This is part two of my look at The Dark Knight Rises. Click here for part one.
The Dark Knight Rises
is a hell of a flick. I have seen it three times and I will surely wear out the
Blu-Ray when it comes out.
However, like I mentioned in part one of this post, there were a few things
that bugged me that I’d like to talk about here. It’s what we fanboys do.
WARNING: Major Spoilers ahead!!
The Dark Knight Rises
is the conclusion to Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy; a film series
that revived Batman from the coma that films like Batman Forever and Batman and
Robin had put him in. The
trilogy was grounded in reality, and though there are plenty of fantastic
elements at play, it tries to keep Batman’s boots planted in the real world. No
super powers, no aliens, no freeze rays or hypnotic plant drugs. This
“real world” take on the Caped Crusader gave it an edge and weight like few
other movies in the genre ever have. Also, because it was a self-contained story,
with a beginning, middle and end, it did what few other movies or comic books
could do; have a definitive ending to the Batman story.
For the record, The
Dark Knight is my favorite film of the trilogy. Bane and Catwoman are great villains but
let’s face it, nothing can beat Heath Ledger’s Joker and what he brought to
that movie. But I could also write an
article with nitpicks about that film too. So having said that, let’s discuss what worked and what didn’t in The Dark Knight Rises.
Catwoman:
As I said before, I was leery of this character being in this movie, but the writers nailed it and Anne Hathaway hit a home run with the role. I really enjoyed her and my only
complaint is I wanted to see more of her.
The Action:
A lot of people will like this movie more than Batman Begins and a large part of it is because there is simply
more action. You have an army of bad guys at war with Gotham City, lead by a
masked madman and you have Batman flying around in a cool new vehicle, The Bat.
There are some awesome action sequences in this flick.
The Last Hour:
The climax of this movie was tremendous. The action was a blast and the ending
of the movie was a completely satisfying conclusion to this story. The nice thing about a finite, self-contained
story like this is that we can have a definitive ending and it can be happy.
There are no happy heroes until the true ending of a story. If the series
continues, Batman must press on. Here we can finally enjoy seeing Bruce Wayne
at peace….and with Selina Kyle. Like Ross and Rachel in Friends, they can’t end up together until the show ends.
The Fights with
Bane: Okay, this is where I start to nitpick. Ever since the synopsis of
this movie came out I figured it was going to follow the structure of Rocky III, with Bane in the Clubber Lang
role. (Except great as Tom Hardy is, he ain’t no Mr. T.) Initially, Batman
would face Bane after a long layoff and with a weakened spirit and he would get
his butt handed to him. Then he would go back, train and recapture the “Eye of
the Tiger”… that hunger and passion that fuels a champion, and he would win the
belt back.
The first fight with Bane is really good. Batman gets his
back broken (or dislocated), similar to the way Bane did it in the famous Knightfall comic book series. Bane is brutal and he can see that the
Dark Knight’s fighting skills are not up to the usual League of Shadows
standards. Bane even says, “Victory has made you weak.”
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| Batman vs. The Mutant Leader in The Dark Knight Returns |
It‘s the second fight I was a little disappointed with. Go
back and look at Batman’s fights with the mutant leader in the Dark Night Returns graphic novel. In the
first fight Batman is nearly killed because he tries to “fight like a young man”,
as they put it. When he gets his rematch, Batman fights smarter, not harder and
vanquishes his savage foe. Same thing with Rocky with Clubber Lang; he comes
back with a better attitude and an adjusted fighting style. When Batman returns
to fight Bane, we know he has rediscovered a “fear of death” that will give him
the edge he needs, and we know he’s going to target Bane’s mask this time
around, but that’s about it. We don’t really see Batman fight any differently
the second time around. And the fight is nowhere near as dramatic or
entertaining as the fights in Rocky III.
You feel every blow in those scenes and the dramatic payoff is amazing. Look at
The Patriot if you want another
example of a great climatic fight. Mel Gibson faces the British General that
killed his sons amid a pivotal battle between the Colonists and the Red Coats.
Again, we have a very dramatic fight, in which you can practically feel every
slice of the General’s sword. When Mel makes his move and defeats the General,
you are cheering in your seat. The second Batman/Bane fight happens a bit to
quickly and could have been filmed a little bit better, in my opinion.
Also, when Batman and Catwoman first fight together on the
rooftop, they run away when Bane and his henchmen show up, because they are out
numbered and out gunned. I thought it would have been great if Batman and Bane
had a quick tussle here, before their big backbreaking encounter.
I guess that’s of another one of my nitpicks. I would have
liked to have seen a little more Batman in this movie. He’s only in the bat
suit about three or four times in the movie.
Batman’s Career:
Another thing that I was not quite thrilled with was the idea that Batman had been inactive for eight years. That means that after training for about
seven years, Bruce Wayne becomes Batman for about a year or two and then
retires for eight. I thought that lessens the legend of Batman in this
universe. Why did it have to be an eight-year period? Why couldn’t he have been
active as Batman for a while longer and chased by the police, as suggested at
the end of The Dark Knight? After
all, the criminals are now under the impression that the Batman kills. His one rule against killing was pointed out as a weakness in TDK, so wouldn't this perceived threat make criminals think twice about messing with
Batman? I understand that they wanted to do a “coming out of retirement” story
similar to The Dark Knight Returns,
but I thought the idea of the Dent Act simply wiping out organized crime was a
bit weak.
“Some days, you just
can't get rid of a bomb.”
Another thing that bugged me a little bit was
Bane’s plan. He successfully defeats Batman and secures a nuclear device that
can level the city. He gives the trigger to an ordinary citizen so they can
detonate it if the army tries to stop him or anyone tries to flee the city. So
as soon as he learns that Batman has returned, after a generous five month
healing period, he does not simply detonate the bomb. Why not? Was the detonator a
bluff? Could they not set it off until the reactor melted or could they set it
off whenever they wanted? Seems like they could set it off at any time. Also, did Bane and his crew plan on dying in Gotham
the whole time, or did they only resign themselves to death once Batman
intervened? It was not clear if they had an exit strategy or if they were a
death cult. Seems to me, the guy who started this whole “destroy Gotham” thing,
Ra's al Ghul, did not plan on killing himself when he attacked Gotham. So why
would Bane’s gang want to? I know they said they wanted Gotham to experience
false hope before they were annihilated, but it still seemed like they got
caught “monologuing”, as they would say in The
Incredibles.
Also, the whole disposing of a bomb thing was
great, but I could not help but think back to the greatest instance of Batman
performing such an act. The immortal Adam West said it best when he uttered those famous
words, “Some days, you just can't get rid of a bomb.”
John
Blake’s Intuition: I had no problem with the John Blake character and I
loved his arc. I actually wished he had been a little more involved with the
final battle, but I understood the importance of what he was doing with the
school bus and the orphans. My only gripe was the way he knew that Batman was
Bruce Wayne simply by a look on Bruce’s face. It was a little too simple and I
wished they had added a little detective work to the mix to help him verify his
suspicions. This was a minor thing, but I think it took people out of the
moment during that scene.
Cops
In the Sewers: Here is one more thing that bugged me a bit. You mean to tell me ALL
of the cops go into the sewer system? ALL of them? And despite the fact that we
see them being supplied with food and water, they all emerge from the depths
relatively healthy and clean-shaven. Maybe they could have had half the cops in
the sewers and the rest of them in hiding because of bounties on them or
something. I don’t know. Like I said, it just bugged me a little. Then they
rush into a crowd of well-armed thugs with pistols and nightsticks. It looked
cool, but they would have got mowed down.
Okay, enough is enough. You get the idea… great
movie but a few things that maybe could have been thought out or executed a
little better. However, The Dark
Knight Rises is the triumphant conclusion to the best super hero trilogy of
all time… and it’s certainly one of the better comic book movies ever. It is also one hell of a Batman story
and the most satisfying ending a Batman movie has ever had.
So what did you think?
(Note, spoilers lie ahead. If you have not seen the Dark Knight trilogy, you have been warned.) 
