Review: The Dark Knight Rises

So the time has finally come for the last chapter in Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy. Is it a satisfying conclusion to 2 of the best comic book films to date? Or does it end the story like so many other trilogies (i.e. Raimi's Spider-man and the X-films) with a whimper rather than a bang? Read on faithful...er...readers for a spoiler-free review.

The Story:
The movie takes place 8 years after the events of The Dark Knight. Harvey Dent is remembered as a hero while Batman has disappeared, previously labeled the murderer of Dent. Bruce Wayne, too, has become a recluse, drawing comparisons to Howard Hughes. Gotham City, meanwhile, has been experiencing a long period of peace. But of course, it wouldn't be much of a film if it was all peace and flowers, and just like with Michael Corleone in Godfather III, just when Bruce Wayne thought that he was out, he was pulled back in. This time evil comes in the form of Bane, a muscular and intelligent psychopath who speaks with a strange voice, as if Sean Connery were doing some take on an Eastern European accent filtered through Darth Vader's mask. Bane and his crew of mercenaries/terrorists have come to take over Gotham and getting the help of the lower class to rebel against the upper class. It's all very basic Karl Marx. Can Bruce Wayne don the cape and cowl one more time and take down Bane, even with the help of the Catwoman, Commissioner Gordon, and a hotheaded beat cop?

What Worked:

1. Christian Bale - I've always loved Bale in the role and he really brings it in this movie. This Wayne is much more broken (literally and figuratively) than the one in the previous movies. He has been out of the game for so long. He has made great sacrifices and it has taken its toll on him. Also, I like that he kind of toned down his Batman voice so it's much more like a whisper/Clint Eastwood voice rather than the odd growl that he used in the past.
2. Anne Hathaway - I admit that I was skeptical of her casting for the role of Catwoman, er...Selina Kyle. I feared she wouldn't sultry enough. Thankfully she is sultry when she needs to be but also very intelligent and sophisticated. Basically, I believe that she is a very intelligent cat-burglar/grifter who can talk or flirt her way out of anything. And she doesn't look too bad in a full bodysuit.
3. Tom Hardy - I've liked Hardy since I saw him in Star Trek: Nemesis. His performance as Bane was incredible without being completely over-the-top or competing with Ledger's Joker. While his Bane is nowhere near as large or muscular as he is in the comics, he carries himself as if he was. He seems larger than life and you never really quite know if he is going to punch you, wrap his arms around you, or snap your neck. He is very cold and calculated. It says a lot when you can communicate so much without ever actually seeing the lower half of the face.

What Didn't Work:

1. The Pacing - This was a very slow movie. And not in a good way, like The Godfather is slow. Or like The Shawshank Redemption is slow. Sometimes it felt like scenes would drag on while others would cut away before you actually felt closure in the scene. Even the action scenes seemed slowly paced. I haven't often been bored by car chases or fight scenes, but it happened in this film a couple times. Which is sad since I enjoyed the major car chase in The Dark Knight very much. Unfortunately most of the major action scenes in this film felt kind of generic which slowed down the pace of the movie.
2. The Direction - I love the work of Christopher Nolan. He has this very intellectual style of filmmaking, very impersonal, which I think worked for his last 2 Batman movies as well as for films like Memento and The Prestige. His movies always strike me more as cerebral rather than sentimental. I simply don't think it works in a film that deals with such themes as personal sacrifice, regret, and vengeance, all very emotional themes. Because of this, despite Bale's great performance, sometimes it was hard to connect to the emotions in the film. The same was true in The Dark Knight actually. I didn't really buy that Rachel was the love of Bruce's life.
3. The "Bat Family" - My fears from the comics came true in this film, particularly that sometimes in the Batbooks of the past 15 years or so, Batman will take a backseat to his Bat Family, i.e. Robin, Nightwing, Huntress, Batgirl, Azreal, Gordon. There just wasn't that much Batman in this movie. There was certainly a lot of Bruce Wayne, which I appreciated, but Batman often took a backseat to a lot of the other characters. Is it really too much to ask to have more Batman in a Batman movie?

In Conclusion:

I was slightly disappointed in The Dark Knight Rises but that may be because The Dark Knight set such high expectations. I thought the performances were all great and I liked the overall plot of the film. I just felt that it wasn't all that focused and some directorial choices, particularly with pacing, really hurt the final product. Is it as bad as Spider-man 3 or X3? Certainly not. It is lightyears ahead of those godawful excuses for movies. It's more in line with Return of the Jedi. Certainly a good movie but not nearly as good as the one that preceded it. Still, anyone who is a fan of the first two must see this movie, if for nothing else than to finish the story that Nolan started. Also, I enjoyed it more than I enjoyed The Amazing Spider-man which I was supposed to review on the 4th of July but refrained as my family suffered a tragic loss. I will probably write up a review of that anyway later on.