With expectations riding high on Nolan’s follow-up, The Dark Knight, we all feared that he
would somehow drop the ball and give the fans something to complain about for
the next few months following its release. He delivered and then some. It ended
up being more of a crime thriller than a superhero movie and was elevated to
the Nth Degree by the outstanding performance of Heath Ledger as The Joker.
Now that the hype was at a fever pitch for the final film in the
trilogy, The Dark Knight Rises, the
fan community had little doubt that Nolan would knock this installment out of
the park once again. As far as I am concerned he did, but there are some who
think otherwise. Sure it’s not a perfect movie, but few are. The previous films
in the series were far from perfect, but like I said, this was being held up to
unrealistic standards by the fans. I was just looking for an entertaining film
and that’s what I received in addition to some perks only Nolan can provide.
Picking up eight years after the events of The Dark Knight, we find that Bruce
Wayne (Christian Bale) has retired The Batman in the wake of the deaths of Harvey Dent and Rachel Dawes. Now a reclusive hermit with extensive injuries sustained in battle he
has allowed the police to take care of the remaining criminal elements in Gotham. When a militant revolutionary named Bane (Tom
Hardy) comes to town and begins waging war on the wealthy alongside a notorious
cat burglar (Anne Hathaway), Wayne
revives The Batman in order to save the city. The only problem is that he may
have to sacrifice his life in order to do so.
As with all the other films in this franchise the acting
is phenomenal. Every single cast member is at the top of their game and treats the
material as if it were Shakespeare. We all know that Christian Bale excels as
both Bruce Wayne and Batman, and that Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman and Michael
Caine are all amazing in their roles.
But what of the actors who are new to the franchise? I will
go on the record to say that from here on out I am a fan of Anne Hathaway. I
haven’t been able to sit through a movie she’s starred in for years mostly
because she has terrible taste in projects, be it Bride Wars or Ella Enchanted.
Her “aren’t I adorable?” shtick just irks me in all the wrong ways. But after
seeing her fierce turn as Catwoman I am firmly in her camp. Not once did I see
a wannabe Julia Roberts, I saw only Selena Kyle. I believed that she could do
all the crazy acrobatic fights as well as threaten somebody’s life just by
looking at them. She put her all into this part, and even though I was
extremely skeptical when I first heard of her casting I now feel that she is
the Heath Ledger of this film. This is her big breakout in my eyes.
Tom Hardy, whose performances I’ve admired for years
starting with Star Trek: Nemesis all
the way through Inception, had the
daunting task of taking on the odd role of Bane. In the comics he’s a massive
hulk of a man that injects himself with a poison to gain super strength. In
Nolan’s more realistic universe he’s a damaged man who needs to constantly
inhale an anesthetic to function via a facemask. In the trailers and the
preview that was shown some six months prior to The Dark Knight Rises’ release his voice was completely muddled
through this mask, and understanding anything he said proved to be a task
worthy of Job. With a little tweaking on Nolan’s part his performance manages
to not only come through via his body language and expressive eyes, but by his
gentlemanly voice. It was a strange choice to have this brute, who is not only
supremely intelligent but is always two steps ahead of his competition, to
speak like a member of British royalty. It works wonders for his character’s
somewhat contradictory nature. This is most evident in his character’s final
moments in the film.
Marion Cotillard is the only weak spot. She is a fantastic
actress and I cannot fault her for the problems with the script, but I thought
her big reveal to be completely predictable even before the clues started to
pop up (once they started talking about a certain character’s child I knew I
had predicted correctly). One rule I’ve always bet on is that “If you’re going
to cast a major star in what amounts to a bit part, you know that down the line
they’re going to end up being the villain”, and that I saw coming a mile away
in her case. I felt she sort of gave it away early in the movie via her body
language and the looks she throws Bruce’s way. Plus, her death scene is one of
the worst I’ve ever seen and is almost laughably hokey.
Enough about the acting, what about the plot? It definitely
borrows heavily from the “Knightfall” comic book storyline wherein Bane breaks
Batman’s back, but it’s the class warfare arc that intrigued me the most. We
have Catwoman on one hand stealing from the rich so that she can survive as
well as serve Bane’s cause, and when she tells Bruce Wayne that “There’s a
storm coming, Mr. Wayne. You and your friends better batten down the hatches,
because when it hits, you’re all going to wonder how you ever thought you could
live so large and leave so little for the rest of us” she pretty much lays out
the overall plot for the film. Gotham is a
decadent city rife with corruption and Bane wants to wipe it off the map to
make a point to the world in the name of the League of Shadows. For someone of
my own monetary situation I can definitely sympathize. When I saw the trailers
that showcased this thematic choice I felt it was somewhat prophetic since at
the time it was released the “Occupy Wall Street” movement was just beginning.
Nolan saw it coming and took full advantage. Kudos sir.
Hans Zimmer’s fantastic score makes even the most dialogue
driven scene more epic, and while James Newton Howard’s presence is sorely
missed (his quieter moments of the previous films’ scores were just as awesome
as Zimmer’s bombastic themes) I have to give credit that Zimmer pulled off yet
another amazing musical coup.
There are some plot holes which I assume cropped up due to
pacing, like how Bruce managed to get back into Gotham
after the lockdown was in effect, or why Lucius didn’t just flood the reactor
facility when Bane was holding him hostage. I can only assume that Bruce still
has his methods and contacts to allow him to sneak into Gotham
and that if Lucius attempted to flood the facility Miranda would have broken
her cover and stopped him. A lot of people had issue with Alfred choosing to
leave Bruce because of his choice to become Batman again. People I know said
that he would never leave Bruce no matter what, but this isn’t the Alfred from
the comics. I totally bought that this version of Alfred, an ex-military man,
would abandon Bruce to show him just how opposed he was to him putting his life
in danger again, and the last time he did it people he cared for lost their
lives. He even went as far to use the death of Rachel as leverage to prove his
point. The bottom line is that this is a movie based on a comic book and
there’s bound to be issues like this that pop up from time to time. It didn’t
bother me at all and seems like needless nitpicking to me.
My main issue is the action scenes. The fight scenes
are filmed in extreme close-up again (like in Batman Begins) and they are so short, darkly lit (in the sewer
scene) and badly choreographed that at times I couldn’t tell who was hitting
who. I can understand Nolan not being skilled at filming scenes of this nature,
or maybe not even being confident enough to pull them off properly. In that
case he should stop being such a control freak (he directs and oversees EVERY
scene in his movies with no second unit as back-up) and bring in people who are
comfortable shooting stuff like this.
My other issue is minor, and that’s the “Robin” name
dropping in the epilogue. I had heard in interviews that Nolan would never utilize
that character in any of his films, but then he goes ahead and has one
character turn out to be him in the end. Sure he most likely will not be the
character when all is said and done, but I still felt it was silly and
unnecessary.
A satisfying conclusion to Nolan’s Batman trilogy, The Dark
Knight Rises hits all the right notes and themes to close out this series
on a high note, minor quibbles be damned. The sad part is that we will not get
another film in this series. Well, we might, but not from Nolan. I just hope
that the person who takes over the franchise has a vision that compliments the
characters just as perfectly.
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