The Dark Knight Rises: if I could just bat this one back to you…

I seem to have lost the taste for big-budget, all-action, things-exploding block-busting extravaganzas of late (I didn’t even catch the Olympics opening ceremony), although my spies tell me there have been a few worthwhile superhero reboots of late that have been worth a look (Avengers Assemble, which didn’t appeal as the title made it sound like it was going to be a documentary about how masked crusaders come flatpacked, and The Amazing Spiderman, which I turned down because I seem to remember watching a perfectly adequate Spiderman re-telling only about five minutes ago). I thought I should probably make an effort for The Dark Knight Rises, however, as I did really approve of Batman Begins, the first part of Christopher Nolan’s trilogy of angst-ridden Gotham City based vigilantism, even if I found its follow-up The Dark Knight overlong and awkwardly structured, and unbalanced by Heath Ledger’s showboating performance as The Joker – it was electrifyingly watchable whenever he was on screen, but seriously draggy when he wasn’t.

So the good news, I guess, is that this third film is a definite improvement, at least in terms of pacing and coherence. It tells its story reasonably clearly, builds to some impressive setpieces which have real impact because the stakes have been properly prepared for the audience and while there are more subplots to keep an eye on than I’m completely comfortable with at least it doesn’t turn left into a completely different narrative two-thirds of the way through as the last film did. It’s efficient, even if it’s far from lean, what with all the heavy lifting required in the early stages to let us know what’s been going on with Bruce Wayne, Commissioner Gordon, Alfred the butler et al in the eight years since we last met them, and also establish a whole raft of new characters, a lot of whom just seem to be generic sleazy businessmen or police officers. Most eye-catching of the new guys are super-villain Bane, played behind a gimp mask by an unrecognisable Tom Hardy, who has an attractive if hardly original line in casual sadism and Nietzschean wisecracks, and Anne Hathaway’s feisty safe-cracker Selina Kyle, who’s never explicitly identified as Catwoman, although the ears are a bit of a giveaway. Also along for the ride are Marion Cotillard as entrepreneur and potential saviour of Wayne Enterprises Miranda Tate and Joseph Gordon-Levitt as an idealistic young cop who you sense might be being set up for a more central role in the future.

You do need to concentrate a bit to keep up with how all these folk’s agendas fit together, and to be honest it’s not made any easier by the predominantly dark production design or by the way that a lot of Bane’s choice rejoinders are rendered indistinct by the distortion effect that’s been used on his voice, but I’m pretty sure the film plays fair and gives you all the information you need to make sense of it. By the midway point the nature of the baddies’ scheme has become clear and it’s certainly effectively realised on screen, with the various bangs and crashes and explosions coming over as satisfyingly physical and non-computer generated. A key to the success of these films is the vulnerability of Christian Bale’s Batman and he’s put through the mill good and proper here, suffering multiple reversals of fortune – he’s a much more interesting and rounded figure than any of the bad guys, whose motivation seems a little sketchy to me. Best of the new characters is Selina Kyle, who convinces as a properly conflicted human being and gets to deliver witticisms that are actually funny, while the holy supporting triumvirate of Michael Caine, Gary Oldman and Morgan Freeman are as classy as you’d expect, Oldman excelling as the beating heart of the film. It’s a long movie, and in places a slightly wearying one, but I’d be surprised if I came across another action spectacular this…err…weighty…any time soon.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy: something’s rotten in the state of bakelite

It’s a risky enterprise, condensing as knotty a book as John Le Carré’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy down into a two hour film, particularly given the existence of the universally admired BBC adaptation from thirty years ago, in which Alec Guinness made an indelible impression as the urbane intelligence agent George Smiley, but Tomas Alfredson’s new version would appear on first viewing to be a minor miracle: it’s uncompromisingly intelligent, confident in its use of the elisions and flashbacks necessary to compress the material into the required time-frame, startlingly convincing in its recreation of its drab 1970s setting and best of all quiet, measured and restrained for most of its running time. Don’t turn up to this spy film expecting Bond or Bourne style action sequences, chases and adrenaline-pumping fights – many of the scenes here involve shabby-looking men discussing arcane points of intelligence protocol in brown rooms while sipping on unappetising looking cups of tea. The technology on display is decidedly unflashy, and is mainly fashioned from bakelite, and James Bond wouldn’t be seen dead in some of the pootling little cars these agents use to get about in. Nevertheless, if you’re prepared to pay attention this is in places as gripping a thriller as I’ve seen in a long time.

I’m not sure I’m up to the job of precising Le Carré’s labyrinthine plot, but in very general terms Tinker Tailor is about the attempts by George Smiley to uncover a mole who has been compromising British security by feeding intelligence to the Russians. The spymaster Control (John Hurt, whose haggard features and booze-addled cunning fit the scenario a treat) has narrowed the identity of the double agent down to one of five men at the highest level of the security services, and Smiley is unofficially brought out of retirement to catch the mole. Gary Oldman gets what might be seen as the futile task of following Alec Guinness in the part of Smiley, but it must be said that he’s pretty successful, largely because he’s able to exploit the reined-in and ever calculating nature of the character. I swear Oldman doesn’t actually utter more than half a dozen lines of dialogue in the whole first half of the film, but you feel his presence throughout and when he starts making his moves his controlled and decisive acts of bravery ring true. Smiley’s far from an emotionless automaton however, and we see just enough of his backstory and personal failures to be able to generate considerable empathy with him.

This unusually subtle and considered characterisation also extends to the many supporting roles in the film. Nobody here comes off as a cartoon or a cliché, and while there are occasional verbal and physical outbursts they’re always earned and laid-in carefully. The cast of this film is actually pretty extraordinary – Colin Firth can presumably pick any part he wants these days, but here he settles for a smallish role as the caddish Bill Hayden, and you also get top turns from Toby Jones, Tom Hardy and Kathy Burke. Other than Oldman, the two actors that really stand out for me are Benedict Cumberbatch as the nervy Peter Guillam (the scene where he’s sent to retrieve a confidential file is nail-bitingly tense) and Mark Strong as the loyal and fearless Jim Prideaux, who is put through a harrowing ordeal in the line of duty, and comes through it with dignity and humanity intact.

Tinker Tailor will probably be in line for a whole bunch of awards come the new year, and will probably deserve to snag a few. This is the kind of thoughtful, complex thriller they used to make in the 70s and it’s bound to repay repeat viewings with interest. Go and see it, but don’t be munching your popcorn too loudly.