of the room, at the beginning of the movie, there's rumor that, you know, in the fall, the mayor is going to dump Jim Gordon and go with a new police commissioner. Because it's been, you know, Matthew Modine, he even says in the, goes, "But he's a war hero." You know? And, and then the congressman character goes, "Yeah, but this is peacetime." Um, because it's been, nothing's going on. And Gotham, they keep making reference to the fact that it's so cleaned up. The mayor talks about, "There's no organized crime." They have the Dent Act based on what happened with Harvey Dent. The whole movie opens on Harvey Dent Day. At the end of The Dark Knight, Harvey Dent, you know, became Two-Face and tried to kill Jim Gordon's kid. But Batman saved him. And then Batman was like, "Look, we got to tell the world that I did this, that I killed those cops, and that I, you know, threatened your kid, and that I did this to Harvey Dent. I broke his back and broke his neck or whatever." And, uh, the logic, which always seemed kind of specious to me, was that, you know, the world, the Gotham believed that Harvey was their white knight. And if they found out that Harvey was this madman who killed cops and [ __ ], yeah, yeah, like their spirit would break forever. The practical reason was, if if the district attorney turns out to be a [ __ ] nut bar, everybody he put away is now up for parole. Yeah. So I think in order to keep Gotham, um, you know, in some semblance of order or whatever, the plan was quickly hatched, probably not well thought out, but quickly hatched at the end of Dark Knight, where Batman was like, "Tell them I did this." And that's where, you know, keep him the hero, let Harvey be the White Knight, and [ __ ], I'm the bad guy. So when you pick up with The Dark Knight Rises, it begins eight years after, uh, the events in The Dark Knight. And, you know, there's peace in Gotham. Everyone's doing well. The opening sequence, but before that happens, before you even get there, it's the opening sequence that they, we saw at the head of, I forget which movies they put. I think it was at the head of Mission Impossible 4, they put, uh, the opening eight-minute sequence from The Dark Knight Rises. Kind of mirrored the way they put out the open few minutes of The Dark Knight on I Am Legend. So you've all, if if you've seen that, you know, in the theater, it remains exactly unchanged with the exception of they cleaned up the Bane voiceover, not voiceover, but his his dialogue. 'Cause there was so many people bitched about the dialogue in the opening eight-minute prologue when it was in theater, you couldn't understand it. Yeah. Like, "It's my fault I can't understand what he's saying." Which bummed me out 'cause he's covering his mouth. Yeah. He's [ __ ] not speaking clearly. Make it clear for us. I, I, for me, I felt it was cool because it made you work a little harder. Like I was like, "I'd rather that. I'd rather like, you lose a few people going, 'I can't understand it,' and let them [ __ ] work for it, man." Because it just sounded so badass. But, you know, it doesn't, it's not like it sounds bad now. They just cleaned it up so it's crystal clear. And he's turned up over everyone else. So you always [ __ ] hear Bane's dialogue now. So if you've seen that eight, that that opening prologue, it's the exact same kind of, um, oh, it's [ __ ] awesome. It is a really well-done sequence. And it's the introduction of the Bane character. Now, you're following The Dark Knight, and Heath Ledger gave perhaps what is the pinnacle performance of a bad guy in a movie that we'll see for the next [ __ ] decade. He was phenomenal. The bar has been lifted really high. Tom Hardy gets there, man. Like, and I'm not going to say it's the brilliance of Tom Hardy or or it's the brilliance of the idea of Bane and the mask. It's everything put together. But I have to give credit to whoever [ __ ] came up with the idea of doing the voice. And I got to imagine that's Tom Hardy because that's what makes the character for me. In the movie, you have this hulking [ __ ] brute of a man. And what do you imagine to come out of him? "I will kill. I will break Batman." Yeah. Yeah. Nothing. He sounds like this old British man where he's like, "Perhaps he's wondering why you would shoot a man before throwing him out of a plane." Like, it's not the voice you would expect. And because of that, it's even [ __ ] scarier, man. Like, it's a cool choice that makes that [ __ ] character. I will, when this comes out on Blu-ray, I'll just sit there and watch every Bane scene. And I never imagined saying that because I didn't really like the Bane character in the comic books. I just thought it was dopey. But Tom Hardy's voice choice and his performance, the fact you can't see his mouth is just really gives an ocular performance. It's all in the eyes. It's [ __ ] tits. It's it's like this generation's Darth Vader, man. It's a guy speaking through a rebreather. And he's bald like Vader was. And he's villainous. It's, and he's truly villainous and strong and powerful like Vader could look. There are a lot of things in The Dark Knight Rises that's what I thought I was watching a movie going, "I love this. I love this." And there are a lot of things where you're like, "Oh, I've seen this. I've seen this." There are a lot of familiar elements. And and not just from the previous Batman movies. Like Bane has an overall Darth Vader kind of feel to the whole affair. Um, there's a moment in the movie that comes straight out of [ __ ] Goodwill Hunting. Where, spoilers again, we're talking about this movie big time. We jump all over the [ __ ] place. Um, at one point early in the movie, Alfred says to Bruce Wayne, he's just like, "I, uh, I never wanted you to come back to Gotham because there's only heartbreak for you here." Which is true. Like, I never thought about that. It's true. Like, Alfred probably would have been like, "I hope this kid never [ __ ] comes back because what's left for him in this city is a city that killed his [ __ ] parents." Yeah. And for some reason, he always wants to save Gotham. Come back and save Gotham because of, in the movies, Nolan does a nice job of tying that in with his father. Like his father was civic-minded and built the trains and all the money from the Wayne, uh, Enterprises went into the profits went in Wayne Foundation, which funded public works and blah, blah, blah. He gave a lot back. So I guess like the idea was when Bruce came back to Gotham, you know, he was, well, well, really, he got defensive of Gotham because, well, I guess that's what it is now that I put it together. In Batman Begins, he's training with the League of Shadows, um, with who he thinks is Ra's al Ghul, with the help of Henry Ducard, who was played by Liam Neeson. Um, and then Ra's al Ghul tells him, "Your mission is going to be to go to Gotham and bring it down." Yeah. And Bruce Wayne is like, "No, what are you talking about? I don't want to do that." And they're like, "It's corrupt. It must be burned down. We must destroy. Restore balance to civilization by getting rid of this, this city that's a [ __ ] blight." And blah, blah, blah. Yeah. And that's when he's just like, "Gotham can be saved. I can, I can. Give me time. I can save it." And, uh, you know, he's put to the decision right there. And that's when he [ __ ] like he's supposed to kill a guy. They like, "Cut this [ __ ] dude's head off. He stole. He broke the law." Yeah. Yeah. And he's just like, "I, I won't. I can't do. I can't kill this man. I won't do that." You know? And he's just like, "Well, this, this is true justice. This is about justice." Like, if you want justice, you have to be able to do this. And so faced with the decision, that's, I guess, the pinnacle moment where he's like, "[ __ ] this. I can't." He was going to be in the League of Shadows. And instead, he's like, "I now, I, I guess that's the moment in the Chris Nolan movies where he suddenly becomes a fan of Gotham." Because prior to that, he leaves. He doesn't give a [ __ ]. He tries to go shoot Joe Chill, but he doesn't get the chance because Falcone's men kill him instead. And then, like, you know, what's her face, uh, Rachel Dawes, who was played by Katie Holmes in that movie, you know, she finds out about the gun. She slaps him [ __ ] twice. And she's like, "You're a piece of [ __ ]." She don't say that, but. And then, uh, and should, yeah, she really should. And then she does. She gives him a lot of, she gives him a hard time. Gives him a lot of guff about about like, "How could you do this?" It's like he [ __ ] his parents got killed by the guy that's in the bar. Yeah. So she brings him down there. And she's like, "You want to [ __ ] do something about it? There he is. He's in that bar. Go talk to him." And he goes in, uh, uh, Bruce Wayne, uh, Christian Bale. And he has a wonderful little scene with, what's his name? That actor I love who's in, in the bedroom, and he was in Michael. Oh, uh, Tom, Tom Wilkinson. Tom Wilkinson. He plays Falcone. And it's kind of like, again, that's a real seeding moment for the character in that, in the arc of that movie, 'cause it's essentially telling him, "What are you going to do? There's nothing you could do." Like, "I got a judge over there. I got cops over here. I got the mayor over there. Like, I own this [ __ ] town." Yeah. And so, you know, they, they rough him up, throw him out, and [ __ ]. And he takes off his coat, gives it to a [ __ ] homeless dude, and jumps on a steamer. And then heads off. And for seven years, goes away and trains to become Batman. It's a really wonderful sequence in Batman Begins because they show him training, like learning to be a thief before he's like, "I learned. I learned about crime." You know, when I had to eat, and he would steal an apple or something like that. But then he would go into training and, and with other criminals and [ __ ]. And they show a sequence where he's like breaking into a place, but they get caught. And the cops are just like, uh, they're like, uh, "Tell you guys are [ __ ] in trouble." And, and he goes, "I didn't steal anything." Bruce Wayne goes, "I didn't steal anything." And then the cop goes, "Tell that to the guy you stole his from." And he kicks the [ __ ] box. And it says "Wayne Technology" on it. So even in his training, he's not breaking the law. That's what I love about Batman. He's got such an absolute moral compass. The lesson in Batman is, if you are a billionaire, you can afford to be completely, uh, you can be rigid in your moral stance. Such a rigid moral code, which in our world is not the case. The richer one gets, the less moral one seems to become. Not in all cases, but, you know, you hear about [ __ ] everything that just happened to our economy in the last [ __ ] few years. All collapsed because a bunch of greedy [ __ ] wanted more money. And [ __ ], none of them are putting on masks and going out and beating up bad people. Scott, so at the end of the day, Bruce Wayne, Batman, you got yourself a moral example of a billionaire. That's that's once again, it's fiction. You know, it doesn't really. Right then and there, you should be able to divorce yourself from reality and be like, "This is impossible." Impossible because no billionaire would ever [ __ ] waste their time helping others 'cause you wouldn't. And they, they kind of touch that in the movie. Like, if you're not watching your money, it'll go away. Like, at one point in the flick, he loses all his money. Which one? In the new one? Dark Knight Rises. It's part of the plot. Well, they make him lose his money. Like, you know, it's part of the part of the breaking of the Bat, if you will. Gotcha. So Alfred has a moment early in the movie where, you know, he goes, um, "When you were, I didn't want you to come back to Gotham. In fact, once a year, I would take, while you were gone, I would take a vacation. Only one vacation. I'd go to this cafe somewhere in Europe and stuff, Italy or France, I forget. And I would sit down and I'd have this drink. Fancy pants drinks. Scott, not like a beer or something like that. Aperitif or something in one of those tiny glasses where he'd be like, 'How's that going to say to any thirst whatsoever?' Rich people drink." So he'd be like, "I'd be sitting here having this drink and I'd look over, size of, I'd look over and I'd see you." And he'd see, uh, Bruce. Essentially, he'd see Bruce. And they wouldn't talk. Um, they wouldn't have to. But he would just know that he would be happy. He's like, "I'd see you with a wife, or maybe some kids, and I'd know that you were happy." And that would be enough. Like, if he'd never come back to Gotham. When he left, when he jumped on the steamer, if Alfred had come across him in life and seen him, he wouldn't go bother him or harass him. He wouldn't need to talk to him. He would just be, would let him. He would be happy that he has that life." I'm gonna start crying. Um, he, so at the spoilers, dude. And again, we're jumping all over. At the end of the movie, and this is a big time [ __ ] spoiler. So very, very end. If you haven't seen The Dark Knight Rises, stop listening and don't listen to the rest until you do. Unless you're me. Yeah. Scott, I asked Scott. He's like, "I don't care." Like, I was like, "Scott, you sure you want this spoiled for you?" He was looking at me like I was like, "Scott, you sure you want to breathe air?" He was just like, "Of course, dude. I don't care." Uh, um, okay. So big time spoilers. A lot of people have, uh, theorized online that Batman was going to die. You see the trailers, and you know, Catwoman's just like, "You don't owe these people anything. You've given them everything." And he's like, "Not everything. Not yet." And you're like, "Oh my God, Nolan's going to do the impossible. He's literally..."

Going to crucify Batman for our sins. Yeah, like, oh my, nobody's ever thought about this. Nobody's ever thought about [ __ ] killing Batman. Even in *The Dark Knight*, the, the old Frank Miller work, *Dark Knight Returns*, uh, you know, Batman gets killed, and he's in the grave, and they're at the grave, and Clark is there, Clark Kent, Superman. And he's about to walk away, and all of a sudden, he hears boom, boom, one heartbeat. And he looks at, I'm going to cry about that too, such a beautiful moment in that book. And he looks at Carrie Kelly, who's the new Robin, and she looks [ __ ] caught. Where she's like, "Holy [ __ ]! Like, Superman just busted me." And then he rocks a little [ __ ]. Uh, what's his name? The artist, Kurt Swan. Superman with the smile and the [ __ ] spit curl kind of winks, yeah, lets her know that like, "All right, I know he's alive, but nobody say anything." Yeah. And then, you know, at the end of the book, you see him building a new army of Batman kids and [ __ ]. Like that, such a great book. So, in any event, even the great Frank Miller didn't kill Batman. You can't kill Batman. Now, who would dare?

And then, for a moment, we're all like, "Chris Nolan's gonna [ __ ] kill Batman." And when you're watching the movie, I'll be honest with you, when he [ __ ] gets to that beat, I was okay with it. Sounds so stupid. Scott's looking at me like, "You need help." It was beautiful, dude. If you're a Batman fan, when they get to the moment in the movie where you, I'll say this, I've seen a lot of people on Twitter talking about like, "I cried in the last 10 minutes." So I'm not going to be ashamed of [ __ ] crying here. But there's, which is not the last 10 minutes of the movie. I know. And ironically, I didn't even cry in the movie itself, but in reflecting on it, it's pretty damn beautiful. So, the three times you saw it? Yes. You didn't cry at first time. I got a little glassy, uh, but I was more like, [ __ ] standing for two hours. I was like, "My legs hurt." My legs. Batman saved me. I, my eyes were glassy, but I was also more [ __ ] thunderstruck that he was doing what he was doing, 'cause I was like, "Wow, this, this never occurred to me as the way that Batman would die." Spoilers, dude. And I'm not ranking on it, but this is the second movie this summer about a guy in a mask, a superhero who's a billionaire in real life. The third act of the movie is predicated on that billionaire removing a nuclear weapon from a city. Like, I'm not saying like, [ __ ] Nolan copied *Avengers*. Obviously not. They were working at the same time. I literally haven't seen *The Avengers* either, so I didn't know what you're talking about. As you can see, the most appropriate choice to speak to about movies going to be Scott Mo. At the end of *The Avengers*, spoilers, uh, Tony Stark, Iron Man, takes a nuclear type device out away from Earth to a different [ __ ] dimension and lets it go there. Dimension. Yeah, you got to see the movie. And honestly, like, when, if, as I hear myself say it, I'm like, "Dopey." But it works in the movie. The only thing I got complained about in that movie is the [ __ ] Loki pokey stick. Loki has a stick. I remember what you're talking about being really mad about it. Come on, dude. Touch a heart and you're like, "You're a bad guy." It's like such a five-year-old thing to do on the playground. Like, "Bang! You're it. You're a bad guy." But then people go like, "Hey man, if you're [ __ ] all for The Infinity Gauntlet, because at the end of *Avengers*, spoilers, there's a little tease of Thanos." Yeah, I saw. I've heard that. So if they're like, "If you're all about," and I was like, "Oh [ __ ], we're going to see The Infinity Gauntlet, man." They're like, "If you like the [ __ ] Infinity Gauntlet, then you got to like the Loki pokey stick, because it's the Mind Gem from the Infinity Gauntlet and that's why he can make people [ __ ] into bad guys." So they got me on a technicality. Loki poke stick seem very, you know, people that run my life got the anonymous folks of the internet. They almost got me, but I moved to the left. I was almost free, Scott. But they've got me.

Um, so that, so the movie ends. I mean, again, spoilers. And we're jumping around. The movie ends with Batman having to take this nuclear device, use his new Batwing type device, which they just call the Batplane, you've seen in the trailers, away from Gotham out to sea. You know, 'cause the bomb has a blast radius of six miles. There's a wonderful shot where he's [ __ ] going and and you ain't going to make it because the Bat, the Bat doesn't have autopilot. And there's a running thing throughout the movie where Lucius Fox is like, "I can't get the autopilot to work." Um, and he'd refrain crawled through. I'm going to say this five times and I don't know if it's going to come up later. I know. And it's woven in in such a way where you're like, "Boy, somebody better fix that autopilot. They keep mentioning this autopilot. Seems really important." And he says, like, at one point, he's just like, "You know, you're going to have to do it, Mr. Wayne." And then later on, there's a beat where he's just like, "Uh, you know, how's it fly?" And Bruce Wayne's like, "Pretty good, man. But, uh, you know, I can't get the autopilot is an autopilot, pretty much." So at the end of the movie, that come in handy. At the end of the movie, he hooks up the [ __ ] bomb that he's got to get out of Gotham, which is unstoppable time bomb. Um, uh, which to me has shades. There are shades of every Batman incarnation in this movie, including the Adam West Batman, 'cause it reminds you when he's running down the dock, docks with the bomb, with a time bomb, dude. So he hooks up the bomb and he's carrying it out of the city on, on his Batwing. Before he hooks it up, though, you know, he says, uh, "No autopilot." Somebody says something about like, "Hey man, you can take it out." And, "Hey, why don't you use the autopilot?" Yeah. He's like, "Why didn't I listen?" Every Lucius just said it like five times over the course of the last two weeks. Um, the autopilot's not fixed. So you're like, "If he's going out, he's going out. He's taking this thing out." Uh, to sea. This nuclear weapon. And you see him go out to sea. And you see the [ __ ] bomb go off. And you know, you don't, before you see that, there's a shot of him in the Bat, in the Bat. Again, [ __ ] spoilers, man. You can, you cannot be mad at me if I'm going to go into deep detail on this movie. You've been warned many, many times. Spoilers up the ass. Yeah. There's a shot where he's in the Bat, and they cut to Christian Bale, and it's really quite beautiful. And they're playing this kind of like, you know, music score goes way to more of an a cappella coral thing of heaven. This [ __ ] going to die music that you're kind of familiar with. Look, and I will say right now, the best feature of this movie, right up there, shoulder to shoulder with Tom Hardy, maybe even a little better than Tom Hardy, is Hans Zimmer's score. It is [ __ ] relentless. It is a fantastic score that just never [ __ ] stops. And it's the heartbeat of the movie. It's really, really [ __ ] good. Anyway, he got some kind of like, you know, like he's going to die kind of kid. Solo woman's Q singing, whatever. They cut to him. He's in the, you know, the front of the ship, flying. And he just has this look on his face of like, "All right, like contentment. Like [ __ ], he's ready." Yeah. Yeah. Because there's lots of talk throughout the movie, Scott, of like, he's got a death wish. Like Alfred, spoilers, leaves him because he's like, "I can't. I'm not going to watch you do this." He's like, "You're not Batman." Because he hasn't been Batman for so many years at that point. So I think they more got rid of Alfred because he would have been like, human bait. Like, "What do you do with him?" All throughout that storyline. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but, uh, I mean, just from a story point of view, because he would have weakened Batman. And plus, with everything that's going on, they would have killed Alfred as well. Yeah. And there's a lot of good reasons to get rid of Alfred plot-wise, but he leaves at a certain point. So there's, there's, uh, Batman. Anyway, he, he's, Alfred's talking to him throughout the movie a couple times, accusing him of having a death wish and [ __ ]. Like, "I'm afraid." "You know." Uh, Bruce Wayne's like, "What are you afraid? I can't beat him." And he's like, "I'm afraid you don't want to." You know? He's like, "You're afraid I'm not going to come back." He's like, "I'm afraid you don't want to come back." He's like, "You've just been sitting around for seven, eight years just waiting for [ __ ] to go bad." Yeah. Um, so in that moment, you know, and then also throughout the movie, like he gets, spoilers, he gets his back broken and [ __ ] and he has to rebuild himself. So, you know, he appreciates life a bit more. And they also, you know, lesson he learned. Turns in the, in the [ __ ] place where he's rehabilitating, the jail that Bane throws him into the hole in the earth. The old wise man next to him has been a prisoner for 50 years is, you know, like, "You must be afraid. How could you not be afraid? You cannot go further and fight. You cannot go faster if there is not fear of death." And so, you know, he teaches him to be afraid of death again. And that gives him the extra he needs to. 'Cause if you're not afraid of death, the philosophy is like, "What do you give a [ __ ]?" First thing he says to Bane after he's broken, when he wakes up, he says, "Why didn't you kill me?" So that's a dude who's clearly like, you know, "I was okay with it. You didn't have to keep me alive." You know what I mean? Like, "I fought my hardest and [ __ ] and whatever." But he learns to [ __ ] want life again and [ __ ] and not have a death wish. So in this moment where he's taking the nuclear weapon out over to sea, taking it away from Gotham to save his city, ultimately do what he's been trying to do for all three [ __ ] movies, he has this peace on his face that's not like, "Yeah, I can't wait to die [ __ ] this world," but just like, "All right, this makes sense. Like, this is, this is what I, my whole life was committed to saving Gotham, and this is the only way I could do it." And as previously mentioned, the autopilot doesn't really work on this vehicle. So, I guess this is the end for Batman. And then you see the blast. And then, you know, it's [ __ ]. Then you hear the eulogy and [ __ ] Jim Gordon is reading about, you know, the Batman at the grave of Batman. He's reading a, sounds like a piece from *A Tale of Two Cities*. "Far, far greater thing than I have ever done. A far, far greater rest that I go to than I have ever had." I believe that's from *A Tale of Two Cities*. It sounds to Kenzie, and I'm not sure. Should have looked it up. But Alfred comes back, and he's at the grave. And there's Bruce Wayne's grave. And it's right on the way in Manor Estate. Jim Gordon's there. Lucius Fox. This new cop who, you know, John Blake, just gets introduced in this movie. And somehow his [ __ ] allowed to go to the [ __ ] funeral. Me. Um, you know what I'm saying? And then Alfred, Alfred's come back. Little things like that. Alfred's sitting there. Everyone walks away after Jim Gordon reads the, uh, eulogy. And Alfred's crying at his, the parents' grave, going like, "I failed you. Like, you, you know, Cally, you left me your kid, and I failed you. He's laying here next to you. Can't keep a [ __ ] Wayne alive if you're Alfred Pennyworth." So the line, I think. So like, Al, can't get a break. [ __ ]. Right. He's leaning on the grave. Empty. He's [ __ ] pouring a 40 on their graves. "This is for the Waynes. Drain my Wayne, right? Sorry I couldn't keep them alive." This is the last 20 minutes. I tried. In honor of like, Chris Nolan was like, "In honor of, uh, you know, the great Michael Caine," he asked that he could improv. I live this scene. And so, you know, he's a legend, and he's getting up there in years. We're just going to leave the whole thing in. It's 20 minutes of him just [ __ ] ad-libbing. And [ __ ], he sings at one point. "Swan River." "Oh, I love you. Oh, I love you." Chris Nolan's like, "Oh man, oh man, that's a promise." "I wish I could take that." He's like, "I mean, I said I'd leave it in, but it wasn't like one of these vows that say Bruce Wayne made it his parents' grave." They're like, "You don't always have to refer to Batman, dude." He's like, "Yeah, I do. Yeah, I do. [ __ ]. I'm a billionaire because of Batman. People like Fat Smith talking about Batman. He ain't making a dime. Batman [ __ ] made me rich. Rich." Um, so anyway, Alfred, you know, talks about, "If I'd ever seen you at the cafe, I'd be, I wouldn't even say a word. I'd be happy." So after the death and after the funeral, they're doing wrap-up beats and [ __ ] like that. And Alfred's wrap-up beat. And then the score is playing underneath the Hans Zimmer, and it's a driving score because you're like, "Why are they? What are they driving towards?" Scott, 'cause the autopilot was clearly broken. It was clearly broken. Where could they be going with this? So as it's driving, you know, somebody like, "Beat the [ __ ] out of Lucius Fox. Piece of [ __ ]. If only you'd put a little more time in the autopilot. Work harder, huh? How about a little." He trusted you and put you in charge. Um, they, uh, there is a Lucius moment, Scott. Like, I'm not kidding. That ironically involves the autopilot. His moment is him talking to the, uh, some technicians in the, uh, uh, armory, you know, the division of Wayne Enterprises, off the record, you know, where the research and development, R&D wing, or whatever. So some guys are working on a similar Bat, because clearly it couldn't be the Batwing that Batman was in, because that was obliterated in a nuclear blast. But he's going over, his technicians are going over the tech. And, you know, Lucius is like, "Can you please check it again? I just want to know what I could have done different." You know, he's bereft. He's. And then one of the technicians goes, "But that's the thing, Mr. Fox. He's going." "It has a patch going back a few months." "It's fixed. Like the autopilot does work on these." And he goes, "What's the name on the patch?" "What do you think the name on the patch is, Scott?" "Who did the patch?" "It's a technical thing, like, you know, computers and [ __ ]." Yeah. Yeah. [ __ ] Bruce Wayne. So right then and there, I didn't want to let you guess because I was so excited. So right then and there, you're like, "Oh [ __ ]! Oh [ __ ]!" Scott, maybe the autopilot wasn't broken after all. And then the next shot, you see is Alfred sitting at that same cafe that he flashed back to when he was telling Bruce, like, "You know, I'd go there and I have this fancy drink and I'd imagine seeing you. And if I saw you with your wife or your kids or whatever, you know, I wouldn't need to go talk to you. I would just smile and I know that you were happy." Alfred sits. I'm going to cry again. Alfred sits down in the, in the cafe. Scott, this is, this is such a beautiful moment that like it erases, makes up for anything else that I got issues with. They're two moments in this movie where I'm like, "Thank you. You've, that is [ __ ] beautiful." This is one of them. Alfred's sitting down in the cafe. And again, I love this moment so much that I'm not even going to make a, you know, be like, "This is the moment from *Good Will Hunting*." Like, this is a good, this is the *Good Will Hunting* moment. If you've never seen *Good Will Hunting*, there's a moment where Ben Affleck is talking to Matt Damon's character, and he goes, uh, they're at the quarry at, at a, at a job site. Yeah. And he talks about, you know, "What my, my favorite part of my day is. The best few minutes of my day. He's like, when I'm walking up to your apartment and I knock on the door." He's going, "And for for a second, and you don't answer, I think maybe he just got the hell out of here. Maybe he's just gone, man." And I'm so happy he's going. But then you, you come out, and we go to work, and everything's fine. But for that one brief moment, I just, I'm happy because I think you got the [ __ ] out of here. I think you got away. I think you made something better in your life." That moment when I'm reading the *Good Will Hunting* script, that's what makes me cry on the toilet. I talk about like, you know, when we brought that script in the Miramax, I was reading it in the toilet. I came out of the toilet after two hours, turned to Scott, I was like, "I'm crying." I was like, "You got to read this." "I just pooped." "What happened in there?" Scott's like, "You never pooped before?" Yeah. "What do you think of the script?" So I come out and I'm like, "What? The moment that touched me the most is that's set up in the script, you know, where, uh, Ben says that, Chucky says that to Will. And then at the end of the movie, Will Hunting leaves. He never says goodbye to his friends. And they show, you know, Sean is like, he tells him a story about missing the [ __ ] famous game, the Red Sox, where Pudge caught, or blah, blah, blah, the ball. And he goes, "But I wasn't there." He goes, "Why not?" He's going, "Because I went to, I went to, I went to see about a girl." This woman he was in love with, who became his wife. So Sean comes out and opens his mailbox and sees the letter. And it's from Will, and it says, "I've gone to see about a girl." And, you know, Rob Williams has a really nice moment where he's like, "Son of a [ __ ] stole my line." Walks in the house. Really beautiful moment. And then the next thing you see is, or is either before that, right near that, it's my favorite moment in that script, is the one that made me call up Harvey Weinstein and and John Gordon be like, "You have to buy this movie as a screenplay." Chucky goes to pick up Will, as we've seen him do a few times in the movie. He goes to his house, and he knocks on the door. Here we go. So touching to me. Knocks on the door. He doesn't come out. And for a minute, it's probably my favorite performance of Ben Affleck in the world, that includes movies that I've made. He has this look on his face where he's so sad, so crestfallen, like he's like, "My friend is gone." But then he smiles and he heads back to the car. And he just goes back to life. He's like, "It's not here. I don't know where he is." And boom, it's gone. It is [ __ ] gorgeous. It is one of the most beautiful moments in cinema history. And I remember when we saw the movie, when we went to see *Good Will Hunting*, that was the only thing I cared about. I was like, "If he nails that moment, like if he nails that moment in the movie like the boys did in the script, this movie is going to make [ __ ] a billion dollars." It didn't, but it did make a l, made 100 million, but it wasn't a billion. But I remember we, me and Scott were sitting there at the DCA screening room, watching that first screening of *Good Will Hunting*. Yeah. Yeah. And that moment happens, and Gus Van Sant [ __ ] nailed it. And Ben's performance is pitch perfect. Pitch perfect. Why did we doubt it? That was the guy who wrote that moment. So of course it was going to play insanely well. But then Casey, and then it's like, that's when Casey's like, runs in to sit in his seat, which kind of like, but that wasn't in the script. But that's a Casey Affleck thing. Casey's very smart, really [ __ ] talented [ __ ]. Um, he throws this incredible face on where he's like, "Ah, like I got shotgun." Um, and then you get the idea that life goes on. They're going to go on without Will, center of their [ __ ] lives. So this moment is a mirror of that moment. I'm not going, he [ __ ] ripped it off. I'm just saying it's, it's a mirror of that moment. Alfred has set us up in early in the movie going, "If I'm in this cafe, I, this is my dream. This is my dream." So there we are at the end of the movie, dude. And I'm delighted 'cause I'm, this is where I get emotional 'cause I was like, "I can't believe, I can't believe I forgot." 'Cause I remember when he said it up front, I was like, "Oh, this is going to get paid off." But he does. Nolan does so much and throws so much at you throughout the movie, you've forgotten completely, misplaced it. But then when you see him in the cafe, I'm like, "No, no. Oh, this is going to be amazing." And he sits down, and it's a replay of the thing he talked about earlier in the movie. And then finally, he locks eyes. And Michael Caine is an amazing actor. Yeah. So his performance says it all. And what his performance and his face, got, what it says is the size of a dang. No, I was laughing 'cause you're like, "He's an amazing performer." I just flash back to him singing "Swan River." And that's where the 20 minutes begins. He conveys it on his face, and the score, of course, is behind him. And what he conveys on his face, literally could have been enough. You could have went to credits right there, 'cause you were like, "You didn't need to cut to what he said." "Saw you. Saw you." You know what they, what he saw. But he does. He cuts to what he saw. And I'll be honest with you, I was not unhappy about that. It was wholly satisfying. He could have, he could have left it the other way. That was more like the end of *Remember the Titans*. The end of *Monster's Inc.* where Sully opens the door. I get old lady about movies. I get, I get like my mom about movies. Sully opens the door, and you see his face light up, and you hear the voice of Boo. Yeah. You could have done that. See, you're getting glassy. It's [ __ ]. That's a powerful moment 'cause the relationship between Sully and and Boo in that movie is beautiful. Just absolutely beautiful. So his face lights up. You know, Pixar, the genius is Pixar can light up a [ __ ]. Yeah. And make him look happy. That's what they do best. All those characters generally, Scott, seem happy, except when they're racing toward flames and about to die. In [ __ ] 2023, and even then, they seem resolute. They all hold hands and [ __ ]. I'm going to cry again. The end of every movie. Can't stop crying. It's the weed. Scott. It's got to be the weed, man. Um, in any event, Kane is not a Pixar character, Scott, as you know. I know. But his ability as a performer to light up, to convey what, what's on the, what he's looking at, sells it. You immediately know, "Holy [ __ ], he's." But you could have went to credits and had it a little more artsy and been like, you know, left it for anybody. Yeah. His look could say to you that Bruce Wayne is still alive. Or you're like, "Well, if they don't show him, Bruce Wayne, it could go either way." Because he was involved in a [ __ ] nuclear blast. But wa, get, we, we did hear that the autopilot cut first, somehow. But he cuts to him, and it's a shot of Bruce Wayne. And he's sitting with, again, spoilers, man. If you're this deep and you're not, you're still [ __ ] listening, seen the movie, shame on you. Uh, he's sitting there with Selena Kyle, who throughout the movie, she wants to get away. She wants to start over. Her whole arc is about trying to find this technology that would pull her off the grid so she can get a clean start and [ __ ]. 'Cause she's got a record and blah, blah, blah. Master jewel thief. And other things. They alluded to other things. She says something like, "I did, I, you know, at a young age, I did what I had to. And when you do what you have to, they'll never let you do what you want to." Which I really tried to pull apart many times, going like, "Is that true?" And I guess I think about these things a little too hard. I thought about the other movie too, like in *The Dark Knight*. I remember when I saw the trailer, I got into a back and forth with it with people on Twitter. The line that always bugged me was, "You either die a hero or you see yourself live long enough to become the villain." And I, that always bugged me because I'm like, "Well, they got Harvey Dent saying it, and we all know that Harvey Dent is going to become the villain." So that seems a little on the nose. But it is actually a pretty good line. You know, it's in reference to, they talk, they reference Caesar in the scene about like how he went from being a hero to living long enough to become a villain. So I, I remember being caught up on that on that line a little bit. Um, and this movie, I was caught up a little bit on the line. What's her line again? Which one? Oh, she goes, "Once you've done what you had to do, they'll never let you do what you want to do." And I'm not saying that like all the dialogue's got to be fantastic. It is like a Batman movie. I mean, there are moments like this movie again, this, I'm all thumbs up on this movie. I'm a big fan. But I, I'll, I'll tell you little things that like, both lines are sweeping generalizations to say that no person has ever [ __ ] stayed a hero. Pretty much. I guess [ __ ] out Shepherd. And I get lost on the, I get lost. I hit it like a speed bump where suddenly I'm not paying attention to the movie because I'm going like, "Is there truth in this?" Like turning away with my hand in my, in my face, in my hand, my fingers on my chin, like The Thinker, going like, "Is this truth?" Um, but, but she, uh, wants to get away, and she eventually gets away too. With him. They don't like, cut to her where she looks around and turns and sees him. And [ __ ], she's just there in the foreground, but soft, a little bit, because we're tight on Christian Bale, Bruce Wayne. Yeah. And I'll be honest with you, I, as much as you could have ended on Alfred, the fact that Bruce Wayne, like, is sitting there smiling, I swear to God, I get emotional about it. I'm like, "Finally, somebody gave this [ __ ] a happy ending." This guy should, somebody took him to a Thai massage parlor. It's always ill for this dude. Every movie ends with like, uh, "If [ __ ] goes wrong again, I guess I'll come back." Here's a big spotlight. But I don't know if you guys realize this, but I did lose my parents. I'm very sad. So please limit the amount of, uh, time that you use me when I'm not Batman. I'm sad, man. Yeah, I'm really, I'm blubbery, man. I'll be honest with you. I cry more than Fat K. Smith, but I got a reason to believe that. So I got real [ __ ] emotional thinking about it because I'm like, "Finally, this dude gets a break." Like the way they end it, he don't ever have to come back. He can go live his life. He saved the city. Like, really, those three movies kind of become about Bruce Wayne trying to save Gotham primarily from [ __ ] the League of Shadows. You know what I mean? In the middle, the Joker tries to take everything down. But, um, it's, it's bookended by Ra's al Ghul. It's bookended by. So he's, he's, he comes back. Like, but, but again, spoilers. [ __ ]. I'm tired of saying spoilers, man. You just got to know. Well, if you're going to, how are you going to talk about the movie without talking about the movie? Absolutely. Well, some people want you to be general. Like, you could talk about it without going into detail. So, Batman is in a city. Yeah. I'm like, "So Batman wins." "What do you think of that, Scott?" You're like, "Well, predictable." Um, he's in it. Liam Neeson appears as a vision to Bruce Wayne when he's recuperating from being getting the [ __ ] down by Bane. And so you're so, so Bane is part of the League of Shadows. Gotcha. Does Bane inflate? No. That's the other thing. They don't do the version of Bane in the comics. Bane is hopped up on Venom, and he can like slap this thing on his chest and he gets more Venom in his system. So he gets roided out. It's like a super steroid. And [ __ ] in this version of the story, Bane wears this mask, which apparently, uh, masks or or lessons, whatever pain he received from, he was a victim of a, what sounds a little bit like not leprosy, but there was a plague in the prison, and then he was torn apart by [ __ ] other prisoners when they were trying to get at, uh, this, this other person. So this other person, young, a young prisoner. Um, so the intimation is they tore his [ __ ] face apart, and under the mask, the mask holds him together and dulls the pain. Because when Batman finally, I don't know why it [ __ ] figured him, took him this long to figure it out, when Batman finally starts attacking motherfucker's face, piece and loosens like these things that look like they have gas in them or something like that, you could see he starts getting hit. So the idea, they never say it, but the idea sort of like, numb to pain, you just can't feel. Yes. That's the idea that I got. Now, they don't say that, and it's never [ __ ] clarified, but it's inferred. What's in, what I got out of it is because of this [ __ ] juice. I mean, number one, he's just a big dude anyway. He's pretty strong, and he's been trained, just like Bruce, by the League of Shadows. Like, I'm, my point, he, like both members of the League of Shadows, while they're fighting, he's so [ __ ] good in the fight scene, it's nuts. And the fight scene is played without score, so it's just brutal. Um, but he, the intimation I think is that this mask is constantly not making him high, but it's, it's like a morphine or something. Yeah. Yeah. So 'cause Batman's punching the [ __ ] out of him in his face, and he barely kind of shows any reaction. So that would work for me if they're like, "Not only is the mask dulling pain, it makes him kind of like, he don't [ __ ] feel pain." Add to it, he's also very strong and powerful. He can kick anybody's ass. So his, uh, his mask thing is really [ __ ] reminiscent of *Star Wars* of Darth Vader. Yeah. That moment with Alfred is very reminiscent of that of the *Good Will Hunting* moment. Yeah. And I'll be honest with you, and then this is not a knock whatsoever, but the overall plot of Batman and Bane is very reminiscent of another third movie in a trilogy, *Rocky 3*. Because there's a story about Batman, T Bane is Clubber Lang, kind of like Batman has not been Batman for a while, and he's gotten a little soft, you know? And when he finally gets back in the game, he's not nearly ready. And and Michael Caine, Alfred is kind of like a Mickey character going like, "You can't win against this guy, Rock." You know, he's looking at video of him going, "Look at the ferocity. Look at, you can't meet this man. You're no longer the Batman." Like this guy, he's working off special sauce that you ain't got. And you know, Christian Bale, Bruce Wayne is just like, you know, "You don't think I could do it? I've saved the city before. You know, I beat Ra's al Ghul. I could beat this guy." Little too confident. Faces Bane gets beat the [ __ ] out of. A wonderful sequence. I'm not, again, not a Bane fan. And I wasn't even one of these guys going, "I hope the Bane breaks the bat in this movie." A lot of people online were like, "He better [ __ ] break Batman's bat like Bane did in the comics." I didn't care. I was, and I'm not like, I'm not looking forward to the fight scene. I don't give a [ __ ] about that. I like Batman, but Bane is not my thing. Tom Hardy, Chris Nolan made Bane my thing. At least this version of Bane. The fight scene with them is is spectacular. And it's just a series of dudes beating the [ __ ] out of each other, or one dude beating the, trying to beat the [ __ ] out of another dude, another dude taking it, and then just [ __ ] killing the other guy. And then he does break. Spoilers. He breaks his [ __ ] back. I can't tell you, dude. I wasn't looking forward to that. I didn't even like that in the comics when they did it in the *Nightfall* storyline. And [ __ ], they did it so well in the movie. I was like, "This is fantastic. Like, this is, I can't believe I wasn't looking forward to this." What else is there to look forward to other than [ __ ] Batman fighting Bane? And they do it. And they do it well. And it's [ __ ] tight, man. The brutal, again, no score. It's stark. It plays like a [ __ ] indie film. First fight. Uh, the first fight. Second fight is something out of a movie 'cause it's them surrounded by thousands of cops and thousands of, uh, Bane's army, fist fighting. First, there's some guns, and then for some reason, everyone's fist fighting in the streets. Um, and on the steps of, I don't know what that is, the courthouse or something like that. But what's cool about that sequence is there's some flurries going on. There's just a m, it just looks like *Lawrence of Arabia*. There's just bodies everywhere. It looks like *Gandhi*. Doesn't look like the days of CG, like, you know, *Lord of the Rings* where if you look very closely, you could be like, "I don't think all these people are really people. They may be video iterations of one another or S, you know, computer graphic." This is clearly hundreds of [ __ ] thousands of people. Yeah. Fighting. And they're using real extras and [ __ ] like that. And in the midst of it, you see Batman and Bane looking for each other, like through the smoke and [ __ ] like hitting people when they have to, but trying to get to one another. Such a badass moment. Except in the dialogue afterwards, leaves a little bit desired. Like Bane goes, "So you've returned to die with your city." And Batman goes, "No." He goes, "So you came back to die with your city?" And Batman goes, "No, I came back to stop you." Come on, dude. Like, I'm not saying like, just one more draft. Be, Batman's way more clever than that. In fact, no line is necessary. Just, "Oh, you came back to die with your city?" Punch that [ __ ] in the mouth. And go, "You don't need a [ __ ] line there." But these are quibbles, believe me. I'm not going like, "And because of this, the movie is no." The movie's wonderful. Everyone should go out and see it in a theater. Uh, if you can see it in IMAX, it's [ __ ] massive on the big screen. So when I talk about this, I'm talking about quibbles. But anyway, he fights Bane, loses, just like Rocky lost to Clubber Lang. Then Rocky got to retrain. Scott, the whole movie, he's training with, with, uh, Carl Lewis? No, not Carl. Yeah, Carl. Carl Weathers. Carl Lewis. God, 1984. He, uh, he's training with, uh, with, uh, Apollo Creed. Yeah. And even in the Apollo Creed training montage, there's multiple attempts at racing down the beach. You know, first time Rocky and and Apollo are racing down the beach because it's tough to run on sand, as they taught us in *Rocky 3*. I don't know, because why would you ever run on sand? A fat manes. Um, I guess for health purposes. They're racing. He can't win. See him again, race him, getting closer, doesn't quite win. By the end of the montage, Scott, you better believe that Rocky laps Apollo Creed. And then jumping around in the water and [ __ ]. "I did it!" And everyone's going crazy and [ __ ]. In this movie, it's three attempts to get out of the jail after the Bane, after Bane breaks Batman's back, he goes out and some [ __ ] happens. But then the next time we pick up his storyline, Bruce Wayne, he's being dropped into the same pit that Bane grew up in, in some other country. Um, it's a pit that like, you can't get out of. It's a, a hole. Looks like a giant well, similar to the well that he fell down when he was a kid. Um, but very big mouth, very wide mouth, and the prison is down below. So this prison is horrible, the worst place on Earth, Scott, because it creates despair because it gives people hope every day. They look up, they're like, "I wonder if I can get out of that [ __ ]. If I could just climb up, I'm out." That's it. There are no guards or anything like that. So the fact that their people have hope makes them even more [ __ ] sad when [ __ ] they can't do anything. Because there's a little bit of hope, and if you take all hope away, they're just always sad. But a little bit of hope, and you crush that hope, it's even worse. So forth and so on. Yeah. So he's got to try to get out of this jail. First, he's got to fix his back, which is another thing I got a little issue with. We pick up the story eight years after *The Dark Knight*, and Bruce Wayne has a limp. He's walking with a cane. He's got a bum leg, apparently from the fall that he took with Harvey Dent at the end of *The Dark Knight*. So eight years later, this dude's still walking with a limp after, you know, whatever happened. And you, dude's got billions of dollars, so obviously get a new leg. But he doesn't. So it must be some permanent damage. Well, when he decides to become Batman again, he puts on this electronic high-tech leg brace, Scott, that makes him walk normal again, and makes him be able to kick walls and break bricks and [ __ ] like that. So eight years, you, you, you're kind of limping. One day, you finally put on the leg brace, everything's totally copacetic. Then someone breaks your back in battle. Yeah. Throws you in a well. Throws you in a [ __ ] well. And within two months, three months, four months max, he was able to recuperate, and the limp ain't even there. Even though he's in jail, even though he's in this jail, he doesn't have his electronic [ __ ] magic knee brace on anymore. The knee, the leg somehow healed itself. 'Cause you, the back is w, I mean, look, we got to take, take little leaps of, yeah, of belief, you know, in certain areas and whatnot. But I don't think, but I honestly didn't feel like the limp was necessary. Yeah. Like, I'm watching the whole first section of the movie, and again, I've seen it three times. I'm like, "It's eight years later, man. You literally didn't have to do the limp at all." Um, I didn't know what benefit there was to it. There was a cool scene though with a doctor where the doctor just lists his maladies. You can probably see in one of the TV spots. I think it's in TV spot 12. And it's, I think the dude's name is Thomas Lennon. Dude who's from *Reno 911*. And he's just going up, he's putting up an X-ray and he's just like, "Well, I've seen worse cartilage in legs and knees." And Bruce Wayne's like, "Is that good?" He goes, "No, that's bad. There's no cartilage in yours. Bone on bone." And he starts listing all these maladies. "You constant concussive behavior in your brain and bruised kidneys and blah, blah, blah." And he's going, "Based on this, I cannot recommend that you go heli-skiing this weekend, Mr. Wayne." And then he leaves. Uh, so there's D, like they play the fact that this dude has been beat the [ __ ] up, man, in a big bad way. Um, and then he goes to visit Jim Gordon in jail because Jim Gordon was attacked by Bane's army and [ __ ]. So it just, it seemed weird like there was no good reason for him to have that limp still. And because it just seems like as a storyteller, you got the limp, and then you magically take the limp away with, you know, "I'll go with you with the magic leg brace." Yeah. But then when you're in the prison, you ain't got no magic leg brace. You know, you got a broken back, but somehow the back can heal, and the [ __ ] leg goes back. You know, a little [ __ ] like that. Whatever. But again, ain't going to [ __ ] ruin the movie. It's just one of those logic things. Yeah, tiny. Um, the third act, of course, he comes back and beats the [ __ ] out of Clubber Lang, just like Rocky did in *Rocky 3*. So there is that kind of, you know, and everyone will be like, "Well, that's the structure of many classic stories and movies and stuff." But this one particularly, like, I mean, I've been a Batman fan my whole life. I never really get the whole Batman got soft. Like in the *Nightfall* storyline where Bane is introduced and breaks Batman at the end of it, it's all about Batman, "Bless you, Gotham is gone [ __ ] nuts. Arkham is all the asylum lunatics have been released." So he's got to fight everyone in his rogues' gallery, and then finally face Bane. And he's [ __ ] [ __ ] tired and [ __ ] broken already. And so that Bane has the with the drugs as well, that's the only way you could get the [ __ ] jump on Batman. So as a Batman fan, the notion of Batman went soft, like, H, that doesn't play well with me at all. But again, it's a movie. It's different than the comics. And their reality of the Batman world is a, is a reality. It's so [ __ ] reality-based with the exception of the magic knee brace and [ __ ] like that. Um, so you could see other movies in it. And again, I'm not saying it's [ __ ] ripped off, but you can definitely see. And if you're going to like, [ __ ] homage something or be like, "Hey, I like the structure of this," do [ __ ] that worked, man. Like people like *Rocky 3*. So, um, you know, in a story where B, Batman, we've seen two Batman movies where physically he's rarely ever beaten. Yeah. This was.

The movie where it's all about just physically beating the [ __ ] out of him and whatnot and then having him [ __ ] rebuild himself, that's a reason to get rid of Alfred too. Because Alfred would be looking for him in all this time that he's been gone. And Alfred leaves at a certain point. He leaves. He's just like, he's like, he's the only well, he tells him at the end of Dark Knight, remember the uh Rachel Dawes who was killed by the Joker in a blast? She had written a letter to Bruce Wayne saying, like, "I, I don't want to be with you. I choose Harvey. You know, there's a future with Harvey. I, you know, I'll always love you, but like, I'm going to be with Harvey now." And so she left that for Bruce. But then, you know, uh, she got killed. And Alfred, they show Alfred burn the letter because he's like, "I'm never gonna give it to Bruce because he don't need this. He's in utter misery that she's already dead. Does he really need to know that she didn't want him, that she wanted Harvey Dent instead?" So Alfred plays that card.

Finally, Batman's getting back into the swing of things. Bruce Wayne is going back out in the world. He comes back from his first, like, big night out and [ __ ]. And Alfred's giving him a hard time about like, you know, "Look, man, you just, Lucius, all I see is a bunch of footage. You run around a bunch of new toys, get by Lucius Fox, making the cops chase you and [ __ ] like that. Like, you're not Batman anymore. You're too old for this. Like, [ __ ], let you help the city in another way. Be Bruce Wayne. Be, help with your resources, your intelligence, but like, not your body. You don't need to do this. They have the cops for this sort of thing." He's like, "The cops aren't getting it done, man." [ __ ] "Do what I say." I for obviously it's more noble than that. Um, and then that's when Alfred's like, "Look, man, I'll do this." He, he says, "Get this data at Lucius to find out what they, they were doing."

Bane and some of his thugs break into the Wall Street Stock Exchange and, you know, they start pirating software and [ __ ] doing some trades. There's one guy on the floor who's like, "There's no, there's no money here. This is a stock exchange. There's no money you can steal here at the stock exchange." And Bane's just like, "Oh, really? And why are you people here?" Like, he just has real cool lines like that. Um, so they leave. They're, what the program they're running? Scott is, they're, they got Bruce Wayne's fingerprints. That's how Selena Kyle gets into it. Um, they got his fingerprints. And so they do all these terrible trades so that he loses all his [ __ ] money. So they take his money away. And then piece by piece, kind of dismantle his life.

But let's go back to the beginning. Yeah, there are recognizable elements from other movie movies, but this movie is, uh, completely its own [ __ ] flick. You ain't never seen a movie like this. They take a comic book movie, turn it into an epic, dude. It's like, there's a comic book superhero movie in there, but an earnest one in the style of Chris Nolan. Then there's a [ __ ] disaster movie in there, as [ __ ] Gotham literally falls into disaster. Things blowing up, [ __ ] bridges, scope, massive things. Yeah. Uh, then there's a war movie in there as well. Like, it's, it's big. You ain't never seen a movie this ambitious. I know a lot of people would be like, "Hey, Avengers was big." Yeah, but Avengers plays like a big comic book. And I'm not saying that in a dismissive way. That's what it should be. It's big and colorful and it plays like a comic book. This movie, I, I plays plausible. I know it sounds ridiculous because he's flying around a plane between buildings and [ __ ], but it, it every piece of it is, is played very earnestly and very straightforward and very like, "Yeah, this works. This works."

I mean, sure, there's some [ __ ]. They create the device of this, uh, fuel, pure energy, pure fuel, energy-efficient fuel, energy device that's going to power Gotham. But the problem is, a Russian scientist figured out that with a few modifications, that could be turned into a [ __ ] four-kiloton, megaton weapon. Yes. So Bruce Wayne decides never to use the machine. And he's involved with an investment company run by this woman, Miranda Tate. She put a lot of money into it. But he's like, "I'm sorry, I can't let it be used and stuff." She keeps trying to meet up with him.

At the beginning of the movie, because Bruce Wayne, after the opening sequence that you know, the Bane sequence on the plane where he steals this dude, Dr. Pav, and you meet Bane for the first time. And Tom Hardy is tits. That voice is [ __ ] astounding. Have you seen the opening sequence? It's [ __ ] dope, dude. It's like, has nothing to do with Batman whatsoever. It's the dude who played, uh, uh, go [ __ ], what was his name? The guy that ran for mayor in The Wire, Calcutti or something like that. Yeah, yeah. He's the CIA agent. And they're trying to get this Dr. Pav out of, of where, wherever they are. And there's two other guys with hoods, some prisoners. And he's like, "Who are these guys?" And he's like, "We caught them trying to steal Dr. Pav." He's like, "They work for the mercenary in the mask." And he's like, "Bane." He's like, "Get them on a plane." So they bring the guys on the plane. And then they've got bags on their heads. And so, uh, he opens, has his men open the plane door. He's got soldiers with him. And [ __ ], there are like 10 people on the plane or whatever. And he's like, "The manifest calls for me, the soldiers here, Dr. Pav, and one other. That means one of you has to go." And he's laying them down. And he has the gun. They can't see 'cause the bag's on, but clearly they can understand the door's been opened and they're being hung out of the [ __ ] plane. So they're torturing him, kind of, to get information. So the guy's got the gun and he blasts it near his head. And he's going, "Tell me about Bane. Why does he wear the mask?" And the dude doesn't say anything. And then he pretends that he threw him out for the other guy in the plane who has a bag. And said he goes, "He's going to, let's see if he can fly or some such [ __ ]." And then they grab the next guy and throw him. Like, hold him out the window. And they're calling, asking questions about Bane again. He's like, "A lot of loyalty for a hired gun." And then you just hear the voice going, "But perhaps he's wondering why you would shoot a man before throwing him out of a plane." And it's a voice that doesn't sound like it belongs in the environment at all, 'cause it sounds like an old, posh, fuddy-duddy British man. And they go over and pull, like, pull off the dude's mask. And it's Bane. He goes, "If I take that off, will it hurt?" And he goes, "Uh, it would be extremely painful." And he goes, "You're a big guy." And he goes, "For you."

And then another plane appears, a bigger plane, a cargo plane, over the plane that these guys are on. And so, uh, Bane explains. He's like, "You know, we had to find out what Dr. Pav told you and, and blah, blah." He's explaining like why they're there. And the doctor's like, "I didn't tell them anything." And the guy, the CIA agent, is like, "Well, did you? Was he, goes, part of your brilliant plan getting caught?" He goes, "Of course." And then they, uh, the, you could see the other plane [ __ ] on cables are rocketing out with the back of the other plane. Like, and it's beautiful aerial photography, man. I mean, I don't know how much of it is, some obviously some CG involved somewhere, but look, a lot of it looked [ __ ] practical. It's spellbinding. It's shot in IMAX, uh, so it looks fantastic. It gives you the feeling of like, "This is [ __ ] up. You've never seen something like this before." So these guys are like skydiving out on cables and approaching the other plane. And so, um, the, the, the CIA guy is just like, "Well, what's next? What's the next part of your plan?" And Bane's like, "Crashing this plane." And the [ __ ] just attack the plane, blow open the windows, shooting everybody inside. And they attach cables to the side of the [ __ ] plane. And then all of a sudden, the bigger plane goes higher, taking the other plane up. And the other plane can't fly and just starts dangling. Suddenly it's hanging like a puppet. Its wings blow off and [ __ ]. So you're inside the plane. He does that kind of Inception [ __ ]. Yeah, yeah. I mean, but it's more practical. Inception was in a dream world, but like, he's shooting people hanging and floating in the air. It's, it's surreal. It looks [ __ ] cool. And then they hook up, uh, this Dr. Pav guy to a corpse that they brought in and give him a quick blood transfusion. So Pav's blood is in this dude's body. And there's another guy who was the co-prisoner that was caught with him. Bane is putting on a harness. They're putting a harness on Dr. Pav to get him out of there. And then the other guy goes, "Put on a harness." He's like, "No, brother. No." He goes, "No, they'll be looking for one of us in the wreckage, brother." 'Cause, like, a kind of cult mentality. So the guy just kind of goes, "Cal." Gives him back the rope. And he goes, "Have we started a fire?" And he goes, "Yes. The fire rises." And then he hooks up himself with Dr. Pav. And he goes, "Uh, what is, don't, he's, this isn't the time to fear. That comes later." And he presses this button. [ __ ] cables give out and the plane drops. And he's just holding on to this one cable with Dr. Pav. And boom. The guy and his people, the dead bodies, the CIA people, as well as the guy who was in collusion with one of the, one of the League of Shadows, I wouldn't say members, but one of Bane's army. He goes down to [ __ ]. Fantastic opening scene. It, it plays again. Had nothing to do with Batman, but it's just [ __ ] spooky. This dude in the face gear, the way he's talking. You get the Han Zimmer score right away. That is my favorite Han Zimmer piece in the entire movie. It's called "The Fire Rises." Um, it's, it's so [ __ ] tension-ridden. The whole time you're like, "What the [ __ ] is going on? What is somebody help this guy?" Like, you get so wrapped up in it. And then you don't see Bane for a little bit again, but every time you see him, it's amazing.

We come to a Gotham, Scott, where Bruce Wayne hasn't been Batman in eight years. Since the, he's living, he's still living at Wayne Manor. And there's a big event happening at Wayne Manor celebrating Harvey Dent Day. And Wayne Manor has been rebuilt. In Batman Begins, it was destroyed by Ra's al Ghul and the League of Shadows. In, back in The Dark Knight, he was living at Wayne Tower instead. Now he's back at the Manor. And it looks pretty much like it did in Batman Begins. And he doesn't come to the party. And everybody's talking about him at the party going like, "Wayne hasn't been seen in one of these events in years. He's, you know, kind of like talking about him being like Howard Hughes. Like this guy, dag, who's trying to take control of Wayne Enterprises. Like everybody knows that he's got eight-inch nails and he's peeing in mason jars and stuff like that." He's talking to Miranda Tate, who's trying to see Bruce Wayne about this clean energy project that he shut down years prior. But Bruce Wayne won't be seen by anybody. You see Alfred again. Um, and Alfred gives a, whole staff is there in the kitchen. And he's looking for someone in particular who's not there. So he says to this one serving girl or whatever, chick wearing black and white. And he's like, "Take this tray to the east wing. Open the door with this key. Put the tray on the table. And then leave." You know, that's it. So she brings the tray up there. Puts on the tub. You see that shot in one of the first trailers. Um, they're kind of pushing in toward the tray of food. So while she's there, she's looking at what are clearly personal artifacts. Very few of a Bruce Wayne. And she sees a picture of his parents that's like left over from the fire. It's burned from when the mansion went down. And, um, then the next time you see her, you know, they cut to something else. And then she's looking at an archery set, some arrows. And it's hit by another arrow. And she freaks. Anne Hathaway did a really good job. Like, I could care less about Anne Hathaway going into this movie. People were like, "I, a halfway Catwoman." And I've seen her in some stuff. Some stuff I liked. I really liked her in Rachel Getting Married. Um, some stuff in, Devil Wears Prada, some [ __ ]. I could care less. But I thought she did a really good job, man. She's like a good actress. Really cool. Like, like I was impressed. And not just like she was a good Catwoman. She's a really good actress. So she's, uh, there with Bruce Wayne. And and she's suddenly wearing pearls. And he's kind of like, "Those look very familiar to a pair of my mother's pearls that I have in the safe right here." That the manufacturer told me was, you know, nobody could was unbreakable, uncrackable. You know? And she's, the whole time she's playing like, "Can I help you, Mr. Wayne?" And the servant. And finally she cracks. And she's like, "Oops." You know? And she's, and they play this little kind of Catwoman score behind her, this piano score. And so he's on the cane. And she's like, "Look, you wouldn't beat up a girl." "The same way I wouldn't beat up a [ __ ]." And she knocks his cane out. And he falls down. She jumps up to the window. And she's like, "Good. Mr. Wayne." She flips out the window. And boom. And he kind of lets her go. And then when he's talking to Alfred later on, he figures out that there's some dust on the safe. She didn't just steal the pearls. And the pearls, he's not worried about 'cause there's a tracking device on them. He said there's some fingerprint dust on the safe. She was dusting for prints. So boom, the mystery starts beginning.

And then there's a lot. I'll be honest with you. The opening sequence, thank God it's as tits as it is, man. The [ __ ] Bane sequence. And it's like, 68 minutes long, whatever it is, because Batman, you don't see Batman in the outfit. You don't see Batman himself for about 30 minutes into it. There's a lot of buildup to the return of Batman because he's been gone all this time. You meet a young cop, uh, played by Joe Gordon-Levitt, named John Blake, who's like, seems very interested in Batman history. And quizzes Commissioner Gordon on the rooftop about what happened that night eight years ago when Batman, you know, killed Harvey Dent and whatnot. He's like, "Didn't make sense to you, did it?" He's going, "He just helps a city and then suddenly turns on and blah, blah, blah." And you could tell Commissioner Gordon is still like, partial to the Batman. Yeah. So this kid's threaded throughout the whole movie. He's in it a bunch. And does one of the most irritating things. And again, I'm a big fan of this movie, but like, I don't know why, but every time they make a Batman movie, everybody's got to know who [ __ ] Batman is. Like this guy goes to meet Bruce Wayne at one point. And he sits down. And you know, he's like, uh, the commissioner, you know, is kind of hoping Batman would come back or something. Like, Commissioner Gordon's been shot. He's in the hospital. Yeah. Um, you know, we need the Batman to come back. And he's just like, "I, and, and that's you, essentially." He says, "I know you're Batman." And he tells the story about how he knows he's Batman. And, you know, it's like, "I guess you could be like, wow, what a master detective he is. He was a boy from an orphanage, St. Swin, who lost, he lost his mom in a car accident or something like that to drink. And then he lost his dad in a car accident or vice versa. So he was an orphan. He's raised there. And Bruce Wayne, of course, is the world's most famous orphan, billionaire orphan. Um, and so he came to visit St. Swin when he was a kid. And he said he knew just by looking at Bruce Wayne that he was Batman because, 'I know the pain he's going through. Everyone wants you to smile and get over it, you know, it's tragedy in your life and stuff, but you know, we can't, we can't let it go.' And he's going, 'I just mask up. I just smile. And that's how I learn to deal with it and give people what they want.' He's going, 'But I saw you and I recognize. I, I knew.' Well, the, he goes, 'The moment I looked at you, I knew.' And come on, you know what I'm saying? I mean, I, all [ __ ] hats off to Joe Gordon-Levitt. Did a really nice performance on that [ __ ] monologue and whatnot. But is it that serious? That easy to figure out who Batman is? It hasn't been ever in the comics that easy to figure out who Batman is. Somebody who was like, 'Every orphan in the world, just like he's Batman.' Yeah. You know who Batman is? An orphan like us. It's, it's just, I don't know. It's a tiny thing, but it's, it's a huge [ __ ] plot point, dude. Where this dude comes to Wayne Manor and tells Bruce Wayne like, 'I know you're Batman and Batman should come back.' And then leaves. And then Batman does come back. So suddenly there's this now this cop that knows that Bruce Wayne is Batman, which he figured out all on his own. And [ __ ]. But don't you worry, because that cop, he's going to be a central figure. There's only one way that Bruce Wayne could ever go live happily ever after if he knew that someone would be around to protect Gotham instead. So the whole movie, Scott, they're leaving pieces. Spoilers. Huge [ __ ] spoilers. That this dude could be the next Batman. In fact, I mean, look, I won't even be precious about it. The last image of the movie, after you see Bruce Wayne smile at Alfred, is this kid. You're given, you know, Bruce Wayne's will is being read. And this kid winds up. He goes into, uh, the Wayne offices. And I said, "You have something for John Blake?" And she's like, "No, not on this list." And he's like, "I guess maybe you have to use my legal name." And he gives her a license. She goes, "Oh, yeah. Here. This is your package." And she goes, "You should use your real name. It's really, it's, it's pretty." She goes, "You should use your, you got a nice name. You should use it." Uh, and she says his name. She goes, "Robin." That's his name. I was getting a little, I don't even know why that made me for a second. I was getting a little emotional because in the movie I was like, "Oh man, like that's why couldn't it been Dick Grayson? Like, why could in a world where it's like, John Blake is clearly not your name because we wanted to mislead the audience, but your real name apparently is." It could have just been Dick Grayson. But the idea is he's, he's not gonna, you know, they're this is not the comic. Scott, they do like to do their own thing. And I guess the poet, poet, you know, the poetry of the moment is if Joe Gordon-Levitt does indeed go on in the reality of this movie, not in [ __ ] sequels and [ __ ], yeah, but if he does go on and assume the mantle of the Bat, then he is both Batman and Robin. Yeah, yeah. Kind of sweet, but unnecessary for a comic book fan. You just wanted him to say Dick Grayson so badly. You just wanted to be like, "The moment she was like, 'You should,' he goes, 'We'll see if it's under my legal name.' You're like, 'Oh God, you're like, Dick, Dick, Dick. I hope I see so much Dick on that screen in a minute. It's like pornography. Oh, give me a big fistful of Dick right now. Smack me in the face with huge Dick.' And they say Robin. I'm like, 'A little Robin Dick.'" Um, so there's this cop is being groomed like to become the [ __ ] eventually, to become the Batman. The last image of the movie is him and the Batcave. Like the package you got from Wayne Enterprises in the will was like a [ __ ], looked like a walkie-talkie or compass, some sort of a GPS, probably that's what it was. Now they think about it. And some coordinates. And the coordinates led him to the, the waterfall, which is the entrance to the Batcave. And so you see him swing through. And this is all done in cross-cuts with like, Lucius Fox going like, "Look into the [ __ ] autopilot. Hey, it works, you idiot." And then the [ __ ] shot of Michael Caine seeing, um, Christian Bale. Um, he swings into the Batcave. And then he's walking forward toward, like, the north wall, the south wall, whatever that you saw on The Batman Begins. And as he's walking in this version, iteration of the Batcave, um, there are lots of rising platforms that come out of the water and [ __ ]. So as he's walking, all of a sudden the platform raises. And it raises into a black screen. And it says, "Dark Knight." Really nice way to end the movie because you're like, "Holy [ __ ], the adventure is over for Bruce. And he's happy. And he's smiling with Sel. Still a Batman. There will always be a Batman. And hit the adventures is beginning." And this, and they, they seat it nicely in as much as like, you know, every step of the way, he goes from being a cop in blue to being a detective to being disenfranchised. He shoots somebody. And he has a repellent reaction to it. Like he gets attacked and [ __ ]. At one point, the guy's choking him. And he has his gun. And he fires behind him. Ricochets off a [ __ ] truck into the dude's back and kills him. And then Joe Gordon-Levitt looks at the gun and throws it to the side. A kind of, you know, Batman-esque like, "I, this weapon. This is man has made it too easy to kill. This is the weapon of the enemy." Like straight out of Dark Knight Returns. The kind of expression that says, "Yeah, this kid, he don't like guns either." Just like the Batman.

There are wonderful moments throughout the movie where they touch on [ __ ] like that. Where he's fighting side by side with Catwoman. She's all gun-friendly. So she's taking out guns and shooting [ __ ] and he punches it out of her hand, punches someone else, she punches someone else. They spin back and she's like, "You got to be [ __ ] me." And he's just like, "No guns. No killing." She's like, "Where's the fun in that?" And they go back to fighting and [ __ ]. So little beats like that. Like I remember when I saw Batman Returns, there was a beat like in those movies. He rarely interacts with Commissioner Gordon. It's not the comic book relationship where they're like tight allies. Like in Batman Returns, they have the shot after he takes on the Red Triangle Circus Gang, uh, where he's walking on one level and Commissioner Gordon's walking slightly below him. He's like, "Thank you for saving the city, Batman." And, uh, he said, like, uh, "The Red Triangle, the Red Triangle Gang's back in town." "We'll see." But a very gruff interaction with him. And not very like, uh, not the Batman you would think of. But later on in the movie, I think, uh, I think it's Michael Keaton has this one moment where Shreck is like, uh, "You know, you, you've not just saved a man, you've saved a city in the sewers." And then Michael Keaton like pushes him backward. He's like, "Shut up. You're going to jail." And that is a Batman thing. Especially in a movie where we just saw him stick a time bomb in some strongman's belt. Yeah. You know, that ain't a Batman thing to do. So you seize and those old movies, you seize on little Batman moments like that and be like, "Oh God, thank God, something recognizable." In this movie, there are lots of recognizable moments. His commitment to like, not using a gun. Um, and I guess that's about it. No, there's lots, but that one really leaps to mind. Um, so Catwoman steals Bruce Wayne's fingerprints. She's, uh, next time you see her, she's trying to sell to the dude who wanted him. You don't know who he is yet. He double-crosses her. They ain't going to give her the right money. She had a congressman she kidnapped from Wayne's party, kind of some dude who wanted to sleep with her. Who, uh, she lets the dude use that dude's cell phone. So the cops descend on the place. And she's got to escape with her life. And so she fights. And you get to see how [ __ ] tits up she is. Pun intended, no pun intended, 'cause she's a woman. But, uh, amazing at [ __ ] fighting, flipping over tables and [ __ ] punching people with their own guns and firing and reloading while their hands are still on the guns. And then when the cops come in, she drops to the ground, starts shrieking like a victim woman and [ __ ]. Like, quickly changes gears. And then when they pass her, she just kind of gets up and walks out and [ __ ]. So the cops are then chasing these, uh, thugs who then go down into the sewer. And, you know, Jim Gordon goes after him with a few cops. The cops get [ __ ] taken out by heavy artillery. Gordon is knocked out, dragged into the underground sewer lair of Bane. Once again, as I said earlier, the amount of headroom in this, in this lair of his, Scott. Like when you think of a sewer, don't you think of tight [ __ ] places and like, you know, maybe cinematic sewers, you see spillways like in The Fugitive and [ __ ] like that. But this sewer, like, you could live there and be comfortable and happy. And Bane does with an army of people, man. A lot of headroom in the space. A lot of good real estate. You know how think about, imagine Manhattan. Like remember in, uh, Superman? Yeah, Lex Luthor's lair under [ __ ] Metropolis. Yeah, like his is a little more high-end and clean, but it's like that big and [ __ ]. And you're, you know, it's, it's a small quibble, but I, somebody give me a picture of a sewer. I, I have no idea what sewers look like. I assume that it's a lot of it's just pipes and it's not big stuff that you can walk around in. Huge cavernous rooms. I'm sure that there has to be space in order to do maintenance. Um, and I'm sure there has to be rooms where obviously water, lots of water could come together. And, you know, yeah, I'm sure there are rooms, but I, I just don't know if it would be the size of like an amphitheater. It is literally this dude could do a live stream cast there and get like, good 500 people on the main floor. "Welcome to what the voice, welcome to SPC, welcome to I'm Bane." I can only do the L. "I'm Bane." He will be so imitated, dude, 'cause it's a fun voice to do. But I think it, it's going to take me a little time to get together a voice with an original voice, like original thought. Like all I could do is Bane lines from the movie. It'll be a while before I can be like, "Someone stink-ped me. You could Bane until I could Bane [ __ ] like that." Um, so in this underground lair, little cinematic in terms of like, look at, look at how big, look how huge it is. He, he's, uh, Jim Gordon is dragged before Bane. Bane is sitting there. Now, that's the one of the only times you see him wearing like this wrestling belt. And at one point, you see a wire in his headpiece. So maybe the idea is the power source of the gas, whatever it is that's keeping him. Yeah, yeah. He's got a belt somewhere on the belt. I, I don't know. They're not very clear on how it works or if it does work, but they don't say the mechanics of it. So Bane's mad at the two [ __ ] who brought Jim Gordon down there. And [ __ ], of course, he breaks one's neck without even flinching. Like, like the dude steps forward to say something. He just grabs him with his hand and [ __ ] cracks his throat. Very Vader style. Y. And then to the other guy, he's like, "Search him. And then I will kill you next." And then the guy searches Jim Gordon. He finds a speech in his pocket that Jim Gordon was going to give at the beginning of the movie at Harvey Dent Day. And the speech, as we hear later on, is like an admission of like, "We all lied. Harvey Dent was a piece of [ __ ]. I've had to publicly praise a guy that tried to kill my kid. Batman is a hero. And I'm retiring. Goodbye." But he didn't give that speech in the beginning. He was Harvey Dent Day. And he says something about like, "I know the truth about Harvey Dent, but, you know what? Today, let's perhaps this is not the time. Like, let's celebrate the man. The man. And blah, blah, blah." So suddenly Bane has this, uh, and also Jim Gordon's gun. So while Jim Gordon kind of comes to and looks around and gets a look at what's going on, he quickly rolls off of the platform he's on into a sewer spillway underneath with water rushing. And, you know, they open fire at him, takes a hit and [ __ ] like that, but they lose him. And the one guy who was the surviving guy that Bane was like, "Search him. And then I'll kill you next." He was just like, "He's dead." And he's like, "Show me a body." And he's like, "Well, I don't know where it goes." And he puts a track device on the dude. He's like, "Go find him." And then he shoots the guy. And he [ __ ] goes spilling out the causeway. So going to use that guy to track. Yeah, yeah. Jim Gordon's body. But hero cop John Blake's waiting on the other side of the spillway. And he gets Commissioner Gordon to a hospital. [ __ ], 'cause he wanted to go down to manhole. They set it up nicely all throughout the movie. He's like, "Let's go down there." And then Matthew Modine's character is like, "We, we are going down that sewer hole. We don't know what's down there." He goes, "Of course. It's huge. There's tons of headroom. You know how much space is down there? I mean, we don't have the manpower to even fill that room. They're doing a podcast down there. 500 people easily." He, uh, he's like, "We don't know what's down there." And Joe Gordon-Levitt's like, "Yeah, we do." The commissioner like, "He's like, 'No [ __ ], that's why we should go down there.'" Yeah. And then they have a 20-minute discussion about like, "But we don't know it's down there. We don't know. No, what's down there?" And he's like, "Yeah, well, no [ __ ], that's what I'm saying. Does anyone not understand what I'm saying here? Why is he in the movie? I'm telling you again, it's no knock on Matthew Modine. He's good in the movie, but you're just like, "Was this, it's a 2-hour and 40-minute movie, Scott." So yeah, yeah. You know, anytime you could find. But I'll be honest with you, I was not like, "This is too long." I would have watched another hour. Yeah. But just in terms of storytelling, there's some elements where you're like, "Not necessary." And, you know, it's like, "Show me more Batman." Every one of those Matthew Modine scenes like, just could have been Batman. Yeah. One more shot, one more scene, lit of Batman in the suit doing something. Or trying to poop. I, it ain't Matthew Modine, man. Returns or Rises. It's not what I'm going to see. I'm going to see Batman, man. I see him in the suit. So I'm punching people in the face. And when they put him in the suit and he's fighting, it's, it's very wholly satisfying. Like, but I just want more of it. So anyway, he gets away. Bane now has this letter or this speech that he was going to make. And you, you're like, "Why does that matter?" And it comes into play later on. Also, kind of like, not one of the stronger story elements. Like, I have this speech that Commissioner Gordon was going to read. You that I will now read to you. And we literally watch in this $250 million movie, a man in a mask whose mouth we can't even see reading a speech out loud. But that's how [ __ ] good Chris Nolan is, dude. Like, you don't sit there and go like, "This is ridiculous." You sit there going like, "I'll buy it, man. Go ahead. Take me there. Take me there." I've seen it three times. And even though the logical part in my head is just like, "I can't believe I'm watching a dude read a, like, he's literally reading his lines on camera in a mask." But his voice, [ __ ], the cutaways, whatever, he makes it cinematic enough where you're like, "I'll forgive it." So anyway, Gordon gets away. That's when the cop goes to see Bruce Wayne at his house. And he's like, "I know you're Batman. I'm an orphan. Yeah. I'm an orphan. I'm an orphan. And I was told this is where the." So based on that logic, yeah, [ __ ], he probably figured Annie would know he was [ __ ]. She rings, knocks on the door. "Sir, there's a little red-headed girl with a dog and she insists on speaking to you. She has no pupils. It's unsettling. We should kill her. You know why? Because she says she knows you're Batman." And you know how she knows? 'Cause she too is an orphan. She saw it in your. Isn't that weird? Um, yeah, that's again, I just find that like, I look, I'll go with you on this. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to look at the things that Batman does in Gotham and goes, "Well, who has enough money to do this?" There's a logical reason to know. But, but the idea that like, "But this one, when he was a little kid, he was like, 'I knew, I know you're Batman 'cause you're in pain.'" I mean, I don't get the leap either. I, maybe I'm not doing it justice. Including all the points, but I, pretty, I hit them. I've seen it three times. I think I pretty much introduced everything that he introduced. And it's still pretty specious. It's still pretty like, "I know what it's like to lose my parents, so I know. And I know what what it makes me feel like. It makes me mad at the world. It makes me want to go out and right wrongs. So I assume that Batman is an orphan." And you know, Bruce Wayne, "I saw you come into St. Swin that day, and I could see in your face that you were masking pain as well." Like he's like, "You come in with a fancy car and good-looking women on your arm and stuff. And, you know, we were all like, 'Wow, this guy's amazing.' And all the kids would make up stories about you." It's true. He says that dude make up stories about him. Yeah. About like, "Oh, well, the impression he gives you is that like, they were the boys in the orphanage would be like, 'Oh, like Bruce Wayne is [ __ ], like he [ __ ] a lot of women.' Or 'Oh, Bruce Wayne, he likes [ __ ]. He could have peanut butter jelly whenever he wants it.' Or 'Oh, Bruce Wayne, he [ __ ], like he's got enough money to be Batman or [ __ ] like to be Superman.' Or like all these fantasies they have about him." And Joe Gordon-Levitt is like, "But I knew, like the story that I knew about you was no fantasy. See, like I knew that you were Batman." Again, dude, I've seen it three times. And it's, it's kind of like, it's the scene that for me really sticks out where I'm like, "Come on, man. Like, if it's this easy to figure out who Batman is, like, why didn't anyone else figure it out? How come a terrorist weren't an orphan?" But the notion that you've gone through similar pain and you would somehow recognize Batman. Yeah, I'm not, uh, I did not see it three times. Yeah. And I don't buy it. Again, doesn't ruin your appreciation for the movie. Perhaps a minor quibble. And all things. But, and, and I love the flick enough to see it three times, enough to see it again and again. But in little things like that, you're just like, "And that's not even a little thing. That's just like, 'Hey man, he figured out who Batman is. What makes him so [ __ ] smart?' If I, if nobody had ever told me Bruce Wayne is Batman, all this time, I'd be like, 'Who is Batman? Who'd be smart enough, rich enough, who could pull these things off?' I would, yeah, I would never put together with Bruce Wayne."

And they do a little homage to, I felt it was an homage, probably not a conscious homage to the Batman TV show. I mean, [ __ ] her outfit is almost Julie Newmar-esque, far more than Michelle Pfeiffer-esque. Yeah, but they do this homage where Bruce Wayne is talking to, uh, Selena Kyle. And he's like, "I have a powerful friend who can help me out." And it turns out to be Batman. And she's like, "Wayne wasn't kidding. He does have powerful friends." Now, if you're a Catwoman and you're [ __ ] whip-smart in this movie, um, you don't put it together going like, "Wayne said he has a powerful friend. I just met his powerful friend who happens to be Batman, who has a lot of artillery that you would need a lot of money to be Batman. And I'm looking in his eyes, just like I looked in Wayne's eyes. I'm pretty sure Wayne is Batman." Even she don't put it together. But the [ __ ] orphan boy who saw him for five minutes when he was a [ __ ] young pup, he's like, "I know who Batman is." So he, uh, he, it's like I said, it's get, get past it. You have to. And also, it ends so well. It's a strong testimony for if you end perfectly, note perfect, you'll forgive anything that has happened prior that may better end. You got to end strong. It's better than opening strong. Opening is fantastic, but you got to end strong because an audience will. This is filmmaking 101, kids. Even Harvey W. Harvey Weinstein told us this. You got to end better than you begin because that's the last impression they have of your story. They're not going to, when they leave the theater, they're not sitting there going, "Oh man, wasn't the opening awesome?" They're talking about the last [ __ ] thing they saw. So you got to end strong. This dude ends no [ __ ] perfect. So much so that you're like, "All right, I'll forgive [ __ ] [ __ ] like Robin figuring out he's [ __ ] Batman." Um, just by, just by looking into his, you know. What was even more plausible in The Dark Knight? At one point, they're sitting at a dinner. It's, it's Bruce Wayne, Rachel Dawes, Harvey Dent, and Bruce's Russian girlfriend. And she, the Russian girl's talking about Harvey Dent. Like, "Harvey Dent, like Batman could be anybody. Could be me." And she's like, "This is Gotham's District Attorney, the K Crusader." And she holds the like a menu over his face. So all you see is his mouth down. Kind of like Batman. You could even when you did, you could do that. And you would never make the connection. And be like, "Oh, if you did that to Bruce Wayne, Chris Nolan, you would never be like, 'Holy [ __ ], man, you got a real Batman like chin.'" Yeah. But yet, this orphan [ __ ], he sees him for 10 minutes when he was a [ __ ] kid. And he's just like, "I knew it. I knew it. I could see it in your face." Yeah. Little things like that.

So anyway, I can get over that. So at this point, Bruce Wayne's like, "I guess I got to get back in the game." He's talking about maybe he goes visit Lucius Fox. And he shows him the Batplane and [ __ ] like that. So, uh, Bane and his men come up out of the sewers again. Very, it does like Batman Returns. The sewers played a big part in it as well. They come up Wall Street, attack Wall Street, kidnap some people. There's a huge chase. There's a nod to Dark Knight Returns 'cause there's a cop. Like, all the lights are in this tunnel, you know, like an underground, kind of like the, you know, what do they call it in Chicago where you go to Lower Wacker Drive? Yeah, like underground. And there's all these lights. And the lights start going out, boom, boom, boom, boom, in waves. And then boom, boom, boom, coming back on. And it's because Batman's on the Batpod. And he's got this EMP disruptor. You see him show up at a party as Bruce Wayne at one point. He hasn't been seen in years. And so all the photographers like, "Holy God, it's Bruce Wayne!" And they start trying to take his picture. And he clicks this little hand thing at him. And you hear all the cameras go like, he's got an EMP disruptor. So as Batman, he's got a one that looks like a [ __ ] gun, like a kind of gun. So it's turning off the lights wherever he is. And it kills power for vehicles and [ __ ] like that. Just like, as we know, a nuclear blast EMP is what kills all the electricity. Then he stops. And he's firing it like a weapon and [ __ ]. It's the first time you see him. Matthew Modine's character is like, "Let's, instead of chasing Bane and the bad guys, he's like, 'Let's get the Batman.'" Like, "I'm going to do it. Jim Gordon never could." And Joe Gordon-Levitt was like, "What's that?" He's like, "I'm going to nail the Batman." So they go after Batman. And Batman, you know, leads a chase through the city and [ __ ] like that. And then disappears into an alleyway. And he's like, "See that?" Matthew Modine's like, "See that? Jim Gordon trapped like a rat." And he's got himself a [ __ ] bullhorn. And I think it's, it's Dave Regor in every movie with a bullhorn in it. We even did it in Red State. The moment you turn it on, there has to be a. They play the same [ __ ] bit whenever a bullhorn's introduced. This happens for Matthew Modine. And then lights come on from the alleyway. And the Batwing. Well, it's not the Batwing. It's, they call it the Bat. They should have called it the Batwing. That's a much cooler name. But the Bat comes out, flies away. And everybody's [ __ ] looking at it. And [ __ ]. Has a shot you see in the trailers. But he just leaves. He just escapes. That's it. Next time you see, there's a scene where, and this is like, I'm telling you within five [ __ ] minutes because when

The plane, when the wing takes off out of the alley, they play that Batman theme. And five minutes later, Catwoman's trying to break into, breaks into the dude, Daggett's safe, looking for this, uh, you know, clean slate technology. Finds out that it doesn't exist. And she kidnaps him, like goes out of the window because they're getting attacked. And, um, she, uh, she has to leave. Let me see. Boom. She goes out of the window. They go down on a window washer rig. Um, he tells her that it doesn't exist. Then all of a sudden, other people, like his henchmen and Bane's henchmen start showing up. She's surrounded. She still got Daggett. And she's like, "I'm, you know, I'll, I'll kill him. I'm serious." And then you just hear him go, like, "They don't care." And you see Batman up top, and he jumps down. And they start fighting together. And it's cool. You know, it's not overly produced or overly orchestrated, but it's just cool to see those two costumes fighting side by side. And that's the scene where, you know, he knocks the gun out of her hand. And, but then Bane appears. And whenever he appears, they play like, "Bane is coming." He always walks. He has his hands on his vest like this. So they go running because there's automatic weapon fire. And they go running across the rooftop. Very reminds you of Batman animated series. You see them go running together across the rooftop in the costumes, jump off the roof, land on the, the Batwing, get inside. And she's like, "My mother told me never to get in the strange cars, men with strange cars." And she, "This isn't a car." And then they take off. And they play that Batman score again. Dun dun dun. And it just happened so, like, there are almost two scenes, and not back to back, but relatively close, where both scenes culminate with Batman running the away in the Batwing or in the Bat, as they say. I don't know. I found that a little, like, I don't know. It's just like, do it once, you can't do it twice. Um, and the boing keeps playing through the movie. There are cool shots of it, like coming into the Batcave through the waterfall. And it comes into play heavily in the third act when, you know, they're, when he's trying to take out the truck that has the nuclear device on it.

So he's Batman. He comes home. You know, he's like, "I'm getting done." Alfred. Alfred's like, "I ain't, I ain't no, I'm, I ain't, I have had this no more. I'm going to do it. I want to see another Wayne die." And he's like, "I'm going to leave you." And he tells him about the letter. And Bruce is so mad. He's like, "You know, you realize what has to happen here." And because he'll never get beyond the fact that A, Alfred told him, B, that he burned the letter, C, that he used Rachel against him. And he's just like, "You're trying to destroy my world." And, uh, he's like, "I realized and telling you that, like, you would hate me forever. But if that helps me save your life, then then I don't care." Yeah. You know? So he's like, "Goodbye, Alfred." And he leaves. And he goes up to his room. Very next scene, he wakes up. Phone. The doorbell's ringing. He's coming down the stairs. First thing he says is, "Alfred, we're just like you said goodbye." He didn't say goodbye. He's still expected the next morning. A dude might be there to answer the phone, answer the doorbell. It's Lucius Fox. And Lucius Fox is like, "Hey, that program, that thing that they were doing, they stole all your money. Had your fingerprint. So he did a bunch of bad trades. And now you're broke. Now you're broke. And the automatic P doesn't work." I don't know if I mentioned this previously, but remember I showed you the bat still having trouble with those. "I'll look into it. I'll look into it. But as of right now, I'm not promising anything." The AP is ass. You hear what I'm saying? Like, yeah. Uh, so they go into the board. They realize they have to, since he's going to lose control of the board to this dude, Daggett, who's working in collusion with Bane. Um, Daggett was a guy that Bane was a secured diamond mines for in Africa as a mercenary. You know, got his hands dirty. And made Daggett even more rich. Daggett trying to use that money to take over Wayne Enterprises. So, uh, Lucius and Bruce decide that they have to turn to Miranda Tate. She's a board member. Give her control of the board because otherwise, Daggett'll turn on the machine. And they have to convince Miranda, even though she's invested in it, to not turn on the machine. Because if you do, it could be turned into this nuclear device. And she's like, "Bruce, what if I told you the Russian scientists that wrote that paper died six months ago in a plane crash?" Like, "There's nothing to worry about." He's like, "Somebody else could figure it out." So I'm going to give you control of the Wayne board. But you gotta, you can't turn this machine on. She's like, "Okay." So he's out of Wayne Enterprises. Goes home. Uh, there's a, well, there's a scene. He's driving around with the cop. And, and they're having this Batman conversation where he's like, "It's good to see Batman come back." And, like that, but it never goes. "You're a Batman. It was good to see you come back." You know, talking about him like that. Um, Bruce gets back to his mansion. Can't get in the front door because, naturally, he doesn't have keys. Miranda Tate is there. It's raining. They're soaking wet. They get inside. Uh, they start, you know, she's like, "I'll take good care of your company, Bruce. And you look after your parents' ideals." And, you know, she picks up a picture of Rachel. "Who is this?" And he doesn't want to talk about it. And they get tender. And suddenly they're kissing. The lights go out. And he's like, "They turned my power off." Which I'm like, "That's, that's like something out of Zack and Miri, too fast, comedic." I'm like, "Dude, they'll leave your lights on for like, there are people that don't pay their electricity for six months." Yeah. Like, you don't lose your money in one day. I don't think necessarily Alfred was the guy who's just like paying the electric bill. And also, there's a Jenny that runs the entire Batcave. What don't run the manor as well? Again, quibbles. Um, so they wind up making out. And then they wind up in front of the fire. You don't see it, but you see the after-math. Got on her belly. And that's what happens, kids. Um, so, you know, she's, uh, he's like, "Don't take that off." Yeah. He's like, "Leave that right there. Leave it. You got some bad jizz all over you." "Leave what?" "Do you mean bat jizz?" She's got that funny voice. And when I say funny, I mean she's, um. So he leaves her there. You know, she's like, "We could get away together, Bruce. We could go on a plane and get out of here." And he's like, "Yeah, maybe not tonight." Yeah, yeah. Maybe. He's like, "Look, I got what I wanted. It's all over. We're all done here. Wipe that up." And wipe up. Lights come on. Absolute lack of logic. Yeah. Alfred, thank you. Turn the lights on. He just claps. He's like, "He's like, boy, you're easy to fool, man." Um, French chicks, they're so horny, right? Alfred, you're right, sir. She had an orgasm the size of a ten. Um, so she, uh, he leaves her there. Sleep on the floor. He's like, "Not tonight. I got something to do." And he puts on the suit. Because he had talked to Selena Kyle as Bruce Wayne and said, "Can you, can my friend, my powerful friend, wants to meet Bane? And in exchange for that, he'll give you that clean slate technology you're looking for. It really does exist." So she's like, "All right." So he meets her in at the in the subway at the head of the subway entry. Um, as you're heading down into the deep birth of Gotham. It's a mixture of the sewers and the train lines or something like that. So, you know, she's like, uh, he's like, "Take me to Bane." And she's like, "You asked for it." And so they go. And there's a cool little sequence, like montage, where, you know, his arm's all around. So they got to take him out. She's like, "You know, uh, there, he's." She's like, "They're not regular soldiers. A regular fighter." He's like, "I'm not a regular guy either." Like, kind of braggy. "I never, I haven't had a decent in years. I need met mus." He just messes it up. It's too boastful, man, for him to make that comment. Again, like, good Batman doesn't really say that much. In terms of like, she's like, "Some of these guys are really good." He wouldn't be like, "Yeah, but I'm better." Like, he'd just be like, "Deeds, not words." Batman just break a neck and be like, "There's nothing need be said." Well, he won't break a neck. Well, he could break a neck, but he wouldn't end their life. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? He would just fake paralyze them. Yeah. Give him a poor life, Scott, I guess. But he won't end it because he's got a code of some sort. So they're walking through the tunnels. And, and people are coming at him with guns. And she's like, "Behind you." And he's upside down. And his cape goes around. Little nod back to Batman Begins. Kicking asses. A shot, cool shot. You might have seen in one of the TV spots where, like, firing a lot of, a lot of AK-47, a lot of automatic weapon fire. That's what makes the Colorado thing even more tragic. But a lot of firing of automatic weapons. Guys like firing into the dark. And, you know, the light of the gun, the firing of the bullets is creating a strobe effect. And you just see Batman moving from like way the back of the room to over here, to over here, to over here. In each blast of shot, like he's illuminated in a different place. And finally, he's right on top of the guy. And so they get to, uh, this area. She's like, "It's just up here." And he walks through this gate. And, and she hits a button. And the cage comes down. Which to me felt like another little homage to Batman TV show, like the death trap, if you will. And he's like, "What did you do?" And, uh, she's like, "I just." She's like, "Obviously, you are trapped." And, uh, he's like, "You've made a big mistake." And she, and then you hear, "Not as big as the mistake you've made, I'm afraid." And turn around and Bane's revealed. And then they have the fight. And she watches the whole fight. And at the top of the fight, he goes, uh, you know, he calls him Mr. Wayne. So he knows who Batman is. Uses his name. And then he's, Batman goes at him. It's so sad, dude. Batman goes at him with a series of, of moves. And it's like he's hitting a rhinoceros. And like, this dude doesn't even affect it. And he just can't hit this dude in any way that's meaningful. He's having one of these movie fights where the dude is so strong and effortless at this fight that he can maintain a villain monologue the whole time. Yeah. So he's talking to him. It's cool moments, man. Like he's got Bruce against the ropes. And Batman gets the ropes. So Batman throws out like, um, you know, something that like lights up like little explosions. And, and he's like, "Theatricality and deception." He's going, "It's, it's, it's a distraction for the uninitiated. But we are initiated, aren't we, Bruce? Members of the League of Shadows." And it's, it's cool, man. He's talking. Batman ain't talking back. And he can, he can fight. And since you don't have to watch him speak because he's got this mask on, it looks so much cooler than if you were just seeing him talk, you know what I'm saying? Because he just looks like this hulking mass of flesh with this mask on and a voice that echoes almost everywhere. So they fight big time. And he just beats the out of him. He has some other cool stuff where he's just like, Batman's down on the ground. He hits something on his belt. And all the lights go out. And he's like, "Ah, you think the shadows are your ally?" He's going, "But you've merely adopted them. I was born in darkness." And he does a whole monologue about how, "I didn't see the light until I was 18 or something like that." And, uh, then suddenly, just does this quick move and grabs Batman out of the dark. Like he can see him. And, uh, yeah, throws, beats the out of him. Throws him down. Pounds his graphite helmet. Bang, bang, bang. You just see it crack. And Dent, he's punching him so hard in the head. And then he's like, uh, uh, he's down. He's kind of beat up pretty bad. He ain't getting back up. And Bane has a moment to be like, "I will show you where I've built my new home. And then I will break you." And he puts off an explosive charge. Ceiling collapses. And you see one of the Tumblers. So it's right under the Armory. He's like, "Right beneath your precious Armory." And then, uh, Batman tries to get up. And, um, you know, he's like, "Ah." And he's just like, "I was wondering what would break first. Your spirit." And he grabs him, picks him up over his head. Oh, your body. Bang. And he breaks his back. So up. So. And like, it's a movie. And you kind of had to know it was coming based on the comics. But it's up. It's so, I don't know how to describe. I'm 41 years old. It shouldn't be up. But I was like, "Oh my God." Like, I cringed. The sound effect. The just the look of it. It's not like there's, and probably because there's no big score, man. It's a real red stake kind of moment. Just score-free. The whole fight is brutal. Just the dialogue, the punches. He keeps cutting to people in Bane's army who aren't even watching. They're just looking forward, deaded. And because they all know there ain't no move here. Like this man is going to beat the Batman. And then he breaks his back. Quick. It's not like, ah, you know, Batman doesn't scream in pain or anything like that. Boom. Over his knee. And to the floor. Then he picks up half the helmet, the broken half, and throws it to the side. Awesome. Awesome. You're like, holy. And that's like an hour and change into the movie or something. Maybe an hour. And that's when the movie really kicked in. The whole plot, which is they're taking over Gotham. They blow the bridges. They blow the football stadium. You've probably seen that in the trailer. And they come out with this device, you know, the device that was meant to be clean energy. If you change one thing. And that's what they kidnapped Dr. Pavel for. They change it. And then they pull out the core. And they turn it into a nuclear weapon that's mobile. And so essentially, it's a time bomb. It's going to go off in 50 days or something like that. Because it's, it's not connected to the core. It's not connected to the device itself. So they put it in a truck. And he explains all this at the football after he blows the up. He's just like, "This is the instrument of your liberation." And it's the big bomb. And he's like, "This is a bomb. And it is mobile. And I, one of you holds the trigger." So he says, "If anybody makes a move on Gotham, the anonymous Gothamite will pull the trigger." Like, "Don't, you can't focus me. I ain't got the trigger. I'm giving it to a Randy." So good luck finding him. But if anything happens here, the Randy's going to pull the plug on it. And they do the same thing to the government. They try to come over on the bridges. And, and they're just like, uh, another dude from the wires in it. Bunny, bunny, coven from the wires. The army man who's just like, um, you know, "What's going on here, son?" It's one of Bane's henchmen. And he's just like, um, you know, "We want you to." He's going, "How are you going to stop 12 million people from coming over the bridge?" He's going, "You ain't got enough firepower." He's like, "Yeah, but you do." And he's going, "What makes you think we're going to help you?" And he's like, "If one person crosses this bridge, we'll blow up the city." So they turn the army into their army by saying, like, if you do anything, if one person leaves the city or goes into it, we're going to set off the nuclear device. Like, what they're positing, essentially, without ever saying it, is like, this is a terrorist occupation. It's like that. They're like Al-Qaeda. They're religiously bent, based on their belief in the League of Shadows or in this instance, Bane, or something like that. Um, it's there. You know, they've all committed to die. And so, you know, the government gets all scared. They, there's a president. Dude, first time in a Batman movie where somebody's like, "Contact the president." And William Dain is the president. And he's on a, like, you know, a presidential kind of address thing where he's like, "Our hearts and minds go out to the good people of this great city who faced so much trial in the past, and they can handle this." And blah, blah, blah. So the bridges are blown. Bane's got this mobile bomb device. And he says he's going to take out all Gotham if anybody makes a move. And his, what he's saying to Gotham is, "This is not a conquest. This is a liberation." Like the, the corruption in this city is sick. Listen to this letter that James Gordon, the commissioner, wrote. "This man, Dent, was a lie. Everything you know is. They, a thousand men have been imprisoned in here under a lie." He's going like, "I basically, this city belongs to you. Rich people have had it for too long. Join my army. And tomorrow, you will have what you want. Blood will be spilled." You know, what is it? "Booty, not booty, we booty will be had." Yeah. We're all going to around. Um, like, you know, spoils of victory and like that. Essentially, they do this montage of these people tearing. It's like 99%er, man. Like 1% 99%. They, but violently, they go in and tear them out of their houses and take over their houses. And they start holding trials and executions. You know, where like they cut to. It's a really cool cameo because he's now been in all three movies. What's his name? The guy who plays the Scarecrow. Yeah. Um, he comes back as, presumably, it seems like a Scarecrow. He doesn't put the mask on or anything, but he's the judge in the court. So he's like, "Choice. You have a choice: death or exile." And exile is, they take you to the edge of the water. And it's all frozen over because it's in the winter. And if you can make it to the mainland, you're fine. But nobody does. They plummet through the ice. And so chaos reigns. The people have taken over Gotham. People are scared. There are no police. They've trapped the police under Gotham in these series of explosions that they set off starting at the football game. All this time, like he's been using Daggett's infrastructure. He's got like cement companies, building companies going throughout Gotham, building explosives into like all these main section supports, the bridges to cut it off entirely. Almost takes it to the No Man's Land storylines they did in the comics. And, you know, there's a bit of Nightfall in there. And as much as Bane breaks Batman, and they build up like, you know, he ain't the same Batman. He's been off for years. And, you know, he's got the bum leg. Although he's got the magic leggy thing on it, but still. They make it that like, look, the only reason Bane beat this is because he's out of practice again. The Rocky 3 kind of thing. So Bane takes over Gotham. The bomb is going to go off. But he's feeding people this live hope. After he breaks Batman, there's probably my favorite Bane scene in the whole movie with Bruce Wayne. And it's when Bruce Wayne wakes up in the prison down in the hole. And Bane is sitting there having this quiet conversation with him. And, you know, that's when Bruce Wayne is like, "Why didn't you kill me?" And he's just like, "Because you desire death." Or something like that. It's like, "Your punishment must be more severe." So he goes, "Torture." Bruce Wayne says, "You're going to torture me?" And Bane's like, "Yes. But not your body." And there's a long pause, dude. He kind of looks around, then looks back at him. He goes, "Of your soul." Such a cool moment. Like, it's dark. It's something out of an indie flick. It's so. It's not a Batman movie. It's not a superhero movie by any stretching the imagination. It's beautiful and chilling as these two people have a conversation. And he just murderizes this guy. Broke his back. He's in there, laying there. He's got a hand on his chest. At one point, Bane gets up to stand up, pushes Bruce's chest down even more. So imagine if your back was broken, you'd be like. So, they have this conversation about what is going to happen in Gotham. And he's like, he talks about being raised in this very same prison. And that's where he learned that despair. In order for there to be true despair, you needed a little bit of hope. So everyone looks up this hole and thinks about getting out. And so, you know, he says, "I'm going to feed. I'm going to poison Gotham's soul by giving him hope." And then, you know, "I'm going to kill him." He's like, "And when you're." It's the line from the trailer. He's like, "And when Gotham is in ashes, and you have my permission to die." And that's when he takes off of the hills. And heads back to Gotham to run it into the ground. Bruce left in this hellhole. Makes friends with a dude in the next cell. And an older dude who's a blind dude, used to be the medic dude. And they start telling him the story of Bane. Which is like, there was a mercenary who met a warlord and fell in love with his daughter. And they secretly got married. And the warlord found out. And he punished the dude. He said, "I'm going to throw you in this pit and this prison." And he was being taken out there to be dropped into this hole. But at the last minute, things changed. And he was released. And he figured that his wife, you know, dictated the terms. Like said, "Please, father, let him go." Or whatever. And she did. But he was never allowed to come back to the kingdom. So he left. And what he never found out was, in order to buy his freedom, she had to give up her own. So she was then lowered into the prison. And she was pregnant. So she had the kid in the prison. And the kid was born in darkness. And raised in this hopeless, dark place. And eventually, the kid is the only person that's ever gotten out of this prison. Panador, I think, is Padura. The only one that ever escaped was this kid. So, you know, throughout the next 20, 30 minutes of the movie, where Bruce is in this pit training and then trying to get out, and like that, it's all about climbing the rope and getting out. And you rope these guys up. And then they climb. And then they make this jump. And if the jump doesn't work, then that rope catches them. And they swing and hit themselves on the side of the wall. But, you know, it's hopeless. So eventually, even Muse went to see it with Muse. And Muse pointed out that he's like, "You knew he was going to jump without the rope on the third try." And I was like, "How'd you know that?" He's like, "Because they kept saying like, the only child ever did the jump." And, you know, they never say without a rope. But whenever they show it, she's not wearing a rope. And sometimes I feel like an idiot. I'm like, "Why didn't I see that? How couldn't I have not seen that? How did I not know?" I've been watching movies my whole life. How did I not know there would be three attempts to get out of that hole, with the third being the most successful? And that in order to be successful, he was of course going to have to give up the rope. Everyone's doing it with the rope. In order for the hero to ascend, he should do it without the rope. And I'm like, "Maybe I'm stoned or just not a great storyteller." But I didn't even see that. Muse saw it. And so, and my wife too. When she saw it the next day, she was just like, "Well, you knew we had to jump without the rope." I was like, "How did you know that?" She's like, "Filmmaking 101, Kevin." I was like, "I guess I skipped that class." So he's in the hole. And that's where you see the like the people. Bas, Bas, that means rise. Like from the trailer. He said, "What does that mean?" He goes, "Rise, guys." So essentially, they're all cheering whoever's trying to get out of the hole. And they always fail. This one kid made it at one point. Like, they tell the story about the doctor who, blind. He's like, "One day they left the gate open." And like, there was a sickness going through the jail. And they all had like leper masks on. Like the kind of headdresses. And so they went, were going crazy. They went and grabbed Bane's mother, or, you know, the woman, the mercenary's wife. And dragged her out. And they grabbed the child too. But then the child had a protector in the jail. The protector grabs her. And stabs somebody else. And keeps the, keeps the kid, the child, rather, keeps the child away from harm. And like that. So you're seeing bits and pieces of the origin story. And going, "Oh, Bane." They show this like beautiful little kid who eventually breaks out, climbs, makes the jump, and gets out of the prison. So it's not until later on, Scott, that they reveal again, spoilers. And if you're this deep, boy, you know, there's a bunch of them. The child that they keep referring to, that we were always like, "It's Bane. It's Bane." And everyone, Batman keeps going, "It's Bane. Bane got out of this prison. Bane's the only one that's ever got out of here." And he did it as a child without the rope. He made the jump. And eventually, Bruce makes the jump without the rope. What you find out later on, at the end of the movie, is, you know, he finally, when he comes back to Gotham. We'll do it in order. He comes back to Gotham. He gets out of the hole. Heads back to Gotham. Gotham is in hell. Like these two dudes are about to beat up a little kid who stole an apple. And Selena Kyle shows up. Kicks their asses. Like, "Not on my turf." And tells the kid, like, "Never steal from anybody bigger, faster than you." Sends him off on his way. And then Bruce shows up. Says something to her. And she's like, has a really good acting moment because what she has on her face is, "Oh my God, thank God this man's still alive." Because she felt guilty. She backed him into this hole where Bane killed him for all she knew. Yeah. But she's still hard and kind of like, "Well, screw you. I'm my own person." You know, "I've done what I had to do." And they won't let me do what I want to do. So she still got a bit of a hard ass to her. But a really nice performance, man. Like, in terms of like, she sold it. Like, you could tell she likes him. You could tell she feels horrible for what she did. But she's still who she is. Yep. So, you know, he says, "I need your help. I need you to get me to Lucius Fox. I need him because he'll give me all the stuff I need to fight Bane." And so, uh, she, uh, agrees to do it. And he hooks back up with Lucius and Miranda. They're being held in this, one of these buildings. Bane's army shows. Is always there. People get shot. He can't get Miranda Tate out of there. He's going to get out of there by himself first, then come back and get her. She seems to understand. Catwoman helps those two guys get away. She's like, "Bane wants these guys." So she takes Bruce and Lucius. And then when they're leaving, they start fighting. And they fight their way out. And Miranda Tate is taken off by Bane. Batman, meanwhile, Jim Gordon and his men, they got captured. They're brought in front of the court. Jonathan Crane is like, "Exile or death." And he's like, "I'm not going out on that ice. You'll just have to kill us." And Jonathan Crane's like, "All right, man. Death by exile." And so they send him out on the ice. And so Jim Gordon's trying to walk forward. And it's night. And like that. And he's, and you know, you're walking real slow on the ice. And suddenly he sees a, what do they call, like a road flare kind of thing. Like when you pop them open, they light up. So you see that. And he looks down at it. And then you see the guys with the guns on the shore trained on him. All of a sudden, you hear. And the dude reaches for his neck. And he grabs something. His little bat dart. And then he drops. And they all start dropping. And then, uh, Gordon picks up the flare. And you just, he lights it up. And he turns on. Batman comes out of the darkness. And they throw the flare on the ground. It hits the gasoline. And gasoline climbs up the bridge. And lights up this massive bat that's on fire. So, you know, and Bane sees it. And he's just like, "Impossible." Because, you know, he broke Batman. So Batman winds up hooking up with the kid again. The cop. Cop's about to get killed. John Blake. He's investigating. Finds out the explosives are his, not cement, his explosives are going to take out the. Blah, blah, blah. He gets kind of, he's trying to work with the cops who were trapped under Gotham. 3,000 police have been trapped by the explosions, still alive, somehow. And all under Gotham. So he's been giving them notes, sending them notes. This dude, John Blake. And finally says, "We're getting you out tonight. So let's make a move." And so he has him come up through this one sore tunnel. And he gets up. And his other buddy gets up. His other buddy comes out, gets taken out right away. Some. And so a Bane Thug shows up. Throws a grenade down the hole. Presumably kills a bunch of people down there. And then he's going to kill John Blake. Throws him off the precipice, kind of thing. He lands on the cement below. And they have him kneeling on his feet. And a gun to his head. And it's good. It's kind of frightening. Like, you're looking at him, you're like, "This is braced to die." Like, he's closed his eyes. And he looks little scared. Good acting. Really good acting in this movie. And then, of course, naturally, Batman shows up out of nowhere. And takes out. And he gives John Blake a bomb. He's like, "Count to five, then throw this." And he counts five, throws it. And it's meant to blow open a hole to get the cops out of the underground tunnel. They can blow up in like a 10-foot hole. And he's like, "You got anything bigger in the belt?" And of course, as in all movies, you don't hear a vehicle starting, like a high-powered air vehicle when a plane starts or a helicopter when they go overhead. You can't help but hear them. But in movie world, sound never happens until you see the picture. So as John Blake goes, "You got anything better in that belt?" The ship, you know, the bat explodes into frame, high-powered. And it blasts a hole into the rubble. So the cops can get out of there. So suddenly, you got all the cops out from underground. 3,000 people facing off against Bane's army. Because, you know, he's like, "What do you want me to do to Batman?" He's like, "You've given me an army. That's enough. Get the people out of the city. Lead an exodus." He's like, "What are you going to do?" He's like, "War on Bane." You know. So he has all the cops, all the cops facing off against Bane's army. And, and they, you know, it's all quiet. Really nicely set up. It's in Wall Street. And it looks, the scope of it is massive. And he'd been talking to Catwoman at one point before this too. And getting pre-shows her where the bat pot is. And he's like, "You know, take this to the Midtown Tunnel." Because it's piled up with cars. Looks like something out of The Stand. It was kind of cool. Like all the cars filling it up. And, and so he's like, "You know, there's enough firepower on the body to like take a blow a hole, let the people get out of the city." And she's like, "And after that?" And he's like, "After that, we got 45 minutes before the bomb goes off." She's like, "No, I got 45 minutes. Get cleared as mug." And she's like, "You come with me." Like, you know, "You don't owe these people anything." From the trailer, she's like, "And he's like, H, you know, get, you've given them everything." He's like, "Not everything. Not yet." So he tells her to blow up in a hole. And he's like, "Come back for me. Come help me." He's like, "With your help, I can stop this." And she's like, "I'm this, this people." Yeah. So, you know, he's like, "There's better." You know, "There's more good in you than that." I got to tell you, in terms of like cinematic Selena Kyles, and that includes TV with Julie Newmar, she may actually be the best. The one closest to the Selena Kyle origin most of us know. Um, you know, she wasn't like, like playing it very big and kind of like, "I'm possessed by cats that licked me when I was dead." Very practical, very real, and. And even when she's being like, kind of selfish and shitty, it's believable. It doesn't come across like movie shitty or something. They handled her kind of well. So she's like, like she's in it for herself. She's not a bad guy, not a good guy. She's just like, "I'm looking out for me." And yeah. And so, you know, he's like, "There's, you know, there's more good in you than that." And she's like, "Sorry to keep disappointing you." And so takes off on the bike. She goes and blasts the hole in the Midtown Tunnel. The cops and the Bane Army on Wall, you know, boom, go head-to-head on Wall Street. And start fighting. Fist fighting. Before that fight begins, though, they all stand there quietly. And then they start moving forward. And then Bane is just like, "Open fire." And just as they're about to start shooting, the Bat comes in. The Batwing. I want to keep calling it the Batwing, but they just called it the Bat, which I didn't think was kind of a weak name. So the Bat comes in and blocks most of the fight. And then takes off. And that's the rallying cry for the cops. Like, ah. And then they all go at it. And so it's a massive fight in the street. Fist fighting. And in the midst of the fight, you see like Bane come down and start hitting random people, just looking for Batman. And Batman appears out of the smoke. And fights his way to Bane. And then they start fighting on the steps. And it's magical, dude. Like they're fighting in broad daylight. You got to remember, remember when we watched like Tim Burton movies, they would never show Batman in light or, you know, it was always in darkness. And here you are watching this Batman fighting in broad daylight. And it looks cool. Like, it don't look like, you know, it's not a dude twisting his whole body because he can't move his head. He's got mobility. And that suit looks cool in the day. They've designed it in such a way where you're like, that's not corny. That's badass. He's wearing armor. And army men wear armor out in the day. Why not this guy? So they're fighting on the steps. It's badass. And Batman's, you know, got more strength to him and stuff, but not like I can beat you easily. Finally, on the steps, he starts punching him in the mouthpiece. And that dislodges some of the, you know, wires, tubes. And you could see Bane's effect. He goes widey. And he's swinging. But he's still able to fight. He swings, then backs up, and swings again. There's this one awesome moment where he's fighting Batman. He throws him against a. It's in Pittsburgh, dude, where we shot Dogma. And Zach and Marie. So throughout the third act of the movie, throughout the whole movie, but particularly third act, I'm like, "Oh my God, that's where we stayed when we shot Dogma." That's that hotel would have been destroyed if we still lived there. Like, it's, you see all the earmarks of life spent in Pittsburgh for a certain amount of time. So he throws him. It looks like Carnegie Mellon steps, like with the big pillars where we shot like on the campus. We shot the Dogma scene where Matt Damon kills everyone in the boardroom. Throws Batman against the column. And throws such rapid-fire punches, dude. It's I've never seen anything like it. Somebody said, "You got to watch Warrior." Who does the same thing in Warrior. It looks so badass. Like normally in movies, if everything's well choreographed, two block, dodge, Perry, blah, blah, blah. He just, Bam, Bam, Bam, Bam. And it looked frightening. You'd be like, "You would be dead, man. If you were a normal human being without armor, this would have killed every internal organ." And then Batman ducks out of the way. And he's punching so hard that he punches into the columns. And it was tits. So Batman keeps taking out pieces of his breathing thing. And then finally gets to drop on him. Busts him through some glass doors. Miranda Tate is there. Because remember, he took Miranda Tate. The whole time, there's a backstory of Jim Gordon and the cops. And Miranda Tate, she helps them. There are three trucks that have the bomb on it. So they got to try to find the one that has the bomb on it, tag it, and so they can go after it before it explodes. So, uh, Batman gave Jim Gordon this like EMP blocker. Saying, "Get to the device and put this on the bomb. It'll stop him from, stop them from setting it off. Or it won't be triggered remotely, but it'll still go off. But it'll give him enough time." So his story is trying to get the EMP device into the truck. And at one point, he drops it. And almost silent. Bobby, and in that way where he's just missing the face, the hand on the face. So he gets into the truck and stuff. So Miranda was involved with them at one point, helping them mark trucks. And, and as I said before, she gets taken by Bane. So there is, Batman breaks, kicks Bane through these glass doors. Winds up in this alcove of this building. One of Bane's army comes after him, the one that was holding Miranda Tate. And Batman takes that dude out. Beats the out of Bane. Boom. Bane goes down. And then he gets to give Bane the, like, "Tell me where the detonator is. Then you have my permission to die." You know, like that. Well, I'd like to think Batman's way more original than like, "Remember that thing you said to me? I'm going to say it back. I'm going to say it back." Like, whatever. But it's fine. People loved it in the movie theater. I've seen people on Twitter being like, "That was my favorite line in the movie." There's another moment, a line in the movie where a lot of people seem to like. And I was like, "Where Batman's on the roof with Catwoman." And she's like, "Oh, after he saves her from the Bane attack thing." She's like, "Okay, bye." And she takes off. And he goes, "Wait, Miss Kyle." And he's having a conversation with her. And, and then he's distracted by something, a light, a helicopter light. And he turns back to be like, "Miss Kyle." And she's gone. "The way Batman disappears from people." And Batman goes, "So that's what that feels like." But he does it in the voice. This is what bothers me. He doesn't break. If you're, you're all alone, you, yes, you do the voice when others are around to mask your voice. But nobody's there. And you're talking out loud to yourself rather than just thinking it. Why the does he think in that voice? Like, "I want a cup of milk and a cookie, Alfred. I need to take a bad." But I like this movie. If I can wait just five minutes. Like, is that his internal monologue? The fact that he says out loud that weird voice when nobody's there to hear it? It's one of those moments where I'm like, "Why not just let him say it as Bruce Wayne?" Like, "So that's what that feels like." That would have been kind of better than, "So that's what that feels like." There's another moment too where Selena Kyle knows he's Bruce Wayne. And still, when he talks to her as Batman, he's like, "We have to."

Do do this. She knows who you are, dude. Like, at that point, I can't understand you. Save your voice. Like, you're going into battle. Save your voice. You gotta be yelling orders and [ __ ] just be like, "Hey man, here's the device. Here's the bike." [ __ ] I'm not going to bother with the pretense of this [ __ ] nutty voice anymore because a nuclear bomb's about to go off and you know who I am.

So he beats Bane down, and Bane was, Bane's like, "I broke you." And uh, he's like, "You think you're the only one that could get out of that prison?" And Bane's like, "But I never escaped." And Batman, for some reason, is just like, "But the child of Ra's al Ghul." And uh, but he goes, "But you're the, the child of Ra's al Ghul." And you hear Miranda Tate, "He is not the child of Ra's al Ghul." And she puts a knife into him and she's like, "I am the child of Ra's al Ghul." And Miranda Tate, spoiler Scott, this whole time, Mary Ann was Talia al Ghul. Now, as a longtime comic book fan, you would wouldn't even dream they'd ever get so close as to have the daughter of the demon in a movie. That is ballsy and amazing. Only problem is, they shot so much of this movie outdoors that the moment they showed her in a picture in a tunic, standing on top of a Tumbler, and this going back a few months while they were still in production, or even a year ago, you knew who she was. Yeah, you were like, "Wait, that outfit?" And she's standing like, what looks like on the bad guy side. So the whole movie, I'm sitting there just waiting for the moment where she's like, "Hi, I'm Talia." And she finally says, she stabs him. And he's like, stabs Batman, stabs him. Because they say in the second movie, like, he gave him a new outfit that was more flexible, but it makes him more vulnerable to knives. You know, he's just like, "How will it do about against dogs?" He's like, "She'll do good on cats. She'll do good against cats."

So cut to the next movie, and she puts the knife in between the armor plates, right into him. And she holds it there for like, four minutes while she tells her villain story. And her villain story, of course, is like, uh, Bane wasn't the kid that escaped. Bane was the protector in the jail. The kid that escaped was Talia al Ghul, and he helped her escape. And when she got up to the top, she ran off and she found her father. Uh, and he came back and exacted an angry vengeance on the prison because the prisoners killed his wife. And he references that in Batman Begins when he's sitting around the fire. They never reference The Joker, not once. Nobody ever says, "Remember The Joker," or [ __ ] "The Joker's still in Arkham," or anything like that. Joker's never referenced. Harvey Dent was referenced a lot, but not The Joker.

So she tells the story about she was the kid that got out. She brought her father back. The League of Shadows, uh, took her and her father in, and Bane. But her father could never accept Bane because he was a [ __ ] monster. His face is all [ __ ] up and [ __ ]. So he was excommunicated from the League of Shadows. So she's telling the story about him and Bane sitting there, rolling a tear. And while she's telling the story, she's fixing his device, putting the tubes back in place. And [ __ ] presumably to take the pain away so he can do what he needs to do. So she's like, "You know, his, and so his only crime was that he loved me." You know, and he rolls the tear. And uh, and she talks about like the fact that, you know, the best revenge is slow-acted revenge. You know, that you don't expect until it comes through your ribs like a knife in the darkness or some such [ __ ].

But I'm sitting there the whole time, I gotta figure out the timeline. But I'm like, "Why didn't she just kill them when they [ __ ]?" But I think what she needed was control of the device, which he first had to give over control of the Wayne board, which he did. I mean, I guess there, there's logic there because I've now seen it three times. Like, and the first time I saw it, I was like, "Oh, this is [ __ ] man." Like, she could have [ __ ] cut his dick off when they were having sex. That's pretty vengeful. You know, that's pretty mean. Yeah, that would hurt. Um, but, you know, she didn't. And I think it's because they still needed one more component to their plan or whatever. So then, or also, I thought about this, maybe she [ __ ] him just to take his chi away. You know, like she [ __ ] him that night knowing that he's going to go get his [ __ ] ass handed to him by Bane, just to make him a little bit weaker. Like, there's this overarching, I won't say like, Chris Nolan doesn't like women, but the whole movie, all the terrible events in the movie are put in place by a selfish woman who steals some fingerprints, um, and then [ __ ] him over later on when she leads him to the death trap. And then the movie ends with another vindictive, horrible woman who's been lying this whole time and wants to blow up all the city. Um, so when women guys just like the Bible, women are villains, huge villains.

So she's got this knife in them, and she's telling the story about how, you know, "I [ __ ], I got away, and it was me, and I came to finish my father's work. And I hated my father for the way he treated Bane. And until you murdered him, you know, but now I'm, I'm hellbent on finishing his work. I honor my father and [ __ ] and blah blah blah. And this city's going to die, and you're, and, and you're going to burn with it. And now you're going to listen to it. Go." And she's got the hand on the control. And he's, meanwhile, Bane is like, roping Batman up around the neck. They're going to like hang him off the bridge, presumably. Because some special forces guys came in, got killed by Bane. He was like, "And put them where they can be seen." And they hung them from the Gotham Bridge. Pretty [ __ ] tight, pretty intense. So you see him roping up at me like, "Oh my [ __ ], that's what he's heading toward." And [ __ ] and uh, she clicks the [ __ ] button. Right before she clicks the button, he's like, "Please." Like, you could tell he loves the [ __ ] city. Yeah. And it's not about, "Please, you're going to set off a bomb, and we'll probably be killed as well." Like, "I don't want to die either." Yeah. But he's just like, "She'll, she like, 'Now feel the heat of 12 million souls. You failed, Bruce.'" Like, these movies are all about how the al Ghul family really hates Bruce Wayne and hates Gotham a lot.

So she clicks the button, but it doesn't go off because Jim Gordon got the [ __ ] EMP blocker in place. So she's like, "No matter. It will go off soon." You know, and she's going to head off and make sure that the [ __ ] bomb goes off herself because she's committed to die. She don't give a [ __ ]. She's, you know, [ __ ] one of those crazy. So she tells Bane, "I want him to live. I want him to feel the heat when, you know, when a bomb goes off and [ __ ]." So she takes on, she says goodbye. And she says goodbye to Bane. Looks real sad. And the whole movie, you realize, is about this [ __ ] dude who like loves this chick so much. [ __ ] whipped. Yeah, I mean, that's the thing. And I said, even I think I said it on like, Hollywood Babylon, but I was like, "They're pushing Bane too much in our faces to be the main villain." Like, really? Like, you make the main villain a guy, Tom Hardy, he's known from a few movies, but he ain't that [ __ ] famous. And Bane ain't that cool a character. And like, he always felt like there was a shell game in place. And the shell game, of course, was like, he ain't the villain. He's just the muscle. The villain is this [ __ ]. It's Talia al Ghul.

So she goes off, and then Bane is left there with Batman. He's just like, "Um, um, you realize I, you realize I have to kill you now." Like, he's not going to [ __ ] wait. He's like, "You'll just have to imagine the fire." And he takes a shotgun to Batman's face. And there's an explosion. And for a second, you're like, "Holy [ __ ], that's balls." That, I mean, if that was like, like, just a headless corpse and credits, I'm like, "Oh my God, man. What a, what an ironic title." Dark. Last thing you see says, "Nolan out." No. The last thing you see is Alfred at the [ __ ] cafe, and he's still waiting for Bruce to show up. And he rolls the [ __ ] tear. Um, there's an explosion. And what it is, you know, in the [ __ ] two seconds after that, you realize Bane took a [ __ ] rocket to the chest. Um, and he's, presumably killed. And then they cut over to good old Selena Kyle, once again with a vehicle, but somehow entered a room that nobody heard it coming whatsoever. And she was on the bath pod, and she blew him away with a missile. And she's like, she lifts up her glasses. And whenever she's got her glasses on, you know, it's like a black outfit with the glasses. But when she flips them up, it gives the ear effect of the cat ears. It's a very clever idea. So, you know, she's like, "That whole no guns thing, I'm not sure I agree with you on it or whatever."

So then the, the stage is set for [ __ ] Batman to go out and save the day. They can't stop the bomb. That she jumps on. You know, there are a few tanks that he's got to chase him in. The Bat, take out her tanks that are, you know, the Tumblers that are not painted black. Um, and, uh, and then eventually it's down to her and this truck. And the truck's got the bomb in it. And Jim Gordon's in the back with the bomb. He blasts the truck. The ground. She [ __ ] goes off an overpass. Truck goes head first into like a lower whacker drive kind of affair. And, uh, she somehow dies. Well, she doesn't somehow [ __ ]. Head first into the pavement. She's not [ __ ] up enough. She can tell us a few things before she dies. And then she [ __ ] dies. Meanwhile, good old Jim Gordon, who's in the back of the truck, not even secure in a seat or anything like that, he's okay. He's just like, "Whoa." Yeah. He's like, "Who knew that you could survive such a precipitous fall?" That's crazy. "I banged my head against the bomb, but I'm cool. It's all good." And again, a minor quibble, but you let it go. But it felt like a real Indiana Jones in the refrigerator kind of moment. Like, dude, I just saw what happened to the truck. He would have been dead [ __ ] first.

So she has enough, you know, frame of mind and to be like, "My father's work is accomplished. I, I do this for my father. I, my father." "There's never been a kid." "Is this for your father, or is that what you're trying to tell me? Who'd you do this for?" Um, and she says her [ __ ] final [ __ ]. And then [ __ ] dies. And Batman's like, "I gotta get this bomb out of here. I gotta take the plane." And, you know, he's like, "They're like, 'Well, fly it out on the autopilot.'" He's like, "The autopilot doesn't work, in case you haven't been watching for the last two and a half hours." Jie of [ __ ] Lucius Fox. "I asked for one [ __ ] thing, and that's [ __ ] autopilot." She's like, "Come on, man. [ __ ] don't do this." He's like, "I gotta." And she's like, "He's like, 'You know, you said you weren't going to come back.'" And she's like, "I guess we're both just a pair of suckers." And, you know, she kisses him. And [ __ ] like they both got soft tarts. But meanwhile, he's like, "Well, everyone knows I got a soft heart. But you're the revelation here." So they kiss. He gets into the bat, to the bat. I keep wanting to call it the Batwing, cuz the bat just sounds stupid. But he gets into the plane. The back, the. He gets [ __ ] it. Scott, he gets into the Batwing. Forever be the Batwing. And as cool as it is, and it is kind of cool, I'm sorry. Uh, and this is not, it's not a competition, but Tim Burton's Batwing still [ __ ] wins the award. First Batwing, if for no other reason than that glorious moment in the, in Batman, where it breaks the clouds and the skyline, and you see the moon in the distance, and it goes right in front of the moon, hangs there for one second, creates the bat logo. Yeah. And then drops down and goes into battle. That the design of the Batwing, I thought, far cooler than this Bat thing. That being said, this Bat thing, the use of this Bat thing is far better than the use of the Batwing in Batman 1989. Because if you remember, Scott, all he did with that was take out the balloons and then get the Batwing taken out by a long gun that came out of the Joker's P. True. You want to talk about [ __ ] that bothered me? I was just like, number one, Batman's firing at the Joker with [ __ ] guns, which Batman doesn't use guns. And this is in the 1989 Batman. And then number two, the Joker takes this [ __ ] massive armored vehicle out with one gunshot. You know, with the fakest gun ever, a telescoping jokey gun that should have said "bang" at the tip of it. So, you know, at least it's a better version of that. But the, the look of the Batwing and Batman, I still think looks cooler.

So anyway, he gets into the Bat, and is about to take off. And Jim Gordon is just like, "Wait, the whole city's going to be saved. We'll never even knew who you were." Like, "I never wanted to know who you were." He said. And Batman's like, "You were right." And he goes, "But please, everyone, nobody's going to know." "Like, the hero of their city was." And he goes, "And this is to me, the most satisfying moment." And I'll probably won't be able to get through without crying. The most satisfying moment in the whole series because it really, it, it ends it on such a human note. All this bombastic [ __ ] vehicles that don't exist, cities being taken over, [ __ ] dudes in masks. It, in the midst of all this, there's a really human moment that makes you go, "Oh yeah, that's why this all happened." And he goes, uh, Batman says, "We." Jim Gordon goes, "Like, you, no one will ever know." "Like the hero that saved their city." "I'm not going to get through it." He goes, "Batman goes, 'A hero can be anybody.'" "Even, even, even a." "I can't do it." "J." "As some." "I go." He goes, "A hero could be anyone. Even someone who does something as small as put the coat on the shoulders of a young boy to let him know that the world wasn't ending." He doesn't do it like that because that would be a terrible moment. Batman started crying. And Jim G's like, "Would you get the bomb out of here? We could deal with this later." He's like, "No, we can't. There's no. Don't be a crybaby." It is. It's a beautiful moment. I heard lots of people kind of choke up a little, some tears. I've seen on Twitter people talking about like, "Oh, that's beautiful." It's a really nice moment because it's like, he never, they've had this relationship. He never knew who he was. Never told him who he was. And then before he takes off, he's just like, "You know, anybody could be a hero. You were a hero, dude. You saved my life one day. And that's why I do what I do."

So he takes off. And Gordon's just like, "Bruce Wayne." Like, puts it together. He's seemed disappointed. And Joseph Gordon-Levitt was like, "I know that. I was a kid. Why am I smarter than the commissioner of police?" Um, so that, that happens. And Batman takes the bomb out to sea. And we see the [ __ ] blast. And everyone's sad. And I did the whole thing before. And that's how it ends. And then Alfred sees him. And he looks good. He don't look malformed or radiation burned or anything like that. Presumably, presumably what would happen is between cuts, he just ejected, put it on autopilot, send that [ __ ] six miles out to sea. And that made me feel good, dude. Because honestly, like, Batman can't die. Batman can't be killed. Batman is smart. Like, it bugged me a little bit that Talia al Ghul is like, "I am the child of Ra's al Ghul." Batman would have figured that out. Like, in the Batman comics, and again, you differentiate for the movies, Chris Nolan doing a more realistic version. But in the comics, she would have [ __ ] want to thrust that knife. Batman would have grabbed her wrist. Probably wouldn't even snapped it because he's a good guy, and she's a lady. But he would have disarmed her. She's a, she's a killer, like a trained killer. And [ __ ] like, you know, and in the comics, she refers to him as beloved. She loves Bruce Wayne. Batman. But in this movie, she wanted to kill him because of what he did to her father, who she didn't really like anyway. See what I'm saying? Yeah. Yeah. Um, so event, so Miranda Tate hits him with the [ __ ] knife. But Batman would have figured that out in advance. In the comics, he would have grabbed her arm and he would have been like, "I knew you were Ra's al Ghul from the first moment you said at the Wayne meeting, blah, blah, blah." So she gets the drop on him, which is not very Batman-like. Um, but, uh, but it was cool that she was in it at all. Yeah. Yeah. Talia al Ghul. Come on, dude. I've been reading comics for [ __ ] years. I never. And when they started making Batman movies, you know, you're like, "Ah, Catwoman, [ __ ] Joker, Mr. Freeze, Penguin, you know, all the big tiers." Obviously, there was no way to do Ra's al Ghul, let alone Talia al Ghul, without it seeming dopey. You're going to talk about a character that goes into the Lazarus Pit and gets resurrected, he's thousands of years old, blah, blah, blah. He's Batman's greatest foe. And as much as he's like the smart guy who figured out who Batman was, that was a big storyline in Batman comics. Uh, Ra's al Ghul figured out that Bruce Wayne was Batman based on the finances. He's like, "Who else could afford these things?" Yeah, like something like that. You get your. So for the fact that Chris Nolan was able to make a movie where Ra's al Ghul is the [ __ ] villain is astounding. The fact that he was able to make another movie where Talia al Ghul is the villain, that's geek nirvana, dude. That's comic book fan nirvana. DC fanboy nirvana. I never thought I'd see that in my lifetime. Like, I'm like, "What an age of wonders we live in where a, a [ __ ] D-list character from a Batman book will finally show up in the movie." It, it was, it was cool, man.

So overall, I really dug the movie. If I had to grade them, cuz I see a lot of people going, "What's your order?" Cuz for a lot of people, this is their [ __ ] trilogy. It's crazy. I love Batman, so I'm way into this. But there are kids that are like, "These movies mean to me what those [ __ ] Star Wars movies meant to you and your fat friends when you were kids." I was like, "Well, Scott, not really fat. He liked them too." Um, so a lot of them go, "What's your order?" I think my order would still go in descending order. Uh, two, meaning Dark Knight, is number one. Number one. And then three, Dark Knight Rises. And then Batman Begins. To be number one. Now, I don't. Number three. Now, I don't say Batman Begins as distant three and it sucks, blah, blah, blah. No, but if I have to rank him in order, I think The Dark Knight, I can watch from beginning to end over and over again, and have many times. Um, The Dark Knight Rises, I've now seen three times and I'll probably see a few more. But when I get it on Blu-ray, I'm going right to the Bane stuff. Like, he was magical. I'm trying to think of what the thing, the elements I like. Like I said before, the score. Tom Hardy was fantastic. Bane. Christian Bale did a great job. Um, cast-wise, they, they were all tight. Joe Gordon-Levitt was good and stuff. But, but Bane is the, is the real Tom Hardy for me is the real discovery. Like, they did something unexpected with that character. Just like with the Joker, you always had an idea of what it would be, but then they changed it completely with Heath Ledger. Gave you a Joker that you were like, "This is way better." Same thing with this. Like, they gave you a version of Bane where you're like, "This is [ __ ] badass. This is amazing." And he worked it into a reality where it kind of has an effect. And he made a weird obvious choice. Like, rather than give him a voice that is fitting, like just how Heath's voice wasn't really, now we think of it as the Joker, but at first it wasn't very Joker-esque. Yeah. Yeah. Um, the voice that Tom Hardy uses as Bane is not the obvious choice you would imagine. He'd be like, "I will break him," or something. Muscle man. And instead, he goes with like, what sounds like an old British man voice. And it makes it unsettling and [ __ ] eerie. In addition to that, like I said, the fact that it's Talia al Ghul, it ties in so well with Batman Begins. But for me, yeah, I, I loved it. I'll watch it again. I, I still, and, and it's not a knock on it at all. I still, Dark Knight, The Dark Knight, the second one, yeah, feels like I could watch that again and again and again. Um, not just for Heath Ledger's magic performance, but it just, it works. Like, I remember seeing that movie and being like, "It's amazing that any, as much as the first movie, Batman Begins, was very earnest, this Dark Knight took it to a whole new level. It was just like, holy [ __ ], somebody literally legitimized something that I've loved my whole life and has been kind of like, some people have liked it as well, but other people have been like, "This is stupid. There's a guy in a blue cape running around the P. This is dumb." Kev, but he treated so [ __ ] seriously that you had people who were like, "I've never liked Batman, and these movies are great, man. Like, you don't have to be a superhero fan to like these movies." So he accomplished that amazingly with Dark Knight, the second one. And in this one, it's, it's not like he didn't accomplish that. He's already done it. This one's just sprawling, expansive. I, I love it. There's nothing wrong with it. I mean, the quibbles I brought up are quibbles, but still. Dark Knight with Heath Ledger, I think for me, will be top of the pyramid. Then Dark Knight Rises, and then Batman Begins. And I would say one and two on my list are very close together, only like a [ __ ] hair off from one another, a few points here or there. And then Batman Begins is probably a few more feet away from The Dark Knight Rises. But you could see, I, it's not like it's a bad movie. But I, man, it's really great. But you could see a dude going like, "Oh, I have so much more ambition, but I can only do this much now." Yeah. And then with success, he's allowed to do more and more. And that's why, you know, I give hats off to that guy because he treats those movies. For a Batman fan, he treats those movies in such a way that you can, I mean, it sounds stupid, but you can hold your head up high and be like, "These movies are [ __ ]. This is good, man. It's plausible. Like, this is modern mythology. Like, this is why, why, why like [ __ ] Citizen Kane over something like this? Like, why can't you treat a superhero movie insanely seriously and give it, you know, the gravitas that any other drama might have?" So my hats off to that dude for that. Like, he really, I would never think to look for this Batman in a movie theater. You know, I was happy with the Batmans I got in 1989 and in '92. So I didn't dare dream that someone would ever treat Batman this seriously. But this is the Batman movie that every Batman comic fan, I think, has dreamed about. Like somebody treating it [ __ ] as real as we enjoy it. And it's not saying we can't differentiate between fantasy and reality. Obviously, there are people in this world who have that problem and with tragic [ __ ] consequences. This isn't that. This is just like, you love something so much, and it's usually minimized or or kind of diminished by mainstream, and now it's being celebrated by mainstream. And the reason for that is because that guy said, "Hey, I'm going to do this straight up. Like, I'm not going to comment on it. I'm not going to be wry or ironic about it. I'm going to treat this like a [ __ ] real movie." A dude, a filmmaker. They went to a filmmaker. And and said, rather than a stylist, like Tim Burton's a filmmaker, get me wrong, but visual stylist, big ideas and stuff. Chris Nolan is a filmmaker with intimate ideas. And that he can write large on a big canvas. And the small ideas in this movie is like, what motivates people to do what they do? What motivates a man to put on a mask and do the things that he does? And blah, blah, blah. And how does that affect him and the people around him? And a city like Gotham was as important to every movie in in the Chris Nolan cycle as Batman was. He played the city as a, a thing of import as well. So, he did a great job. This is a movie that you have to see on the big screen. You know, don't let the events in Colorado keep you from from doing it. If you can see it on an IMAX screen, uh, absolutely see it there as well. But it's, it's a triumph. It's [ __ ]. It's pretty tits. It's got to drag you out of your seat. You got to [ __ ]. I was always amazed, like, you know, I was when I was talking to Scott before the weekend, I was like, "Hey man, make sure you see Dark Knight so we could talk about it." And he was like, "I don't know if I'm going to go." I'm like, "What the, the whole [ __ ] world is going to this movie." Well, no, you were like, "We, we got to talk about Dark Knight." I was like, "Do you think we should do it this soon?" I said, "Shouldn't we wait for people to see the movie?" And you were like, "Everyone to see this movie." It was like, "It seems such an outlandish notion to me." Like, "Well, shouldn't we wait till everyone has seen it?" I'm like, "Scott, everyone will see it at the first matinee on opening day because everyone loves Batman." But that's not necessarily the case. When are you going to go? "Probably if I can, this week at night. I probably will. Maybe next weekend." It's been a long show. Two shows. Two shows. We started, think about it, we started on Fat Man on Batman. We're finishing on Smodcast. We are. Isn't that amazing? Um, the first time we've ever done like a [ __ ] crossover two-parter. Yeah. It's like Marvel DC, don't go crazy, okay? [ __ ] get ahead of yourself. But yeah, a little bit like that. It's a, yeah, it's, yeah, yeah. You know what? I was coming down on you. I know why'd you [ __ ] slap me down? I tried to put it in the context of comics so we could [ __ ] have common ground, punch holes in it, and be like, "That's not his name's not really Robin, Scott." But yeah, I got my geek on of that. But you're right, man. It actually does kind of fit. Um, so there it is, man. Uh, The Dark Knight Rises, as told to you by Kevin from beginning to end. As told to. It's, it's kind of like, uh, that is, it has to be the most spoiler-rich review of a movie ever. Yeah. Yeah. That's, I mean, I guess it's a celebration. It is. That's not a review. It's a celebration. Thanks for tuning in to our celebration of The Dark Knight Rises. Yeah, man. It's [ __ ]. You don't even have to. That's like a. It's like me describing the movie for the blind. And mind you, I'm doing it from memory. Granted, I saw it three times. But I don't have it in front of me. No notes. And [ __ ]. Um, I could do that, man. I think I'd be a good like, for the blind kind of guy, cuz I'm pretty descriptive. And [ __ ]. I talk about [ __ ]. And everyone loves that. You're like, "Anytime the movie gets slow, I'll just talk about [ __ ]." Yeah. "I'll just riff and be like, 'While this is going on in the movie, man, when's the last time you came?'" They're like, "You're really disturbing these kids in the blind school." "These kids don't know about [ __ ]." "Well, that's what I'm here to teach him." Like, "Just stick to Batman." "Fat Man." "Try not to cry." "Oh, it's emotional." "I get emotional about Batman." Um, all right, man. So there it is. Uh, B. The Dark Knight Rises. Go out and see it. And again, um, our hearts, uh, and minds go out to everyone in Aurora, Colorado, uh, affected by this. Not just the people that died, but the family that left behind. Um, the people who, everywhere, you know, of course, you're immediately your concern goes for the people directly affected. But, um, this is the kind of thing that traumatizes a lot of people, even if you're nowhere near it, man. So talk to one another. Sit down. Get it off your chest. These kind of things, not best to just sit there, weigh on your head and heart. Get into discussions with your friends and family and whatnot. And remember, there's always strength in numbers. And you can't let people, you know, change the way you want to live your life. Don't let the terrorists win. They told us that years ago. It still holds up today. Um, go out and see The Dark Knight Rises. And when you do, um, at some point in the movie, whether it's before, during, after, perhaps after, watch the whole movie. Watch the credits. Stick around after the credits are done. I can't promise. I don't think there is a Marvel-like after scene. But stick around after the credits in the theater. And just think about all those poor people that didn't get to see the movie and never will get to see the end of the movie. And I'm not saying, you know, you see a lot of tweets and [ __ ] going, "Pray for." You're in our prayers. And the older I get, it's tougher for me to be like, "Yeah, that'll help." Like, so keep them in your head and heart. Perhaps call that a prayer, if you will. But it's more about just thinking about people who, just like you, just wanted to go enjoy the [ __ ] out of a movie they've been waiting for for a long time and didn't get that opportunity. So let's not dwell on the [ __ ] madmen that did this. Let's, let's think about the lives, uh, that he affected. Let's think about the people that, uh, were punished simply for wanting to do what we all went and did and will continue to do for the rest of our lives. So do that, man. You go out and see The Dark Knight. If you've already seen it, come on, go see it again. Don't be an idiot. But when you see it again, stick around after the credits. And and use it like a church. Movie theater is our church, really, man. It's where we feel safest and stuff. We kind of, uh, go into the darkness and we're told stories, just like we're told in church. It's the same kind of thing. Um, and it, movies are many people's religion. So if you're one of those people and and you are profoundly affected by what happened in Aurora, Colorado, you know, uh, that's a good way to kind of reflect right there in the movie theater after the movie's done. Enjoy yourself. Enjoy the movie. And then give a thought to those, uh, to those folks. I want to give it up for my co-host, my mostly silent co-host today. I literally, this is the first time we've been doing a podcast forever. My throat started to hurt at the end where I'm like, and I was like, "Why is that?" Then I realized we were talking. Cuz you literally talked and cried for four hours. It was like a therapy session. This is like the end of Goodwill Hunting. And [ __ ], Scott was like, "It's not your fault, Kevin." I'm like, "Not you, Scott. [ __ ] you." He like, "It's not your fault." Yeah. It was emotional. But I get that way. But I, I, I couldn't have done that in front of many people. Uh, Scott Moer is definitely one of them. So thanks for being here, Mo. Thank you. Uh, make sure you go out and [ __ ] will see it twice too. Because otherwise, if you, I know you technically, I've already seen it once. Um, all right, man. There it is. That's Smodcast for this week. I'm Kevin Smith. Scott Moer. Have a week.