The Dark Knight Rises was
arguably the most anticipated movie of this year. 2008's The
Dark Knight is widely considered
the greatest comic book movie ever made, and Christopher Nolan is, in
my opinion, the best director making movies right now. Obviously the
expectations for the final film in Nolan's Batman trilogy are very
high, and it largely delivers. I do have to say that Rises
isn't quite as good as it's predecessor, which is largely a factor of
the difference in villains and Heath Ledger's unforgettable
performance as the Joker. All things considered, The Dark
Knight Rises is a fitting end to
the what is arguably the best series of movies of the past decade.
I'm
going to warn you now, there are going to be spoilers ahead. If you
haven't seen the film yet, everything you need to know about my
opinion of the movie has been described in the above paragraph. Only
continue reading if you have already seen the movie or don't care
about having it spoiled for you.
Spoiler-filled summary and analysis after the jump.
Are
they gone? Good, let's continue. The Dark Knight Rises
takes place 8 years after the
events of The Dark Knight. Gotham
City is at peace, organized crime either left the city or been
incarcerated, and Batman hasn't been seen in years. Bruce Wayne
(Christian Bale) is now a hobbled shut-in who continues his
charitable work to keep improving the city. Little does he know, a
storm is coming. Bane (Tom Hardy), a mercenary trained by the League
of Shadows intends to finish the work of Ra's al Ghul and destroy
Gotham. This version of Bane isn't the 'roided up behemoth we've come
to know in the past, but this version fits in better with the
universe Nolan has created. Bane orchestrates a heist on the Gotham
Stock Exchange and robs Bruce Wayne of his wealth as he was hired to
do so that control of Wayne Industries would fall to Bane's employer,
a member of the board of trustees. Batman uses the help of cat
burglar Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway) to find Bane. The two of them
fight and Batman gets soundly beaten, and he is then taken to a
prison in some far off country. While Batman is away, Bane takes
takes over the city by blowing up the bridges leading out of the city
and threatening to detonate an atomic bomb should anyone try to
leave. Batman uses his time in the prison to rehabilitate and escape.
And he returns to Gotham to restore order.There
is a lot of complexity to the plot that I am skipping over,
Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) is exposed as a fraud for lying
about what happened to Harvey Dent and Matthew Modine tries to take
his place. Joseph Gordon Levitt plays an honest cop who sees the need
for Batman again and helps fight back against Bane while Batman is
away. Marion Cotillard plays a member of the board of trustees
interested in clean energy who Bruce Wayne gives control of a fusion
reactor to (which is where Bane gets the nuclear bomb from). The
twist where it's revealed that she is the offspring of Ra's al Ghul
rather than Bane is a definite surprise which lends a purpose to her
character which up until that point had been lacking.
Some
people are going to have an issue with the ending of the movie. It
does come off as a little trite, the way Batman uses the autopilot to
fake his death by atom bomb and then is seen with Selina Kyle
relaxing in some exotic locale. However, fans of the Batman comics
will see this as true to the source material (namely Frank Miller's
“The Dark Knight Returns”). Rises borrows
a number of elements from that story including the fight where Batman
loses to Bane, Batman's prolonged absence from Gotham, Wayne becoming
a recluse, and even handing over the cowl to “Robin.”
Everything in this
movie is done extremely well. I don't even know where to begin when
describing how good it is. Technically and artistically this movie is
a triumph. I did especially like how they demonstrated the bat
cycle's ability to move laterally, which kind of confused me in
unclear shot of that happening in The Dark Knight. I also got
pleasure out of seeing Desmond Harrington from Dexter and
especially Tom Lennon in their cameo roles. However, the film
is not without it's faults. Some may balk at the nearly three hour
run-time, but I didn't think it was terrible. Others complain about
the realism of the scene in the football stadium, but I attribute
this largely to that scene's overexposure over the past 9 months or
so. If you had seen that scene for the first time when you saw the
movie, your face would explode. I found Catwoman to be a little too
glib and quick with a joke. I also am not sure how Bruce Wayne got
back into Gotham City after it had been supposedly closed off. The
subplot with Matthew Modine was wholly irrelevant. I would have liked
to see Batman fight Bane on the roof with Catwoman before escaping in
the Bat. I also don't really buy Joseph Gordon Levitt being able to
figure out that Bruce Wayne was Batman simply because of the way he
looked at him once, it would've been cooler to see him slowly piece
it together. I'm also kind of on the fence about Joseph Gordon
Levitt's reveal that his name is Robin, it's cute, but I could have
done without it. The biggest complaint that people are going
to have
about this movie is Bane's voice. It sounds like a mix between Sean
Connery and Mickey Mouse. In the original cut of this film (The
opening scene on the plane was played before IMAX screenings of
Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol), Bane's voice was more mechanical
and less clear. After complaints about not being unable to understand
what Bane was saying, the studio freaked out and made Nolan remix it.
Now I think the voice is almost too clear and would be better if it
was a little more gruff. It works better in some scenes than others.
I didn't mind it in the plane scene, but in his speech in front of
Gotham Prison it seemed a little off. All of these are minor,
nit-picky complaints and while the movie doesn't quite meet the
height reached by it's predecessor, the movie remains the perfect
ending to an amazing trilogy.
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