Dark Knight Rises: Review

[Cainanite (imported)]

I had very high hopes for this film, perhaps too high.

"Dark Knight Rises" tells the story a full eight years after the events of the previous film in the franchise, "The Dark Knight". Gotham City is largely free of organized crime, and there are no costumed super-villains out prowling the streets. Batman has been missing in action for all eight of those years. The city pulled itself out of corruption and despair, largely due to the lie that Harvy Dent was a hero and a martyr for truth and justice.

The fact that Harvey Dent was Two-Face, went insane, became a murderer, kidnapper, and all round bad guy, is a lie that is burning up Commissioner Gordon. He'd love to come clean, now that Gotham is safe, but he just isn't sure the time is right. He still sees how easily Gotham could slip back into the abyss.

Bruce Wayne is a broken man. He has run his company, Wayne Enterprises, into the ground trying to clean up Gotham City. His wealth and influence is all but gone. He has become a recluse. He lives in solitude with all his regrets. He suffers not just from a broken soul, he is broken in body too. His body is all scar tissue and broken bones, that never quite healed correctly. He walks with a cane, doesn't shave, and has clearly given up. He is no longer Batman.

Enter the brazen thief Selena Kyle or as she is never referred to in the movie as, Cat-Woman. She breaks into Bruce Wayne's private quarters, and steals his mother's jewels. During her theft, she also makes off with a set of Bruce Wayne's fingerprints, cleverly lifted from his private safe. There is a clever exchange between the broken Wayne, and Selena, before she escapes into the night. The odd theft leads Bruce Wayne back into the world as he tries to uncover the Cat Woman's motives for stealing, not just the jewels, but his fingerprints.

Simultaneously we are given the over the top, and completely unnecessary action sequence of men being turned over to the CIA in some remote middle eastern country, only for them to effect a daring mid-air escape. The international criminal and masked baddie, Bane is introduced as a dangerous terrorist with a plan to bring everyone to their knees. When he next shows up, it is ruling an underground kingdom in Gotham City. A team of police, including Commissioner Gordon, follow a group of gun toting thugs into the sewers, and they are quickly dispatched by Bane's minions. Gordon is brought before Bane. Bane gets what he wants (the secret of Harvey Dent), and disposes of Gordon into the running water of the sewers. Gordon will quickly be found by a new character, and spends most of the rest of the movie in a hospital bed.

It should be no surprise to anyone familiar with even the trailers for this movie, that Bane intends to bring all of Gotham City to its knees. He won't be happy until Gotham City has torn itself apart. I spoil nothing by revealing that it is the continuation of the plan that Ra's Al Ghoul failed to implement in the first film, or the chaos the Joker tried to create in the second film. It seems no-one will be happy until Gotham City is a pile of rubble.

This movie brings us a lot further into the plot of Gotham City as rubble. It has more in common with disaster movies like "Earthquake", "Volcano", or "Deep Impact" than it does with an expected superhero film. Perhaps that is my problem with it.

I'll give the movie points for creating a compelling story about how Bruce Wayne pulls himself out of his funk and becomes Batman again, but when it finally happens, it is far into the latter part of the film. He does try to be Batman again through the middle of the film, but he is so ineffectual, as to be almost insulting to the movies that preceded it. This is neither the Bruce Wayne we have come to know, nor is it the Batman we have come to expect.

The movie would have had more impact on me, if we had participated in Batman/Bruce Wayne's fall from grace, but it is simply assumed at the beginning of the film. We are left only to guess as to what could have driven the man so low.

The movie instead focuses heavily on the stories of Selena Kyle, and newcomer John Blake. Anne Hathaway and Joseph Gordon-Levitt give good performances, but we are never given the sense that either of these characters are in any danger. They are merely cogs in the wheels of this movie. Selena will be the fem-fatale, John Blake will be the cop who never gives up hope. I can forgive the writing of Selena Kyle as the cat burglar who never gets a scratch, no matter how many bullets are flying, or how many explosions she survives, because... well... the cat suit is a distraction.

I have more difficulty forgiving the character of John Blake. The movie would have worked quite well without him in it. He is there as a kind of fan service, that never really pays off. The writers of this movie either should have gone whole hog, and written the character to be what he is supposed to represent, or they should have dumped the whole idea from the start. Being even slightly familiar with the Batman universe, just about anyone will see the problem with this character by the end of the movie. I'll give a hint. He is supposed to represent a very famous Batman universe character, but as he never really participates as that character, and his back story and name are so dissimilar from the story we all know and love, it is a complete failure. At the end of the movie, it is supposed to be the big reveal. "See, see, we included him too, we were just being sneaky about it. Ha, ha!" I was not impressed. In fact, I was angry about it.

I tried to look at the idea of this character as something separate from the known Batman universe. The argument was made to me, that the Dark Knight Trilogy does not conform to the cannon established by the comics, or various TV series, and that John Blake is Christopher Nolan's idea and design, to fit the world HE created. But that doesn't quite work out. In the terms of story-telling for the trilogy, John Blake is not a helpful character. His role in the film, could easily have been handled by Commissioner Gordon. The ONLY reason the character exists is as fan service to the comics and various TV series. In that, the writers took too much time concealing his identity, and hiding his history. With his part simply removed from the overall story, it would have been a lot stronger movie.

John Blake aside, I still had a lot of other problems with the film.

Batman is no longer portrayed as a lone figure in the night terrorizing criminals. That aspect of the character is where I think he works best. Instead, Batman is a larger than life, one man army. Only he has the tools to fight people with tanks, and rocket launchers. It is a role Batman was not created to play. Batman works best in the shadows, as something only seen out of the corner of your eye, quietly taking out baddies, as they run for cover. He does not work well in broad daylight, reliant more on his toys than his mind.

Speaking about his toys, this movie introduces a new one, 'The Bat'. It is essentially his new Bat-Plane. Imagine if his Bat-mobile from the previous movies mated with a helicopter. It is something so over the top cartoony as to take me out of the movie. This incarnation of Batman was supposed to be a more realistic version of the Caped Crusader. If realism was the goal, the addition of The Bat, breaks that vision into shards on the ground.

My other problem with this flic, is that Bane is simply too powerful. He accomplishes his goals too easily. At one point, he even seems to know exactly where to look to get all of Batman's toys. He breaks into Wayne Enterprises' Tech department, and makes off with not one, but THREE Bat-mobiles, all of which are much more heavily armed than the one we have seen before.

Another major plot hole with this film, is that Bane's plan is to bring Gotham City into disorder by threatening it with a nuclear device, also stolen from Wayne Enterprises, is overly convoluted. The nuclear device is given a ticking clock (by way of radioactive decay?) of about three months before it goes off. Even when it seems that Bane has accomplished his goal, he still intends to blow up Gotham City. So if he was just going to blow it up anyway, why the plan to bring the city to its knees? Once he had the bomb, he could just set it off. With the city separated from the rest of the country, anything that went on there couldn't impact the rest of the world anyhow. What lesson was he trying to teach?

The answer is, that the writers needed a ticking clock that only Batman could stop. Everything that happened in-between was just window dressing, meant to keep your attention while Batman figured out how to be Batman again. It is a plot hole so big and so wide, I could drive all three Bat-mobiles through, along with the Bat-pod, and a fleet of Bat-planes. Given more than even a cursory thought, it just didn't make sense.

Once again Christian Bale chose to use the gravelly, dog barking voice for Batman that he used in the first two films. I suppose trying to convey that Batman is older, and somewhat broken, Bale went even more into the mumbling and dog barking than he did before. The result is you can only understand about a third of what he says while wearing the Bat-suit.

While on the topic of bad voice choices, we have Bane. He is wearing a cross between a gas mask and a tarantula on his face. He too (perhaps to be more like the Batman) has chosen a gravelly dog barking in a wind tunnel voice for his character. If you can make out one out of three words he speaks, you'll do better than I could.

When you put Batman and Bane together with any dialog, you quickly find yourself wanting some damn subtitles. I'm not the only one who noticed it. When either character spoke I could hear a resounding chorus through the theater of, "What did he say? Something about fish-sticks? Huh?"

When the two are engaged in their fight, and throwing (what I assume) were insults at each other, the result had people in my theater laughing.

Bane: "Welggghhhcckkk Batmhhhckkk. You whhherg bark woof, destrughh cough!"

Batman: "Youlhghgg nevgh-hack, snarl warthog it."

Huh?

I've had better luck watching foreign films where the subtitles were also in a foreign language I don't speak. I'm guessing the two main characters didn't like each other much, but I couldn't tell that by dialog. It is no wonder a making-of feature I saw for this film had Christopher Nolan claiming he had studied silent movies before making this film. As you can't understand what his characters are saying, I kinda can guess why.

Dark Knight Rises is by far the worst of the three movies from director Nolan. I had high hopes, but they were dashed.

It wasn't a complete waste though. It is a good popcorn flick. There is an attractive woman to distract me. There is lots of gun fights, fist fights, car chases and explosions to take my mind off of the story. It is at least as good as "Transformers 3: Attack of the Plot-Holes". If you like Michael Bay type action, and lack of plot or character development does not bother you, then you'll love this film.

One more thing. The end of this movie has more in common with the plot and ending of "Good Will Hunting". I really think Christopher Nolan ran out of ideas on this movie, and just started stealing ideas from movies in his DVD collection. He'd have done a lot better if he had re-watched the 1990's Batman Animated Series, or maybe picked up a few comic books for reference. What he gives us instead, does not resemble the Batman I have come to know and appreciate over the years. It doesn't even resemble the Batman I've come to know and love from his previous films.

Will it be a huge success? Oh certainly.

Will it ever be a classic, or remembered years down the road? Not on your life.

My recommendation, is to wait for this film to come out on DVD. Rent it. Pick it up on Pay-Per-View, or broadcast TV. When you do though, be sure to turn on the subtitles or closed captions on your TV. You'll thank me for it.

Cheers,

Cainanite

[bobbijoy4 (imported)]

I just came from watching this movie and my personal review to my sister was this: I guess they fired the editor because there was so much material in there as filler, some of the scenes were so unnecessary that they added nothing to the drama of plot development. I am getting so sick of movies which rely on the wonders of computer imaging. Why pay the actors all that money? Let's just start using computers to make the entire move. Then the audience, wearing their 3D glasses watching movies made by a computer will really feel like they have been entertained. This is why I have seen three movies since '05...and this is why I stay home and watch Turner Classic Movies. There are some pretty smart people in Hollywood just thinking, "give them what they want." So, what happens in ten more years? Guys leaping from the balcony yelling "kill" to give the atmosphere "pizzazz"? It is just so pathetically in bad taste to watch a movie which has little plot, not much character development, the requisite amount of explosions and bullets fired...and the "big fight." Well, the new Superman movie is coming next year...maybe this will be a good movie like the first Superman movie but I am not getting my hopes up.

[Riverwind (imported)]

I will not see the movie, at least not in a theater. I am wondering if in one of those car chase scenes if they did the car crash, flip over the top and explode. They only use that one rarely as I have never seen it more then once in a move.

Q. in real life have you ever seen a car do that? read about it? herd about it? ever????

Right.

River

[Cainanite (imported)]

The scene with Bane escaping the plane at the beginning was a great example of spectacle over story.

First Bane is delivered into custody, as a 'gift' to the CIA. If I were the CIA guys, I'd be pretty suspect at that point. Then the whole thing turns out to be a plot by Bane to kidnap the guy the CIA was airlifting out. Why not just grab him on the ground if you already have the strength and firepower to take down all the agents anyhow? He practically beats the stuffing out of them with his bare hands. It is not like taking them on the ground would have been more difficult. In fact, it would have been a lot easier.

Why not grab the scientist on the ground?

Because, they needed an excuse for some big aerial stunts, and CGI of a plane falling apart and crashing while people jump from one plane to another.

I'll admit. It was exciting to watch, but it didn't add one single thing to the story. Not one blessed thing. It should have been left on the cutting room floor. My friend said it was to establish that Bane had the Nuclear Scientist Guy who knew how to make the Wayne Tech power source into a nuclear bomb. However, in the film, Bruce Wayne's girlfriend mentions the guy as being dead to convince him that it would be okay to turn on the device, as no-one alive knows how to weaponize it.

As the audience, we already know that Bane has the guy, so it is no surprise, when Bane reveals he has him. If the plane escape was left out, the reveal would have been stronger. We didn't need to witness the escape to appreciate that Bane secretly had the guy.

There must have been a discussion while they were writing the movie.

"What kind of stunts and special effects do you want in the movie?"

"Well, we've been working on this over-the-top escape, where one plane rips the other apart, and people repel from one plane to the other, all while it's flying."

"Great, lets try and fit that in."

"But you don't have a reason to do it. The whole movie takes place in Gotham City."

"Meh. I'll just cram it in wherever. The audience only wants to see a spectacle. They don't care that it has nothing to do with the story."

In the end, we get an unnecessary action sequence with a bunch of characters we don't care about, for a plot device we don't need. As exciting as it was to watch, you are not invested in the scene. If both the planes exploded at that moment, not one person in the theater would have cared. None of the people had been established, and we had no emotion for the nameless people on screen. It felt like a scene from a James Bond movie, just stuck in for no reason.

What a waste of time, effort, and money.

[Paolo]

Thanks, I won't waste my time.

Will be interesting to see how bad it crashed on 2nd weekend.

From the sounds of it, it's right down there with "Last Airbender," which was declared "fucked up" by my then-10 year old Godson3 at only five minutes into the movie.

Ah, well, they have specials on all the animated series DVD's now at least!

[Cainanite (imported)]

I will not see the movie, at least not in a theater. I am wondering if in one of those car chase scenes if they did the car crash, flip over the top and explode. They only use that one rarely as I have never seen it more then once in a move.

Q. in real life have you ever seen a car do that? read about it? herd about it? ever????

Right.

River

Oh, boy and how. Pretty much every car that rolls on pavement, ends up that way in this movie.

Cop Cars.

Regular cars.

Semi-Trucks.

Bat-mobiles.

A kid's tricycle. (Okay, maybe not this last one.)

I think the Bat-Pod escaped that fate, but there were so many explosions happening so fast, and so on top of each other, I could be wrong.

[Paolo]

Sounds like it's time for us to write another story!

[Cainanite (imported)]

Sounds like it's time for us to write another story!

I've been struggling with that idea, and I've come to a conclusion. I don't have any ideas.

I'm vaguely considering something with Wonder Woman and the Island of Themyscira. There seems to be an EA story just waiting to happen on the Isle of the Amazons. Especially a mystical island where no "man" can set foot.

That's about as far as I've got.

[Paolo]

It should be easy enough for the Amazons to have eunuch servants.

Of course, they don't need men if you go the route that they reproduce by the gods bringing clay sculptures to life for them.

[Dave (imported)]

I thought the second BATMAN with Heath Ledger as the Joker was the darkest movie I'd seen in many years.

CAIN, you should mark this thread as "with spoilers" I don't care about spoilers. I sit and enjoy anyway.

I will go see this movie with some relatives mostly because A) i want to see all the Pittsburgh footage. I can recognize parts of the city in the trailers, and B) it gets me out of the house.

AS for short stories.

I won't write in the Batman universe but consider these ideas...

1) All that junk floating over the Pacific from Fukishima Japan and the Tsunami might just contain wondrous items like ancient knives with curses and Samurai swords, etc...

2) I wrote a werewolf story about two very crooked detectives investigating a bar killing that they engineered as a frame. The people killed were werewolves and part of the premise was that after the initial burst of werewolf activity (you can invent any cause for it) the city sank back into the usual crime with the mafia being werewolves and the crooked police being human. Quite dark.

3) What about one brother trying to cheat the other out of inheritance and one of them gets the good old snip-snip as punishment or ?