#5 - The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
The Dark Knight Rises had a tough job to do when it was coming out. All throughout late-2011 there was hype as far as the eye could see. Even after three years, people were still reaming from how awesome The Dark Knight was, and with its long-awaited sequel coming out people were, of course, pretty anxious. I'll admit; I was pretty curious to see how they'd follow up not just a classic Batman movie, but such a classic comic book movie.
Christian Bale and Christopher Nolan return for their third and final Bat-venture as Batman and the director, respectively. After two previous attempts, Bale still never got a less-than-laughable Bat-voice. Though I will say there is one line he utters in the movie, as Batman, that serves as a perfect example to what his Bat-voice could've been. Near the end of the film when he's talking to Selina Kyle before the final battle begins, he says the phrase "There's more to you than that", which sounds awesome. The rest of his lines are his typical throat cancer-y deliveries that make you really question how he's not shredded his vocal chords yet.
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| Tom Hardy as Bane |
Speaking of ridiculous voices, Tom Hardy has been cast as our villain for the film, Bane. An interesting choice considering Bane is actually one of the younger Batman villains. While his performance is intimidating and menacing, I find this Bane to be lacking for a couple reasons. The first of which is his voice. Making a character hilarious by ruining his voice seems to be a running gag on Christopher Nolan's Bat-sets and Bane was no exception. While he's supposed to be a menacing terrorist deemed unstoppable by the local police, he sounds like Sean Connery talking into a Darth Vader voice changer toy. Each of his S's makes a "Sh" sound, and some of his vocal pitches are laughable as well. When he's giving the speech in front of Blackgate prison, he hits a couple of high notes on par with an Adam Sandler performance. How are you supposed to take him seriously when he squeals like a clown? Sure his physique and fighting prowess makes up for it, but your fighting an essentially beefed-up Bozo the Clown soundalike. The second reason I find his Bane to be lacking his because it's the Joker. We haven't talked about The Dark Knight yet, but believe me when I say that having the Joker be in that movie and be the homicidal, unstoppable lunatic worked great for his character and his quest for chaos. Bane on the other hand, looks to be just following in the Joker's footsteps. I know we couldn't have a second Joker performance by Heath Ledger due to his tragic passing and there was absolutely no recasting him, so what we're left with his Bane, talking out of a mask that looks like a robotic lobster with a goofy Adam Connery Sean Sandler impression committing the same-level of terrorism that the Joker had in the previous film. Original in one light, but also a copycat in another light.
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| Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle / Catwoman |
Joining Tom Hardy's casting is Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle, or Catwoman as the comic book fans know her by. She's pretty much just playing Selina Kyle, and when she's in the outfit, she's playing Selina Kyle in the outfit. The only way she relates to a cat is because of the way her goggles fold up to resemble cat-like ears. Other than that, no cat relation. She may have a cat in the apartment, but there's never a shot of it. They may be playing off of the "cat burglar" motif, but it's not strong enough to warrant the naming of "Catwoman". Come to mention it, I don't think she's even referred to as Catwoman in the entirety of the film, but I could be mistaken there. The other villain is John Daggett, another former Batman character brought to the big screen. He's essentially useless. He's a big-time corporate magnate rival of Bruce Wayne who has little impact other than he funds Bane's assault on the stock market. Other than that, a dead end character. The other villain (pretty sure that's four) is Marion Cotillard as Miranda Tate--er--I mean, Talia Al Ghul. She's the overall true bad guy as she's orchestrated the whole overtaking of Gotham and commands Bane, even though they're lovers. She was alright in my opinion. She had a good strong presence and it was great to have her around, even when she was evil and supposed to piss me off.
One of the huge plus sides in the movie is Joseph Gordon-Levitt as John Blake. I really liked his inclusion into the movie. It's clear he competes with Bruce Wayne as having the most character development and the largest arc. He goes from being a beat cop, to being a street detective, to being the next caped crusader of Gotham City. At the end, when he receives a bag of climbing equipment, it's filed under his apparent legal name of "Robin", which I thought was a pretty cool nod. Other people in the theater were disgusted with it, but I liked it. Robin was never going to get any love in Christopher Nolan's movies anyhow, but this showed that he at least got a nod, being Bruce/Batman's sidekick for the whole movie.
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| Marion Cotillard as Miranda--er, I mean Talia Al Ghul |
The movie's story resembles that closely of a couple other Batman stories, as is the Christopher Nolan Batman movie way. This one, while having original story arcs and concepts in it, also borrows heavily from Batman: Knightfall and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. Batman's return is done in the style of The Dark Knight Returns and seeing played out on the big screen is so cool. Many of Batman's scenes are still cool and played out in the same fashion as Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. While the movie's story is interesting in nature, it does lag a little bit. I mean the movie's two hours and forty-some minutes. Once Batman loses the first fight to Bane, the film stops dead for a few minutes and completely switches gears into what feels like a completely different story.
Obviously there are the not-as-subtle complaints, such as how in the name of ass did Batman's back get fixed? A vertebra was protruding from his spine and it had to be put back, so the guy he shared a jail cell with punched it back into place? With his HAND?! Suck it, modern medicine! If you're finding yourself in a wheelchair, just have some close friend punch you in the back and you'll be A-OK. Incorporating this aspect of the Knightfall story was dumb, especially if you're just going to have him bounce back from it. In Knightfall, Bruce Wayne was crippled by Bane, and it was Jean-Paul Valley who became the new Batman who had to then fight and defeat Bane. Granted Bruce's spine eventually got fixed in Knightfall, but in way more ludicrous standards that couldn't be shown in The Dark Knight Rises. Omitting the back-breaking entirely would've also robbed Bane of a truly ominous screen presence, so it really was a no-win situation. The way it could've been done, which would have continued to sell Batman as more of a symbol than a man, is to break Bruce's back, take him permanently out of commission, and then have Blake take up the mantle of Batman to fight and ultimately defeat Bane. That would've been great in my opinion, but the movie wasn't going to be four hours long so there was no hope of that.
On top of that, the movie is riddled with plot holes, such as Bruce's rapid return to Gotham following his escape from the Pit, without any money, a passport, or even another change of clothes. More complaints can be made for the people of Gotham taking Bane's reading of Gordon's letter seriously as incontrovertible evidence regardless of prosecution, Batman's huge refusal to kill anyone until he shoots Talia's truck and...well, kills her, the trapping of the entire Gotham City Police force underground so conveniently so that the overdone climax can continue to be well overdone; it's all just a giant, hasty mess to wrap up the trilogy in this film without letting it expand any further. Christian Bale's hefty forty-million-dollar contract isn't going to carry over to other films, guys.
So, to sum it up, is it worth it? Yes, it is. However, being tasked with following The Dark Knight and with wrapping up a major motion picture story in a convincing way, the movie feels like a misstep. It's like Nolan was balancing the franchise on his nose and then sneezed. I'm not saying the movie's bad, but it was doomed from the very beginning. The hype, the loss of Heath Ledger meaning the exclusion of the Joker, and again, having to be the goddamn sequel to The Dark fucking Knight, which is like trying to be the sequel to The Empire Strikes Back. The Dark Knight Rises can easily be compared to Return of the Jedi. It was never going to be the superior follow-up or even maybe the adequate follow-up, but it was going to be the end, whether your liked it or not. So take it as it is. It's satisfying and wraps up the arc, but clunks and stumbles along the way...
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