Latest Batman movie has third largest opening ever

LOS ANGELES: The most recent Batman movie "The Dark Knight Rises" had the third largest opening weekend ever, despite the movie theater massacre in Aurora, Colorado, according to figures released Monday.

Twelve people were killed and 58 wounded in the hail of gunfire in Friday's Colorado massacre, in which an attacker gunned down film-goers at a packed premier of "The Dark Knight Rises."

This might have proved a marketing nightmare for the studio, and Warner Brothers, initially did not publish weekend box office figures -- a move swiftly followed by rivals, wary of offending the public.

But when figures were released on Monday they showed that "The Dark Knight Rises" -- directed by Christopher Nolan -- had earned $160.9 million in its first three days, according to Exhibitor Relations, which tracks ticket sales.

The last chapter in the Batman trilogy comes behind opening weekend grosses for "The Avengers" ($207.4 million) and the final Harry Potter movie, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2" ($169.2 million).

However both "The Avengers" and "Harry Potter" were 3-D movies, meaning the ticket prices were higher.

"The Dark Knight Rises" had the most profitable weekend of any 2-D film, earning more than the $158.4 million raked in by its 2008 trilogy predecessor, "The Dark Knight," according to industry figures.

The 3-D computer-animated adventure comedy "Ice Age: Continental Drift" was second in box-office receipts, raking in $20.4 million dollars in its second week on the big screen, according to Exhibitor Relations.

Third was "The Amazing Spider-Man," starring Andrew Garfield, with $10.8 million, followed by cheeky teddy bear comedy "Ted" with $10 million, and Pixar studio's 3-D animated fairytale "Brave" with $6 million.

"Magic Mike," starring Channing Tatum and Matthew McConaughey as male strippers, was in sixth with $4.3 million, while Oliver Stone's drama "Savages" slipped to seventh, with $3.4 million in takings.

Tyler Perry's "Madea's Witness Protection" took eighth slot with $2.25 million in sales and indie coming-of-age movie "Moonrise Kingdom," starring Bill Murray, Bruce Willis and Edward Norton, was ninth with $1.8 million.

Rounding off the top ten was the latest Woody Allen comedy, "To Rome With Love," starring Allen, Ellen Page and Alec Baldwin, with $1.4 million, according to Exhibitor Relations. (AFP)

The Dark Knight Rises (Movie Review)

Once in every few years, a film's expectation reaches fever pitch. Yet, only a handful ever have lived up to it. The last of the "Batman Trilogy", to the delight of fans, does. That it does so, while continuing on the same themes it addressed before, is a feather hardly any film franchisee has claimed.

Seven years since Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) retired as Batman, a new villain Bane (Tom Hardy) threatens not only Gotham's peace, but its very existence. When the entire city is taken hostage by Bane's men and the police are locked up, Batman must return, and fight an impossible resistance with a handful others.

The least one expects from a very popular, self-professed end of a series film is a grand scale. Most commercial cinema merely increases the effects and physical action. While Nolan indeed delivers on these, he goes beyond.

A bank or even a building being held hostage is well-known in cinema. Did you ever imagine an entire city held hostage for months? Like in the second part of the series, Nolan then asks the question: Would normal citizens rise up to become heroes?

Yet, morally and metaphorically, 'The Dark Knight' was stronger. There he asked the same question, but to individual citizens and in the climax on the two boats, to an opposite group of people.

There, Batman wins because people in the two boats beat their instinct for self survival by refusing to kill the others for their own sake. In that scene, everyone becomes a superhero. Everyone becomes Batman.

That edginess of script, that triumph of true courage, is missing in this part. It compensates by rising on other counts.

The Nolan brothers (Christopher and Jonathan) know how to intermix a grim story of power, corruption, control and heroism with a spectacular razzle-dazzle. In a very powerful screenplay, the brothers bring attention to the corruption, the power structures and the chaos of the affluent class.

And the brothers, in creating villains that are alter-egos of Batman, and in often giving them ideals as high as him but in the end showing these anarchist villains failing, perhaps makes the greatest joke, the greatest metaphor on the state of the world today.

Perhaps the hidden, dark message is that no matter how much one resists - be it Batman or his villains - a corrupt power structure and affluence will survive. The brothers perhaps want to say that resistance, eventually, proves futile. Perhaps they want to say the opposite, that good and bad, light and darkness and falling and rising take turns and that no matter what, one has to resist.

Nolan is a man in absolute control of his craft. You'll be hard pressed to find a man with such ability to interplay sound and visuals to create a three-dimensional vision in your head.