Review: The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

OK, so I have put off writing this for far too long. The Dark Knight Rises disappointed me. It didn’t let me down because it was a poor film, quite the contrary, it is a marvelous film rounding off a memorable, well-crafted franchise. No, it disappointed me because by this concluding chapter the narrative has been so extrapolated and removed from being a ‘Batman’ movie, that the comic fan in me felt a little robbed… and by a little I mean very. The names are the same and the characters bare a vague resemblance, but ultimately this greatest strength of the franchise: its heavy entrenchment in reality was for me, its greatest fault.

If you were to meet 4 year old me, I am sure he would proudly tell you that Batman is the greatest hero ever, and with an imaginary grappling hook I would run off, black cape trailing behind. Batman as a comic book character has been a companion of mine my whole life.  I remember being 12 and finding that Dad had Frank Miller’s ‘Batman: Year One’ stashed in amongst history textbooks in the study and how when I read that graphic novel, the a character who had adorned my childhood doona cover, whose action figures had cluttered my drawers, whose cartoon adaptions had clogged my vcr, suddenly became flesh and bone, a grand mythos unthralled- and don’t get me wrong this is certainly the same legend Nolan has presented to the world, only disenchanted into the real world.

The acting is cutting  edge, with Bale’s Bruce Wayne finally getting a grand story arc that develops his character in a truly grand sense. Anne Hathaway is a welcome addition (although if there was any way to incorporate more leather into her costume that would also have been welcome) and Tom Hardy carried an immense screen presence. Like all of Nolan’s films to date though, the supporting cast was just as present and powerful, Joseph Gordon Levitt made a fantastic John Blake, Gary Oldman absolutely delivering yet again as Jim Gordon. Michael Caine once again stole the emotional soul of the film, and without spoiling anything, so many of my friends have remarked that when Michael Caine starts to cry, they couldn’t help but burst into tears. The relationship between Alfred and Bruce was actually something of an underpinned one, that was nicely featured and this truly made me happy.

The action sequences are a true tour de force, although I couldn’t help but feel that the final fight was a little anti-climactic and really did not go down in any kind of meaningful way, which is such a shame because I felt that this was something that the movie was really building towards. The sequences were all very large that cannot be questioned, its just that some of them bore little real meaning other then to drive plot forward as opposed to character development.

The script was tight, (ignoring a few immense, yet not particular consequential plot holes) with the dialogue carrying that typical Nolan brothers swagger, a sharpness that bares a real truth to the characters and knits them together seamlessly. A few characters too many were introduced in my opinion but given the long running time of the film this is not particularly a strain. While we are on the topic of the running time, there were a few real lulls in the locomotion of the film that were perhaps unnecessary, with some of them dragging on, something that I can say never really happened in its predecessors.

The Dark Knight Rises had sizeable shoes to fill. Its predecessor is regarded as one of the smartest and best films in recent years and I am not surprised that it did not surpass it. It is a good movie, just to me it isn’t the Batman that I know and worship. It’s a thrilling action film (even though Batman stories are really meant to be about crime and detective work), with challenging and endearing characters. Nolan has done a fantastic job of rounding of a god trilogy, I just cant help but wish that the tone of Batman begins had have stuck around till the end, rather then being replaced by the hyper-realistic (what a fantastic oxymoron).

Alex

Holy springing Medusa’s bath towel Batman!