With the amount of hype going into Christopher Nolan's final Batman movie, it's easy to loose yourself or easy to think that there's absolutely no way the film can live up to expectation and that the benchmark has been set too high.
You also have to consider that, with The Dark Knight Rises being the third and final piece of a trilogy and that in many instances; it all goes to pot. Heck, as mentioned in the Toy Story 3 review; film trilogies very rarely work, that the time is prime for unusual plot developments, recycling previous themes and failing to increase the escalation of the film's before it.
But as another saying goes; In Nolan, we trust and thankfully for The Dark Knight Rises; it easily fits the criteria of the latter.
Set eight years after the events of The Dark Knight; The Dark Knight Rises (or TDKR from here on in) sees not only a Batman quite literally vanishing off the face of the Earth, but a Bruce Wayne who has become a tad more recluse than the billionaire playboy of the past.
Unfortunately for him; a mercenary named Bane begins working for one of the lead competitors for Wayne Enterprises. Bane however, has his eyes set on a a quite literal hostile takeover for so much more. There's more to it than that, but, to keep the review focused on the actual film and to not entirely spoil the film, that will do.
So yes, like many, I went into TDKR pumped but with a horrible sense of doubt that the film would fall apart like many third entries. What I didn't expect (and what the film provides) is the perfect conclusion to Nolan's mythos, to the hinted plot threads that were set in Begins and glanced over in The Dark Knight.
Bruce Wayne's (played once again by Christian Bale) character arc must surely go down as one of film's most tense and enjoyable stories in film history. Unlike the confident, sarcastic and voyeur personality of years past; Bale crafts a vulnerable and even tragic fall from grace, increasingly isolated from a city that he was convinced needed him.
Infact; arguably the most interesting character in the entire film is Gotham City itself. Often portrayed as America's greatest city, the downfall of Gotham is easily the most interesting aspect of the film and full credit to Nolan for giving the audience the hypothetical what-if scenario of a major metropolitan area coming under siege internally.
Of course a plot of this magnitude must be crafted somewhere and, in the easiest possible terms; Tom Hardy's Bane should go down as one of cinema's great movie monsters. Physically imposing with an uneasy-on-the-ears accent (which goes through different pitches sometimes in the same sentences to show the character's unpredictability); Bane is easily Batman's most challenging and difficult foe in the The Dark Knight trilogy.
While many who will be aghast as the accusation that a character has topped Heath Ledger's Joker, the key difference all comes down to actual villainy. In The Dark Knight, I was eager to see Ledger's Joker's survive and endure just to see just how far the character would go in terms of his random acts of chaos, a quite literal battle of the unstoppable force against the immovable object.
Bane however, is the polar opposite, with months, if not years of meticulous planning and training for a single purpose. Add to this a physically frail and out-of-practice Batman and the film sets the stage for a war with a villain who I well and truly, wanted to see fall (which as the film progresses, becomes less and less likely).
Then of course we throw Anne Hathaway's Selina Kyle (or Catwoman, who is never called that throughout the film) into the mix as a deeply conflicted yet endearing character who, surprisingly acts as the first catalyst to get the plot going. Not only is Hathaway's introduction crucial to get the first act moving (and yes, you can say it plods along a bit), Hathaway finally captures all the lovely traits that make Catwo...sorry, Selina Kyle such a wonderful character, far more than Pfieffer's interesting yet utterly mental interpretation in Batman Returns.
...and the less said about Berry's Catwoman the better.
While Batman may seem like he has the odds stacked against like never before; he still has a few allies. Of course Gary Oldman's Commissioner James Gordon is still relevant and needed by Gotham far more than ever before and the few interactions between Oldman and Bale are still as engaging as before.
The most unique, non-villain, non-city character introduced in the film is Joseph Gordon-Levitt's John Blake. Played as a selfless, intelligent everyman; Gordon-Levitt plays the character as an intensely likeable good-cop who plays a far larger role than I first thought possible. I do think that if someone did a lesser job than Gordon-Levitt did; I'd find the character annoying and a borderline Mary-Sue, but his portrayal and charm make the character a welcome hero, in a film that goes to plenty of dark-places.
The other major new-comer to the franchise being Marion Cotillard's Miranda Tate. Although she's primarily a love interest for Bruce at the start of the film, she doesn't have a lot to do in the main chunk of the film although when she does appear on screen, she has an unusual magnetism to her and, much like Hathaway, she's has a lot of endearing charm to her.
As mentioned in The Avengers review; being a summer blockbuster; TDKR has plenty of the summer movie tropes of explosions, city's being decimated and special effects everywhere. As with Inception and his previous two Batman movies; Nolan's eye to detail and creating a thrilling action sequence is in full force here and, again, much like Avengers; the last third of the movie is pure, unadulterated action and it is glorious.
The fight sequences between Batman and Bane offer far more than what was presented in the movies before it and finally offer the chance to see Bale's Batman battle a foe on-par, if not better than he is. The days of the action being blurred by camera work or kept to small skirmishes with pairs or groups are long gone, instead; fights are monstrous affairs, perfectly choreographed and absolutely brutal at times, without resorting to high levels of gore or extreme violence.
Whilst TDKR hasn't had as many films to set the scene for it to The Avengers and even the Harry Potter franchise (oh yes...I went there); the build-up and emotions going into these action-packed moments makes it all the more worthwhile. Whilst the final battle is no where near as massive on scale as say, The Avengers final war; Nolan does however, gives the scene a surprising level of intimacy and to it's credit, it makes it all the more powerful.
But of course, this can all be useless if there isn't a maestro behind the soundtrack and, although there's nothing as memorable as Why So Serious?; Hans Zimmer's soundtrack is a sombre and memorable piece of work. From Selena's theme of simplistic and playful motif involving a simple piano piece to Bane's thumping, eastern, war-drums, to the final moments of the film; Zimmer's soundtrack is excellent throughout and helps continue Nolan's vision with the all power utilisation of music.
So, you're hopefully pumped, but still in the dark about the all important question; is it better the The Dark Knight?
Shoot me now and this may change in the future, but I say yes. The comic fan in me sees TDKR as the closest Nolan's Batman trilogy has come to it's source material; it has memorable, otherworldly characters, insane premises, plot-twists by the plenty and shows heroics in ways that seem impossible to us in the real world.
From looking as a fan wholly interested in the trilogy, in my honest opinion; TDKR is the best film of the three. It's the perfect evolution and perfect conclusion to the story that began in Batman Begins, but also serves as the natural evolution of what was, at the time; perfected in TDK.
The action scenes are better, the villain is more of a stereotypical villain rather than a chaotic anomaly of before (which is needed for this sort of story), the heroes are far more heroic than before and the story itself is more grander, entertaining and overall, epic than ever before.
Easily; the best possible conclusion to quite possibly; the finest trilogy ever committed to film.
10/10
H
@retcon_nation
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