Here's how we're going to do this. Review posted today will be a spoiler free as I can possibly keep it. Review posted tomorrow will go into all the analysis of the things that you shouldn't know about before watching the latest Christopher Nolan Batman film. Got it? Great. Onward!
It has been eight years since the events of "The Dark Knight," and both Batman and Bruce Wayne have retreated from public view, the Batman's image tarnished by being scapegoated for the death of Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), and Wayne's heart broken by the death of Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gylenhaal). In the meantime, peace and prosperity have made the leaders of Gotham complacent. Only Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) continues to fight a forgotten war on crime, and has made too many moral compromises to do it. So no one appears to be left to stop the new villain Bane (Tom Hardy), a terrorist who has been turning Gotham's less fortunate into an army of ideological crusaders, bent on bringing down the rich and powerful of Gotham City. However, Batman has some new allies of his own, including a young policeman named John Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), who is not afraid to work outside the system, and a lovely cat burglar named Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway).
Let's get the big stuff out of the way first. No, "The Dark Knight Rises" is not as good as "The Dark Knight," for the simple reason that it doesn't have any characters that can match up to Heath Ledger's Joker. Tom Hardy's Bane is a properly menacing hulk of a villain, visually magnificent, but comes off as something of a Joker-lite because his ideology is more muddled and he doesn't have the same charisma or presence. Catwoman, who is never identified as Catwoman, is nothing unexpected. Anne Hathaway has no problem playing the sexy bad girl, but there's just not much more to this version of the character. She gets her own subplot, but it's such a simple and predictable one, it feels perfunctory. The film could have cut her out entirely without much effort. And as usual, Bruce Wayne's love life gets the short end of the stick. In addition to flirting with Selina Kyle, Wayne gets close to a philanthropist businesswoman named Miranda Tate (Marion Cotillard), who really should have been given a few more scenes to cement their new relationship. Considering this cast and these promising characters, I was surprised at how shallow they came out.
But then, Nolan has a lot on his plate. "The Dark Knight Rises" suffers from trying to do too much and having a lot of conflicting messages. Bruce Wayne must find the strength to put on the Batman suit again, but then the case is also made, most strongly by Alfred (Michael Caine), that it's time for Wayne to put Batman behind him. Is he too self-destructive to be a hero? Is being a hero making him self-destructive? It was brave of Nolan to devote so much time to Bruce Wayne wrestling over the decision to return to the crimefighting life, and pumping up the personal stakes. Some of the best Wayne and Alfred scenes of the series are the result, and I've never been more sure of Michael Caine's MVP status in these films. However, I don't think that these issues were resolved as well as they could have been, and there are some odd developments required by the plot that nearly derail the whole works.
To add to the confusion, in the previous "Dark Knight," Batman was painted as the one who would do the dirty work and stay in the shadows, while Harvey Dent was elevated to hero status because he was a better symbol of hope for Gotham. Here, this is quickly subverted, and Dent's heroism is treated as a destructive lie that has been exploited by those in power. And those in power may deserve what's coming to them, but Bane's efforts to lead the downtrodden in overthrowing the corrupt are portrayed as evil and destructive. Batman's vigilantism gets a pass, of course. I've seen a few articles suggesting that Nolan had some beef with the Occupy Movement, but aside from borrowing a few bits of iconography to make the film more topical, I don't think "The Dark Knight Rises" is making any kind of political statement. Or if it is, it's a deeply convoluted and confused one.
The film runs well over two hours, and it's not nearly as complicated as I'm making it sound, but there are an awful lot of subplots and complications to grind through in order to set up the big finale. At one point we're following Wayne, Blake, Kyle, Gordon, Bane, and Wayne Enterprises CEO Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman), all from different vantage points in an ongoing crisis. Aside from Bruce Wayne, the character who gets the most development turns out to be John Blake, who is set up as this down-to-earth, average police officer, just trying his best to help save Gotham City. We follow his perspective for a good chunk of the film where Wayne is absent. I like the character, and I like Joseph Gordon-Levitt in the role, but I don't think the film benefited from Blake getting this much emphasis. There were several other characters that needed the attention more.
Still, Nolan delivers plenty of good action, and he succeeds in keeping the major storylines on track and the adrenaline high. Superhero movie fans should have no complaints about the level of mayhem. All the old toys and vehicles and are back, including a handful of new ones. Crimes and carnage take place on a grander scale, and some of the later altercations turn into full scale battles. It's easy to ignore all the plot holes and the unanswered questions when there's so much forward momentum driving the film toward its big climax. I thoroughly enjoyed "The Dark Knight Rises" while I was watching it, and letting myself get carried away by the noise and the spectacle. However, when you try and go back and piece together the logic and motivations, it doesn't add up. And that's a shame.
"The Dark Knight Rises" is perfectly fine as a summer action movie. Most Batman fans should love it. However, for the discerning viewers, the ones who were hoping to see a reinvention of Catwoman, or a truly monstrous Bane, there's bound to be some disappointment. It feels like Nolan was trying to reach something big and profound with the Batman franchise, but he didn't quite grasp it. The visuals are right. The talent is right. The desire for better was clearly there. And Nolan had the daring and the will to twist and reinvent the mythos as he saw fit, to create something different and new.
But in the end, Christopher Nolan didn't quite stick his landing. More on that tomorrow.
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