Starring Christian Bale, Gary Oldman, Tom Hardy, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Anne Hathaway, Marion Cotillard, Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, Matthew Modine, Alon Aboutboul, Ben Mendelsohn, Burn Gorman
Directed by Christopher Nolan
Expectations: High. I expect it to be the worst of the three, but I’m pumped.
[Editor’s note: I’m gonna try to stay spoiler-free, but if want to see it unspoiled you really should just get out there and see it! The comments below I can’t vouch for at this point, but I’m guessing they’ll be spoiler-filled.]
Having just watched all three of Nolan’s Batman films in the space of a few days, I can say one thing definitively: this is an excellent superhero trilogy. Each film has its share of flaws, and I’m of the mind that each subsequent film is worse than the last, but each one is made with supreme skill and care, delivering some of the best films based on comic books we are ever likely to see. It’s a stroke of genius not to adapt any specific Batman story from the comics, instead combining multiple storylines into one cohesive narrative that blends together into a cohesive trilogy. While The Dark Knight feels removed from Batman Begins, like another story about Batman as opposed to a direct sequel, The Dark Knight Rises is a direct sequel to both Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, and it’s an absolute joy to watch.
I’m going to forgo my traditional second paragraph plot synopsis because I don’t want to ruin anything for anyone. I went into the film only having seen the first trailer once, and even then I felt like I had seen too much. As it turns out I hadn’t, as the film is nearly three hours long and the trailer seemed to focus on the one scene that I really didn’t care for. It’s set in a football stadium, and while the scene itself is well constructed, I hate the CG FX employed to achieve the big “WOW!” moment. Nolan is, and hopefully always will be, focused on mostly practical FX, and this one moment sticks out among the rest of the realistic explosions and car chases. My fear from seeing this in the trailer was that Bane would bring the pain, not only to Batman and Gotham City in the form of massive destruction, but to me in the form of ugly, painfully obvious CG. Thankfully, everything else was splendidly done, and even this one moment isn’t horrible, but it does look a bit too ridiculous to blend in with the rest of what’s going on visually.
This one is supposedly set eight years after The Dark Knight, but if they said the specific year count in the movie, I missed it. During this time, three things happened that are crucial to the story, but also rub me the wrong way. The first is the complete lack of acknowledgment of Lucius Fox’s resignation at the end of The Dark Knight. Did they forget that this happened? I forgive them because I love Morgan Freeman, but it seems quite lazy on their part. Next: the “rebuilt” Wayne Manor. Am I really supposed to believe that this obviously decades-old building is the new Wayne Manor only built a couple of years ago? Huh? Again, they make no mention of rebuilding it, so perhaps they moved? This really bothered me as the destruction of Wayne Manor in Batman Begins, and the choice not to rebuild it and have Batman living in a fucking shipping crate for all of The Dark Knight were two very specific points that I love about the direction of those films. And finally, the idea that Bruce Wayne/Batman is now a recluse is a great idea taken from Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns, but here it never feels like he’s actually become a recluse. Sure, he’s got a scraggly beard, he walks with a cane and there’s sheets on everything, but it all feels kinda cheap. I’m willing to overlook this particular element and just enjoy the film, but it definitely doesn’t stand up to criticism.
Anyway, Nolan’s willingness to take the character to any lengths for the story is evident by his lack of respect for common Batman elements. Do you think Burton or Schumacher would’ve had the balls to make a Batman movie that doesn’t feature Wayne Manor? Not a chance. By combining multiple comic book storylines, Nolan can have a ton of “Oh shit! They just did what?” moments from the comic books in every one of his films and it’s a big reason these films are as successful as they are. Sure the ’89-’97 series is fun in its own way, but you went into every one knowing exactly what you were getting: a variation on the same Batman story with different villains. Nolan completely subverts that in his trilogy and it’s nothing short of spellbinding to watch for a big Batman fan like myself.
But even though there’s a couple of these already out there, I’m sure someone is still going into this film looking for simple “dude in tights” thrills. They ain’t here. There’s flashes of superhero heroics from time to time, but like The Dark Knight, the focus isn’t specifically on Batman the whole time; it’s more about Gotham City and Bruce Wayne’s personal struggle than anything else. The movie is so thrilling that this shouldn’t be a problem, but I once knew a guy that was very disappointed with The Dark Knight because he just wanted a simple “Batman beats up the bad guys” movie. I’m sure he’s also disappointed with this one, but for me, a guy that much prefers a dark, brooding, psychologically conflicted Batman, Nolan’s trilogy is the fucking bee’s knees.
So I’ve managed to write quite a bit without actually writing much directly about this movie, and I don’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing. It’s hard not to make this review about the trilogy as a whole, especially as I’m trying to avoid spoilers. I do feel like some specific elements of The Dark Knight Rises need to be talked about. For one, I think Anne Hathaway was great as Catwoman. I knew she would be, and she totally delivered. I still kinda hate the character and always have, and this film proves to me that she’s a character that only so much can be done with. Tom Hardy was Grade-A awesome as Bane, and for that matter Bane was the shit! I was worried that his character would be too similar to the Joker, in that Joker was an agent of chaos (fun, playfully sadistic chaos), and Bane would be a more extreme agent of chaos. This turned out to be somewhat accurate, but the two characters are very distinct and never once did Bane remind me of the Joker in any way.
In terms of action scenes, The Dark Knight Rises delivers some great stuff. Where The Dark Knight slowly built its intricate plot to a fever-pitch, The Dark Knight Rises does the same thing but does it arguably better. Nolan is a master at handling large, unwieldy plots, and by another director this could have easily been a complete clusterfuck. Nolan manages the varied storylines with ease, with what seems like the entire final hour being one sustained, tense build up of excitement and action. Seriously, the action here is fantastically fun to watch. I think my mouth was open the entire opening aircraft scene, and the climax was just pure, sustained action heaven.
I must make special mention of one specific aspect that I think was vastly improved for The Dark Knight Rises. As a martial arts film fan, I’ve always been disappointed with the hand-to-hand fighting in the series, and I found Nolan’s filming of these scenes in the first two films to be rather ugly and hard to follow. Batman Begins is horrible in this aspect, and while The Dark Knight improves on it greatly, the fights in that still stick out as a major weakness to me. I joked in my Dark Knight review that Nolan should never make a martial arts film. Well, then I saw The Dark Knight Rises. Clearly Nolan focused on improving this specific aspect of the action with such a physical enemy as Bane, and I was very happy to see that the hand-to-hand fights between Bane and Batman in The Dark Knight Rises were highlights instead of glaring problems. I specifically thought their second encounter was formed of pure, golden awesome, but their first is only a hair behind.
The Dark Knight Rises is a fantastic end to a fantastic trilogy. It has a number of flaws, and there’s some plot elements that will bother you if you think too much about them, but the quality of the overall film is enough to easily outweigh these minor complaints. Nolan’s Batman trilogy will forever be looked back on as one of the greatest achievements in comic book filmmaking. Damn, I can’t wait to watch them all again.
Solid review Will. Probably my favorite flick of the year, so far, and definitely my favorite of the whole trilogy just because everything was just on such a more epic-scale this time around. Also, Hathaway kicked ass as Catwoman and I may just like to see an Oscar nom. for her. Just maybe though.
Thanks! Yeah it’s definitely one of my favorites of the year so far too. I haven’t seen as many as you, though, but I greatly enjoyed it. I’m still surprised at your assessment that it’s the best of the trilogy, but to each his own. I also can’t agree with a Hathaway Oscar nom. I like her a lot, but there’s no way. In fact, I’d be mad if that happened.
First off, let me thank you for not mentioning the occupy movement in your review. I see a bunch of newspapers and magazines in my job, and it seems that every single review of this film has gone out of its way to pretend this movie is a political commentary on the occupy Wall Street movement. That always felt like a stretch, and it’s been bugging me that I keep seeing it over and over. Now, on to bigger and better things.
As you expected in the previous comments page, I do have some substantial problems with this movie. Not enough to completely ruin it for me, but enough that I was disappointed with it. You touch upon a lot of my problem in the third paragraph of your review, and there were a lot of other small bits like the ones you list that just stuck in my craw. I won’t bother listing them all, as you pretty much sum it up at the end: “there’s some plot elements that will bother you if you think too much about them” And that’s exactly what I did. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how it all fit together, and I can only conclude that it doesn’t really. This is one of the reasons I want to watch it again and try to put the pieces together. Maybe I’ll be able to see it more clearly the second time around and make more sense out of it.
This has a lot to do with your mention that the plot would be a clusterfuck in the hands of another director, and I just can’t get around the fact that it still is, at least a little bit, even with Nolan at the helm. Every bit of joy it gave me when I realized there was another comic book story arc thrown in was diminished by the confusion that it brought along with it. While I could figure out a lot of where the film was coming from, I couldn’t figure out where the hell it was trying to go. This is the biggest reason I want to watch the film again. Now that I’ve seen the ending and I know where it finished up, I think I might be able to enjoy the ride a bit more and appreciate just how it got there.
But this tying together of multiple threads led to my biggest problem with the movie. I really did not like the way Bane was done. It’s nothing to do with his performance or presentation, but ultimately because, well, he wasn’t Bane. I know the other villains in this series have been substantially altered, but I think Nolan went too far with Bane. Sure there weren’t any lazarus pits or acid squirting flowers, but those were just window dressing. Ra’s Al Guhl was still a regal leader of assassins that thought he was saving the world by exterminating its worst elements. Joker was still the lunatic agent of chaos who “just wants to watch the world burn.” Their core natures were still there. I’ll admit that Bane is one my less familiar Batman villains (Amazon is shipping my Knightfall comics as we speak, so I will rectify that shortly), but I’m pretty damn sure he wasn’t some zealot of Ra’s bent on sadistic torture. He has the face mask to supply his drugs, but not the singleminded desire to be stronger than anyone and anything. This time Nolan kept the window dressing and left out the substance. (This actually cuts to the heart of my problems with Two-Face in the second film) It felt to me that the name “Bane” was just slapped on to some random guy so that they could have a major Batman villain to tout as the antagonist.
It’s still a very well made film, and I loved a lot of stuff in it. Dark Knight Returns as a Nolan film? Hell yes! Wait, they’re putting No Man’s Land in it, too? Freaking awesome! Bane is a military leader of insane terrorists? WTF?!
So there you have it. I’ve got a heaping mountain of mixed feelings about this movie. I doubt anyone unfamiliar with Batman would have or even understand a lot of my issues, but I had plenty of hang ups with it, and it is by far the worst of the trilogy.
HAHAHAHA! I’ve also been very frustrated at all the forced allusions to the Occupy movement in the media. I didn’t consciously leave it out of the review; it just never crossed my mind to talk about it because it’s not what the movie is at all. Critics like to pull in topical references and shit that makes them sound smart, but in this case I think they’re just seeing what they want to see. The medium of film is like that, but this is a Batman movie and these are all basically stories already told in the Batman comics. It’s also not an overt attempt to discredit nuclear power, mainstream media, it’s a fucking Batman movie.
I’m sorry to hear you were disappointed in this one, but I did feel that from some of your comments. There’s a lot of the story that seems to exist solely to set up cool scenes. I’m OK with that, but when the film has an air of grandness to it, it does seems rather ridiculous. I think most of the plot makes sense though, so I’d definitely give it another go. I remember specifically having to stop at some point in the movie and retrace the movie up to the point I was at because I had completely lost track of what was going on. A lot of the early stuff is somewhat vague as Nolan has a tendency to do one of my favorite Philip K. Dick trademarks and just throw you into the story without a lot of explanation, but I do think it makes sense within the framework of the story, which is to say: “Don’t overthink it.” I don’t think it’s a clusterfuck by any means, but I get where you’re coming from. I just got so much entertainment out of it, I think it overwrote any problems I had with the film.
I loved Bane. I’m not really familiar with him at all outside of reading the Knightfall story around the time it came out. I only remember one thing about it, and it’s in the movie so I was satisfied. From doing some quick reading on him at Wikipedia, it seems like the character exists in a form similar enough to his comic representation. While Bane does seem a little too obsessed with the destruction of Gotham and Batman at all costs, I do vaguely remember something of this during Knightfall. There’s also a specific thing in Knightfall that I read about on Wikipedia that is in the film, but they changed it to make sense within this version of the world and had they left it as is, there’d be no realistic way to make the movie. I also think some of the ties to Batman Begins are a bit stretched and too neatly circular, but they do make for a good, cohesive trilogy story even if it’s clear it wasn’t conceived as a trilogy.
Your opinions as a Batman fan are great and make me think about the film more critically than is probably good for it, but I think it’s better than you’re giving it credit for. I also agree that most non-Batman fans won’t necessarily have the same issues you did, but that doesn’t make them any less valid. It’s definitely the worst of the trilogy in my book as well, but holy shit did it entertain me. I loved it in spite of its flaws, and I hope you can come around to it at least a little bit more.
Oh and did you see it in IMAX? If not, you totally should! Like The Dark Knight, certain scenes were shot with 70mm IMAX cameras and look incredible. But where Dark Knight had maybe 20-25 minutes of IMAX footage, this one has at least an hour’s worth. If you have the Dark Knight blu-ray you may have noticed the switching aspect ratios and this is why. So if you only saw it regular, and you plan to see it again, shell out the extra bills for IMAX. It’s worth it.
My shipment showed up yesterday afternoon, and I spent much of the evening checking it out. I thought it would only make me more upset at this film, but I was surprised at just how much Nolan took from the story and just how he tweaked it to fit his world. I’ve only seen Bane in stories where he is just another of Batman’s huge bulky enemies that he has to take down with trickery instead of strength, and I was never all that fond of him. Just another Killer Croc or Solomon Grundy. I didn’t know what made people like him so much. But reading Knightfall has made me realize just how much more to the character there is. Now I totally get why Bane became such a huge and instant favorite, and I’m feeling a bit of it myself.
If anything it’s made me want to rewatch the movie even more. I’m not totally sold on Bane in the film; I still don’t like the idea of him being some cast off lieutenant of Ra’s Al Guhl, but I’m feeling a lot better about how Nolan used him. I really like a lot of the ways Nolan adapted his character and tactics from the comic, twisting them in just the right way. I think he’s at the point that Two-Face is: where I can forget, if not forgive, the flaws and just enjoy the show. I felt like I was missing a piece of the puzzle in this movie, and I think the Knightfall story is the piece I’ve been looking for. It doesn’t fix every problem I have or even come close, but it goes a long way to fixing my biggest problem with the film. Now I’m looking forward to rewatching it, and not just desperately thinking, “please don’t ruin my trilogy!”
That IMAX idea is sounding interesting, too. I’ve never bothered watching something in IMAX before, so this might be a good way to try it out, despite a mutual acquaintance of ours that constantly complains that we have no “real” IMAX theater in the area.
I’m glad you liked my comments, and I enjoyed hearing yours as well.
Your tales of Knightfall have inspired me to re-read it, so I have it on hold from the library. A bunch of (presumed) kids have beat me to the punch though, so it’ll be a while. I’m also gonna check out No Man’s Land, which I’ve never read. It’s cool that reading it built up a respect for the craft that went into the film’s story, and it sounds like you’ll enjoy it more the second time through.
While it is true that there are no “real” IMAX theaters in your immediate area, there are at least two within an hour’s drive. The closest one to me is something like 10 hours! Anyway, yes the multiplex version of IMAX is not “real” IMAX, but the screen is larger than a standard screen and it’s an overall better experience for the right movie. And this is the right movie because this one was actually designed for the format, as opposed to almost everything else that plays there that is actually just bigger without any improvement in picture quality. If you see it again I say it’s worth it, and if I saw it again I’d definitely go “poor man’s” IMAX again. It was awesome!
I agree with you, Will. I really do. Like you, there were a couple of glaring issues with the film (namely, why the hell Bruce would just lie low for 8 frickin’ years sulking about Rachel’s death in TDK…. oops, spoiler?) but I thoroughly enjoyed it regardless. Nolan has a solid handle on action sequences, and delivers some of the most jaw-dropping in recent cinema – and he doesn’t let me down. Loved the first Bat/Bane fight, which really did have echoes of Knighfall about it (although it seemed darker than the comics I remember reading) and thought the Bruce/Seline relationship was okaaaaay, but could have been better. I thought Bane’s obsession with bringing down Gotham was a little underdeveloped, although as a polar opposite to Batman I doubt his character could have been better. He’s just raw power and brains, a dangerous combo indeed.
If I was to pick things I DIDN’T like, the key one would be the rather rushed resolution with Bane’s defeat and the double-cross at the end, which felt like somebody just went “we need to finish this quickly” and that’s all they could come up with. Another would have been the extended “stuck in the prison” sequence which sees Bruce recuperating from his initial salvo with Bane and somehow managing to FIX HIS BROKEN BACK. WTF? Seriously, all I need to do to correct my back problems is have a large rope lying around? Shit, that’d save on chiropractor bills!
Anyway, i thought this film was a terrific ending to the Nolanbat saga, even with the flaws in the story, and as usual you’re outdone yourself with a terrific review, Will!
Batman has to stay home because of the ending of Dark Knight. If he showed himself, the police would be forced to take him down and because Batman cares about Dent’s dream and cleaning up the city, he retires so that they can focus on that. So this great, wonderful job Bruce made for himself is now ripped away from him, and then dumped on top of that the girl he loves was murdered. While I don’t know if it’s realistic that he’d become a recluse for eight years, it makes sense for the story, at least enough for me. But those action scenes were dope weren’t they? Oh man, that shit at the end with the Batwing dodging missiles, and the stock market dirt bike stuff was just incredible. I loved all of it.
Bane’s “resolution” felt so rushed to me as well. I thought the missiles to the face were just going to rip the film into overdrive, but as the dust cleared I had a moment where I thought, “Oh, I guess he did get blasted point blank with a pair of missiles. That’s probably it for him.” And it was. I loved that fight, but it was so good I wanted more. I guess I just have to see it again. The flaws in this film are a lot more apparent, but it’s way too fun and thrilling to discredit it. I loved it.
Glad you liked the review, Rodney! Thanks!
All right, I did manage to squeeze in a rewatch, in IMAX no less. I have to say that the theater was not impressing me though. It looked beautiful and all, but they had the volume way too loud. It was so loud I couldn’t hear it. Does that make any sense? I could literally feel the voices vibrating my whole body, and it reverberated through the room so much that it echoed. Combine that with Bane’s distorted voice, and I was very glad I already knew what they were talking about.
I do have a better handle on the movie, now. I don’t know that I liked it much better, but I was able to sit back and enjoy it rather than try to figure out what was going on. The biggest thing I noticed this time around was the fight scenes. I think I was spending so much energy analyzing the plot last time that I wasn’t paying much attention to the action. Like you said they were great, and watching them without wondering what was going on with the film as a whole allowed me to revel in their awesomeness.
My opinion is pretty much the same, but I can now set aside the problems I have with it and enjoy the good parts. For me at least, it is was much better to watch knowing what is going to happen and how it all wraps up, even if I am a year closer to going deaf. I can now safely say that is is a mostly enjoyable, though rather flawed, film.
And I also just heard that there might be a director’s cut Blu-Ray release in the works with extended footage of Bane’s origin. I’m not sure I like the idea, but that’s because I still don’t like the way they changed Bane for the film, and I don’t think this is going to make me any happier about it.
Hahaha, yeah sometimes IMAX can be crazy loud. I usually find that loud IMAX is better than loud regular theater because the speakers are better, though. Anyway, I know exactly what you’re talking about with the voices vibrating your body, that’s one of the main draws for me. I love that shit, but I like loud things to an unhealthy degree.
Glad you got to see those fights again; they’re so fantastic! I’ve heard something about the Bane origin being filmed but cut out, but knowing Nolan there won’t be any extended version. Perhaps a feature on the DVD, but he’s never released any of his films on disc in an altered form from the theatrical release, and I doubt he’ll start with this one. He’s respected enough to get final cut on his movies I’m sure, so if anything I say it’ll be an extra feature. BUT, I also don’t think he’s ever included deleted scenes on any release either, so if it is a feature it would be unprecedented.
I’m still too unfamiliar with comic Bane to say whether this version isn’t as good, but I loved this Bane. I’m looking forward to reading Knightfall again whenever the kids at the library decide to return it. I’m reading No Man’s Land now, though, which is ridiculously longer than I thought it would be. I’m only a few issues in, but it’s interesting to see the things Nolan cherrypicked for this one.
Yeah, No Man’s Land isn’t so much of a story as a whole direction the comic took for a year or so. There’s at least four huge volumes in the series, with the fourth volume still to be released. (There is an older out of print edition which had smaller volumes, so I don’t know which one you got ahold of.)
But if I was surprised at the size of No Man’s Land, then I was astonished at the size of Knightfall, which is even bigger. The weirdest part of it is that despite its massive 650 page tomes it still felt like they were leaving out parts of the story. I was actually upset with the second volume as it didn’t even mention Bruce Wayne getting his back fixed. He’s in a wheelchair at the end of the first book and goes on a trip, then we don’t see him again until the end of the equally huge second volume when he’s back on his feet and feeling fine again. Maybe volume three (also coming out later this year) will tell that story, but I’m not counting on it.
Still, I think what Nolan took out of those stories are pretty much covered in the first book of both, so you won’t have to read everything to connect the dots. Hope you like them. No Man’s Land loses a bit of steam as it goes on, but I’m still having fun with them.
Yeah my library has the older 5 volume No Man’s Land, but I was able to acquire the stuff that wasn’t collected in those so I can fill in the gaps if I want to. I read the first story (surprisingly written by Bob Gale of all people) and then came a couple of Azrael books that were just horrid and completely unnecessary, so I can understand why they didn’t make that first TPB. Although, I wish “they” would just do it right the first time and collect everything because in not doing that they’re just going to eventually have to do it again. Well, maybe that’s the idea… making people buy twice. Fucking capitalists.
Oh wow, I don’t remember Knightfall being that big at all. That seems like an incredible plot point to leave out! Geez, what happened there? I don’t mind reading the whole things if they’re engaging, and so far I’m enjoying No Man’s Land enough to continue. The difference in creative teams will be odd, though, as I like Alex Maleev’s gritty, realistic art, and it looks like the later stuff is more fantastical. There’s a run he drew on Daredevil from the early 2000’s that’s fantastic.
Haha, I had almost the same reaction to that Azrael stuff early on. I guess they wanted to give the reason for him to bust into Gotham, but I would have been happy enough without it.
The origin for the new Batgirl is pretty convoluted and felt rushed as well. Shame, as I really liked her stand alone series from the early 2000s.
I’ve also had annoyances with repackaged stuff in other comic books. DC has habit of starting over with a new format instead of just releasing the next volume in the series, which is what I want. I don’t want a shiny new omnibus edition of the stuff I already have; just put out the next volume of the old omnibus edition and I’ll be fine.
I do get annoyed with the constant artist changes in modern comic books. It’s always nice when I get stuff from the 80s and it looks the same the whole way through. No Man’s Land has a ton of different teams throughout the series. Some of them good; some of them, well, not so good.
Yeah, with Maleev’s dark, realistic visuals I was really getting into the vibe of being trapped in a destroyed city, but then the next team handles it much more fantastical and comic book-y, and then the next artist looks like a Saturday morning cartoon. It’s nuts. It’s interesting to see different takes on the same thing, but I can’t help but be disappointed it’s not all cohesive. Oh well, it is fun to read, though, even if so far I don’t think it’s all that great. I like the premise more than the stories so far.
I know what you mean. I think I’ve gotten caught up enough in the premise that I’m enjoying it even when the actual stories aren’t impressive. I loved a lot of the early stuff with Oracle, but then I love Oracle anyway. I also like the idea that Batman has to rely on villains like Penguin and Poison Ivy to help him keep order.
Yeah, no doubt, the premise is great and totally unprecedented (I think). It’s definitely fun to read despite some mediocre stories so far. I think the main thing I’ve been frustrated with is that Batman is barely in it, despite the stories being published in books carrying his name. I hope there’s some stories that actually center around him later on, cuz I came for the Bats. 🙂
That’s probably the biggest problem with the series. I hadn’t really thought about it that much, but it does spend more time showing the problems everyone has around the city than it does showing Batman taking care of it. There are some that center around him, but there are just as many where he feels like a secondary character, or isn’t even there at all.
Yeah, that just seems like a huge misstep to me, but I’m sure it was by design. It creates a patchwork sort of picture of the overall event instead of the traditional A to B narrative, which is different and interesting for the format, but ultimately I think most people just want to see Batman kick ass. Also, with that many creative teams, it was bound to get a bit muddled anyway. But despite all this, I am enjoying it quite a bit. I just know it could’ve been a lot better, but based on the shit I review here it should come as no surprise that that doesn’t bother me much.