The Dark Knight Rises

WARNING, THAR BE SPOILERS AHEAD!

Let me start off by reminding everyone that I have never really been much of a DC comic fan growing up, my allegiance usually lied with the Marvel universe. DC superheroes are certainly cool and everything, but once you get past their initial power loadout the characters themselves were often flat, boring, and strangely devoid of any real personal arcs. People like Superman, The Flash, Green Lantern, and so on never really faced any personal struggles once they took their masks off, and as a result they always ended up being boring, stiff, wooden characters who just happen to fight evil.

 Marvel on the other hand was full of characters that were actual human beings first and superheroes second. People like Tony Stark, Matthew Murdoch, and of course, Peter Parker allowed us to glean into the personal struggles that being a full time superhero brought with it. Putting these characters together in the same world led to exciting, emotional dramas that allow us to better associate ourselves with these characters. It’s the main reason why I find The Avengers so much more interesting than The Justice League. The JL is pretty much a bunch of boring, agreeable superheroes working together to do good things, but the Avengers are a powder keg of explosive tempers and differing opinions that usually squabble with each other as much as they do the bad guys.

But every rule has an exception, and despite all the Supermen, Green Lanterns, Flashes, Wonder Women, Aquamen (ugh), and other flat, boring characters, DC has at least given us the Batman. It’s hard to point out exactly what makes Bruce Wayne so cool, maybe it’s because he’s a world class martial artist, maybe it’s the high-tech toys that make him such a great detective, or maybe it’s the fact that he’s just a few life choices away from being one of the anti-social psychopaths he fights so hard to put away. Since his initial appearance in Detective Comics  Batman has emerged as arguably DCs most beloved character, and has been featured in countless comic stories, from the awesome…

Is that… is that a god damn dinosaur in the back?

To the… not so awesome…

But that didn’t stop Batman from spawning not only what is arguably the best comic book film franchise, but what may now be considered one of the best film trilogies of all time. What started with a great comic film in Batman Begins led to the near perfect specimen The Dark Knight, and finally to close it all out Christopher Nolan has given us The Dark Knight Rises. Was it a fitting end to this amazing series?

Yes… absolutely.

I’ll start out by saying right off the bat that this film was not quite as good as The Dark Knight, but that doesn’t mean that Christopher Nolan didn’t stick the landing perfectly. In fact, while I consider DK to be the better of the two films, I found DKR to be the more entertaining of the two. On the other hand, this film is pissing off a LOT of people, mainly hardcore fans of the Batman comic such as Harry Knowles at aintitcoolnews. For the most part, what’s irritating these people so much is the fact that Christopher Nolan is straying from the source material of the comics, but seriously, it’s not as bad as some people are making it out to be.

For example, and again… SPOILERS... a lot of people are pissed off that at one point in the film Alfred actually leaves Bruce Wayne because he can’t stand watching him hurt himself anymore. People are crying foul that Alfred from the comics never would have left his side, but somewhere in this whole mix people seem to have a double standard of what’s acceptable and not in comic adaptations. They’ll scream that Alfred wouldn’t leave Bruce’s side, but at the same time these critics find no problem with something like Spider-man having organic web shooters or Sabertooth being such a quiet, compliant weirdo.

This is literally 93% of his dialogue

Listen, I can only speak for myself, but I have no problem with adjusting fire when dealing with character traits as long as it advances the story and has emotional purpose behind it. If you can just let go of the world of the comics then you might be able to notice that the scene where Alfred says goodbye is actually a pretty damn gut-wrenching scene. It sets up the idea that Batman is going to be facing this storm alone and foreshadows the sense of hopelessness and abandonment that Bruce is about to experience, but instead people will just shake their heads and say “Pfffft… this is bullshit.”

Just because someone is directing a movie based on a comic doesn’t mean they need to interpret it word for word, they are just using it as a structural backbone for a story that THEY want to tell. Nobody complained that The Dark Knight was an interpretation of George Bush vs. Terrorism, so why should they care now? This is the director’s vision of the story, how dare we as spectators cry foul when they change a fact here or there. If you want a word for word version of Knightfall, then read freaking Knightfall! Now obviously I have a problem with changing the story so much that it no longer resembles the source material, like Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, or with changing the story for reasons so stupid that the resultant mess turns into a colossal joke.

Oh, hey… how’d this get in here?

But let’s get to the meat and bones of this film. The story starts off almost a decade after the events of The Dark Knight. The death of Harvey Dent has led to the passing of an initiative that allowed the Gotham Police to wage war on organized crime, completely ridding Gotham City of any serious crime syndicates. Bruce Wayne has retired the cowl since being exiled from public favor after taking the blame for Dent’s death, and has since become a shadowy recluse confined to a wing of his mansion and leaving him a shell of the man he used to be.

It’s during this time that we see what being Batman has truly cost Bruce Wayne. The death of his true love has hollowed him out spiritually, and years of fighting crime has utterly destroyed his body. He’s suffering from a slew of horrendous conditions, including a complete loss of cartilage in one of his knees, kidney damage from the poisoning he took in Batman Begins, tissue damage and bone problems from broken appendages not being set right, and countless Traumatic Brain Injuries leading to brain damage. In short, Bruce Wayne is a mess, but he is totally happy with hanging up his cowl and living the rest of his life knowing that he helped clean up the city by taking the fall for Dent’s rampage, even if it wasn’t quite the way he imagined doing it.

Commissioner Gordon on the other hand is not so content, and as the film begins his inner conscience is beginning to overwhelm his love of a peaceful city. He is debating whether or not to inform Gotham about the truth surrounding Batman’s exile, and while he knows this will probably result in overturning most, if not all of Dent’s convictions he believes that Gotham deserves the truth and it deserves the return of the Dark Knight. Gary Oldman’s portrayal of Gordon has always been one of my favorite parts of Nolan’s re-imagining, trading in the bumbling old curmudgeon archetype most people associate the role with in exchange for that of a good, honest cop just trying to do everything he can for the good of the city.

Finally we have the antagonist of the film, a ‘roided out Tom Hardy taking on the role of Bane. Comparing him to Heath Ledger’s Joker would be unfair, so I’m not even going to try to make a comparison because to be completely honest, it doesn’t matter. The fact is that Bane was exactly what he needed to be in this movie, not simply turned into a stupid, grunting, asshole monster of a side-character thought up by an incompetent, lazy director.

Oh geez! Not another one! How’d these get here?

Now fans of the comic know that Bane was actually a brilliant tactician who played the city of Gotham like a game of chess, and that’s exactly what we get in this movie. The opening scene gives us a taste of the brilliant planning Bane is capable of, and instead of giving him a loud, booming, beastly monster voice like many fans speculated he would possess, he sounds more like Sean Connery speaking into a voice disguiser. It’s a bit off putting the first time we hear it, but it helps him come across as intelligent, and as the film goes on we quickly appreciate the real danger this voice represents. The choice of using this type of voice is a strange choice, and once again a lot of fans are complaining about it, but I think it works perfectly. It shows how if a competent director is changing source material, it's probably for a good reason. The important thing to remember is that most of the time…

not always…

but most of the time this can payoff big if the director knows what he is doing. This is especially effective the first time we see him and Batman fight, and hearing him quip off one-liners as he utterly decimates the Bat makes it even more terrifying in that creepy voice.

Bane’s ferocity is also a thing of terror, and his utterly brutal fighting style can be felt with each punch and kick he delivers. Each blow can be felt by the audience, and the scene is even more disturbing to watch when we see the look on Batman’s face when he realizes that this guy is winning, I mean actually WINNING. When Bruce finally puts the cape back on after his retirement he almost exuded a cocky arrogance about him, after all, he was the god damn BATMAN! He didn’t lose a fight to no one! But all that cockiness goes right out the window when Bane delivers that first haymaker, and as we see Bruce’s eyes fill with something that looks like disbelief and confusion, we the audience feel scared for what’s in store for Batsy.

The three main leads set a high bar for the film, but the two biggest supporting characters of the film were just as great. The first was Anne Hathaway as Catwoman, and while I always thought that she was a terrific and talented young actress I was completely caught off guard when I heard she would be playing Cat. This was honestly the last person I expected in the role, but I gave Nolan the benefit of the doubt because he clearly knew what he was doing. After all, this is the guy who took this…

And gave us this…

And again… I wasn’t disappointed. Anne Hathaway turns in a different role than the one made famous by Michelle Pfiefer, trading sultry sensuality for competence, intelligence, and elegance. Once again abiding by the rules of the Goyer Batman universe Selina Kyle is not a superhuman as much as she is a master thief with a penchant for cool gadgets and highly expensive tastes, and if you didn’t know better this could almost be just a really good cat burglar in the real world. In fact, I could be wrong, but I don’t even think anyone even said the word “Catwoman” through the entire film. The film also goes a long way to downplay any sexuality that Hathaway unwittingly exudes, and this actually helps establish Selina as an interesting and dynamic anti-hero instead of a revenge driven villain. Even that famous catsuit that the internet went ape shit over is barely in the movie.

Finally, Joseph Gordon Levitt is an outstanding (almost last minute) addition to the film, and even though at first I wasn’t sure of his role when they announced him I couldn’t be happier with his contribution to the film. I was so sure that he was going to be Jean-Paul Valley that that I was almost… ALMOST disappointed he didn’t wear the cowl, especially since at one point in the movie I was SO sure it was him. Nevertheless, his honest, subtle performance as a good cop who desperately believes the world needs Batman back is so well performed and compelling that I could watch a movie about just his character (which as it turns out, we just might… hint hint!).

I won’t delve into the rest of the film, as I believe that the less you know about it, the more you are going to enjoy it. I’m very glad I read nothing about The Dark Knight Rises prior to its release, as the movie is full of surprises, twists, and well executed scenes. I will however say that unlike the last five Batman films, this is truly a story where Batman shines brightest. Except for Burton’s first Batman film, every single movie always managed to overshadow Bruce Wayne with something much more distracting, whether it be from the style (Batman Returns), the cheesy villains (Batman Forever), the publicity storm (Batman Begins), the Joker (The Dark Knight), or the laughter, (Batman and Robin).

Remember the laughter?

This time around though the focus is on Bruce Wayne, all that other shit can just wait while we flesh out his story. Luckily, the always fantastic Bale is up to the task, and not only is this by far his best turn in the role, but it should go without saying that is the best turn in the role of Batman for all time. His previously mocked “Clint Eastwood” voice is more subdued this time around, and is perfectly balanced between intimidating and disguised. We feel every emotion imaginable as we see Bruce Wayne face impossible odds over and over again, and we feel the triumph every time he overcomes them. It’s a classic and harrowing story of love, hate, betrayal, loss, adversity, and most importantly of all, redemption, and it’s a great way to send out this amazing re-imagining that may very well be the greatest trilogy of all time.

Now sure, there are certainly flaws with the film, most notably of which a lot of people are saying that the second act is very boring. I couldn’t disagree more, as this is the moment where Batman gets more exposition than every other Batman film combined, but I will say it is quite dry. I know why Nolan wanted it like this, but it doesn’t help to have something like this in a film that is nearly three hours long. Also, there are quite a few twists through the film, and while 90% were very poignant for the plot, there was one in particular that I didn’t quite like as they tarnished a character I had come to love so much throughout the film. I kinda had the feeling it was coming, but I was still disappointed when it happened. Another twist at the very end had an execution that was so poorly thought out that I found it flat out insulting, and I’m about to delve into SERIOUS spoiler territory so if you haven’t seen the film or don’t want to hear it, scroll past.

SPOILERS!

I hate… HATE how they had to actually say that John Blake’s legal name was Robin, like we the audience are so stupid that we needed to hear that one specific word to get the association. Would it really have been so bad if the line went like this?

Woman at Counter: “You should use your real name, Richard Grayson sounds much better.”

Even people who haven’t read the comic would be able to put it together when they saw the last frame of the film, and believe it or not I don’t have a problem with Robin taking over the cowl as this is actually happening now in the comic world of Batman. I literally tilted my head back and groaned out loud in the theater when they said the word “Robin”, and it reminded me of when they had to put Harry, Hermione, and Ron’s childhood heads on adult bodies at the end of the last Harry Potter film because they thought we were too dumb to know what was going on.

END SPOILERS

I hear rumors of Warner Bros trying to follow The Avengers coat tails by gearing up to tackle a Justice League movie of their own, and after watching this film I almost wish they didn’t because I just want the legend of Batman to stay with this franchise forever with this amazing send off. The future of what Warner wants to do with Batman is unclear at this point but make no mistake, the story of Bruce Wayne ends here. If they really decide to continue forward at this point, let’s hope they do it with a little more dignity than they did the last time they switched directors.

What the hell?!? Seriously, how do these keep getting in here?

9.5 out of 10