Review: The Dark Knight Rises

I haven’t really done much in terms of reviews for new films on this blog, and especially such a large mainstream film.  But Chris Nolan makes quite a splash and is in general worthy of discussion, though probably not as much as he already gets.  He has been noted as a film maker who makes solid artistic films that are also flashy, appealing, accessible movies, with varying balances of the two modes.  His latest, The Dark Knight Rises is obviously one of the biggest hype machines this year (which is saying something).  I had the recent pleasure of seeing it in imax and thought I’d throw my thoughts into the mix.  I am sick and tired of hearing about Chris Nolan, and have heard more than enough about his virtues as a director.  I’m not a fan of Christian Bale, and although I like Tom Hardy, I’ve never been all that interested in Bane as a character, and was doubtful Tom Hardy could pull anything out of the character behind the mask.  I entered the film very skeptical, and expecting it to be mediocre at best.  I ended up, though, feeling pleasantly surprised.

            To begin, I’ll just say that the film is very, very good.  I have a lot of thoughts about the film, but I will try, and likely fail, to be concise.  Since seeing the film I have thought about it quite a bit, and can’t think about anything else but seeing it again, which is a sign of how compelling it is.  In fact if the film is nothing it is incredibly compelling.  Basically from start to finish it is a pulse inducing thrill ride.  Chris Nolan has clearly honed his talents as a director of action films and this movie benefits from it.  It truly is an intense journey.  However it is often those moments that seem to be thrown in just to appease the films lust to be a Hollywood actioneer that it loses integrity as a good film.  Silly formulaic one-liners, a police officers hat blowing off, Jim Gordon dramatically putting his glasses on etc.

            One of the films biggest struggles was obviously following up Heath Ledgers Joker of the previous film.  While from a literary or symbolic stand point The Joker is a much more substantial character than the likes of Bane, Joker has no humanity.  Bane is presented with an interesting amount of moral ambiguity that for me make him a much more interesting person to have as a villain.  His dialogue is consistently the strongest in the film (the only good dialogue in the film in my opinion, more on that later).  Bane’s wardrobe was great.  And I was not prepared for how fantastic Tom Hardy’s portrayal of the character would be.  He absolutely blew me away.  The voice was great and the physical presence was unbeatable.  I count Bane as being among the strongest elements of the film.  However Chris Nolan continues his trend of not being able to finish characters.  There is a turn at the end that rather sully’s Bane as a character and a villain.  Still I think that Bane is all in all a more compelling character than Joker was, and I think production designers, screenwriters and Tom Hardy should all be lauded for the terrific presentation of the character.

            The turn I mentioned is a twist that shows up in act 3, and I won’t say anymore other than that it is an interesting and well crafted twist, that I didn’t see coming.  I just wish it hadn’t lessened Bane in a way that it didn’t need to.  The story is a compelling one, and is well timed.  Some elements are a bit confusing and forced, and I’m disappointed that its motivations are so similar (ie identical) to “Batman Begins.”  Still it works well.  Batman is presented as an aging and somewhat pathetic character unable to move on, and this is done well.  Christian Bale’s Batman voice is as silly as ever, and will continue to be joked about on the internet, but his turn as Bruce Wayne is as interesting as it has been since the first film.  I feel this is the pargraph to mention Catwoman, but I have little to say.  Anne Hathaway does a good enough job with her.  I’ve heard opinions running the spectrum, and I seem to land in the middle.

            As much fun as I had with the film, and as good as I thought it was, I’m certainly not without complaints, a few having already been mentioned.  The dialogue in general is pretty weak.  It’s full of formulaic clichés, clunky exposition and overly manipulative emotion.  The music is hackneyed and overly present, as is Hans Zimmer’s modus operandi (again with Bane being the strongest point, as his theme is great).  The plot, while generally well crafted, does make a few serious missteps, and the ending (while satisfying) had elements that were not very well executed.  I think, as with Nolan’s other Batman films, this film is very good but makes enough substantial mistakes to hold it back from being something much better than it is, even though it comes so close.

            Thematically “Rises” takes on a lot of current themes with a bit more grace than “Dark Knight’s” misplaced statement about the patriot act, though not much.  There are irrelevant references to current occupy rhetoric from Catwoman and Bane seems to represent utopian anarchist views, as he reclaims power and places it in the hands of the people, views that in the end are represented as violent and chaotic.  In a final symbolic war our heroes are a fascist police force exhibiting some police brutality on the “terrorists” who may or may not just represent those repressed by an over reaching legal structure.  The fact that the film raises questions about political structures speaks to its credit, but I find it odd that a story about a vigilante hero would turn into a seemingly pro-fascist political statement.  It’s not as simple as that, and I’ve got more thinking to do, but that was my initial take on things.

            So let’s wrap up before things get out of hand.  This is a film of such clout that you’ve probably already seen it.  For those of you who may still be on the fence about it I can report, as someone who was also very skeptical, that it is in fact a very good movie and it is very much worth watching (especially in imax if possible).  It is full of mistakes, but not enough to keep it from being very good.  It may well be my favorite of the Nolan Batman franchise.  Those are my thoughts.  I’m interested in yours, please feel free to comment.