The Dark Knight Rises

Let me start this off by just saying that I really enjoyed Batman Begins and I thought The Dark Knight, while overhyped due to circumstances around its release, was a good follow up too. I’m also a big fan of Christopher Nolan – Memento would rank within my top 5 movies of all time, with the Prestige and Inception not too far behind. However, I’m not a huge fan of comic book based films in general. There’s a tendency there by those who create these films to be lazy in the knowledge that the name value will sell tickets on their own and plot and character development takes a backseat to cheap thrills and dumbed down products. However, since Nolan took the reins of the Batman franchise, we’ve had a series of movies that blurred the lines between your standard comic book based fare and action thriller movies. The first two movies were driven by emotion, strong plots, an unusual amount of realism and great characters with genuine motivation portrayed well by their actors, and I hoped for more of the same from The Dark Knight Rises. For this reason, I came away from the cinema with a feeling of disappointment and annoyance.

I’ll start with the good points from the movie. It opened with an exciting, fast paced mid-air hijacking and kidnapping (as well as a faking of a death) of an unknown man by our new antagonist, Bane. It was well shot, original and got the ball rolling on a really positive note. The Nolan brothers are fast becoming the best in Hollywood at creating incredible set pieces like this, but it was topped around the midway point of the film. The scene where Bane “takes” the city of Gotham is fantastic. The eeriness of the child singing solo to a backing of pure silence as Bane and his followers make their way to the packed stadium was chilling, the football player running for a touchdown as the pitch collapses behind him was priceless and the collapsing of the bridges leading out of the city really got across the hopelessness and desperation of the situation. This was probably my favourite part of the movie, although there are numerous other impressive action based scenes, many of which included the very cool Bat flying tank. 

I was also pleasantly surprised by the performance of Anne Hathaway as Selina, or Catwoman to most of us (although she’s never referred to as this throughout the movie). She provides most of the lighter dialogue and the odd bit of comic relief (although not too much, this is a Christopher Nolan film after all). Hathaway was effective in portraying a damaged kleptomaniac who is torn between doing the right thing and doing what benefits her most. Of course we all knew she would come good in the end, but it was still a nice little bit of character development. Michael Caine, as always, was fantastic as Alfred, and provided the voice of reason for Wayne, although ultimately it was ignored and he was cast away. On a personal note, I also really enjoyed seeing Wade Williams (Brad Bellick from prison break) make a very small appearance, and it’s good to see he’s still working in the prison service and even seems to have been promoted! The score, as always, was good. I love the music in all the Batman movies. If I did have one gripe with it this time around though, was over reliance on the main theme. It was playing for a good 50-70% of the movie and was used more often than actual acting to create tension and it became a little tiresome. 

Onto the first major grievance I had with the movie now – the plot. It’s quite difficult to summarise the plot in a short paragraph as it is quite convulsed and entangled, so I’ll just assume for now that anyone reading this has seen the movie and do not require me to retell the story. One of the main problems I had with the story is a confusing lack of direction by the antagonists. Initially, when Bane takes over the city, he claims to be doing so in order to take back the city from the corrupted government that covered up the death of Harvey Dent. Sentence hearings are set up for the more powerful men in the city and they are sentenced without trial to death or exile (although really death is the only choice). He releases those imprisoned under the Dent Act and arms them to create his own army. Hardly liberation is it? When the twist occurs and we find out that Miranda is actually the daughter of al Ghul (and it takes a major leap of faith to believe that out of everyone on that board, Wayne chose the betrayer to entrust his company with), the plot really is thrown into chaos. If we choose to believe that the takeover really was to “liberate the people” and to free them from their oppressors we must question the methods used to do so. For instance, why activate a nuclear bomb that is set to go off in 5 months no matter what? Hardly the way to go about saving a city from a corrupt government. Killing innocent people, sentencing without trial and not allowing anyone to enter or leave the city with threat of immediate death for everyone are other methods used in this uprising. I felt that this aspect of the story was just thrown in to distract from the fact that the story was no more than a standard “madman with a bomb” plot, and I couldn’t get past this. On the other hand, if we choose to believe that the sole aim all along was to destroy Gotham City, which Miranda more or less admitted to towards the end, then why didn’t she just pull the trigger? What were the benefits of keeping the police alive and toying with the people? Either way, the motivation for the characters just does not make sense.

Another major issue I had with The Dark Knight Rises was the fact that pretty much every character did stupid, illogical things. Starting with Bane – he knew everything about Batman having come from the League of Shadows. He knew how dangerous he was and what he had accomplished previously when fighting the forces of Evil. Yet when he had him in his hands, at his mercy, he locked him away instead of killing the only man who could stop his plan. Stupid. Not only this, but he put him in this “hell on earth” which both he and Miranda had already escaped from. I’m sorry, but if a child can escape from that prison fricking Batman can. Miranda was also a stupid antagonist, again falling into the trap of not pulling the trigger when she had the chance. There’s only so much a person can suspend their disbelief when the characters are as stupid as this. Additionally, the relationship between her, Bane and her father made little sense. She initially says that she could never forgive her father for out casting and excommunicating Bane from the League of Shadows. Until Batman killed him. Suddenly, she not only forgave him but also wanted to carry on his work and extract personal revenge on Batman for killing him. Not only this, but Bane would help her to do so. So now, we have Bane who was outcast and rejected by Ra’s al Ghul and Miranda, who was betrayed by her father attempting to complete his work. Stupid. I understand the loyalty and friendship between Bane and Miranda, but I just can’t believe that they would so ferociously follow her father’s wishes having not forgiven him for so long prior to his death. Also, where’d she get the knowledge and qualifications to become a high ranking board member in a global company such as Wayne Enterprises having grown up in a prison and then with the League of Shadows? Incredible lack of attention to detail.

Batman himself came across as a bit stupid at times too. He fell for Catwoman’s tricks on multiple occasions, he got betrayed by Miranda and worst of all, he dragged an extremely unstable nuclear bomb on a bit of a rope out of a van and crashed it into every lamppost and telegraph pole he could find. And it STILL didn’t go off! Another request by Nolan to suspend disbelief. Way too many at this stage. Even with all the stupidity that’s I’ve already mentioned, the worst was still to come. The police. I’ve never seen such ineptitude in my life before! I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt slightly due to the fact that they haven’t had much crime to fight for eight years, but that assault on Banes men was pathetic, bordering on “special”. They sent all their men from one direction down a narrow street straight for them. They didn’t even put the armed and shielded officers at the front! So you had a few thousand unarmed police men in an almost polite queue waiting to be killed by the armed henchmen of Bane. No snipers, no flanking, no attacking from multiple directions. Didn’t they watch 300!? 

There were other niggling issues which I don’t want to dwell on too much which annoyed me also – the fact that Bruce Wayne was using a cane for 8 years and was suddenly able to walk freely and fight freely in a couple of days after a bit of time with a leg brace. This “Hell on Earth” prison didn’t seem that hellish. In fact, most people seemed quite nice in it and there was a TV. How’d they even get signal way down there? Also, I thought that Batmans arsenal was only known about by Wayne himself and Fox, so how did Bane know exactly where to burrow to?

The best compliment I can give The Dark Knight Rises is that it kept my attention for the full 2 hours and 45 minutes. I didn’t check my watch once, which is quite the feat on Nolan’s part. The set pieces and action sequences were just enough to keep me in the movie and for that reason I can’t be too negative about the experience as a whole. However, considering what came before it, the plot and emotional development just were not there for me. It felt too comic book-y to me (which of course is a good thing for a lot of people, and it will get praised through the roof for this), and didn’t have the same sort of impact as Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. For these reasons I give The Dark Knight Rises….

5/10