The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

This review was also posted on ArtFist.org

It's difficult to know where to start when talking about this film. Like a lot of people, I've been looking forward to it just a little bit. I'm a big fan of Batman in almost any form, but I grew up on the Tim Burton films and Bruce Timm's Animated Series especially, only searching out famous stories from the comics later on. I can remember seeing Batman Begins for the first time and thinking that it was enough that it's ending could tie into the Burton films, but still being pleasantly surprised when The Dark Knight was announced. TDK immediately became one of my favourite films for numerous reasons, the beautiful full frame IMAX photography, the tense bank robbery that reminded me of Heat and Heath Ledgers unique take on the Joker among many - I didn't even care that Batman wasn't really the focus any more.

So I obviously had huge expectations of this film but I think I didn't have specific expectations of it, if that makes sense. I hoped it would be a good film but at the same time I trusted Christopher Nolan to do what he wanted and not just expect famous comic storylines in movie form. But if I was ready to trust Nolan, in some ways this feels like a film more designed to please fans. I certainly enjoyed it at the time, but it seems less of a complete package the more I think about it. Whereas The Dark Knight always felt like the furthest you could take a comic book character into the real world, this felt like it was embracing its comic book roots a little more. Things like its expository dialogue and characters hopping around the world felt like things that happen in comics a lot. Even though critics have levelled the same complaints at some of Nolan's other films, this was the first time that these issues particularly stood out to me.

I thought that it got off to a shaky start too, I don't think I've seen many reviews that didn't have some issues with the first act. There are a lot of new characters and multiple plot lines running at once, with a few taking a while to really go anywhere. There were a lot of things to hold in your head and I found myself uncertain of which characters were important. On reflection there isn't much of importance here and I have seen debates on whether parts of it could have been cut, as well as entirely different takes on how it could have opened.

Selina Kyle (as played by Anne Hathaway) is almost certainly the highlight of these early sections. She is receiving almost universal praised for her role, one thing I liked in particular was that her interactions with Bruce Wayne also provide a bit of humour in a largely dark film. I loved how she revealed her true self when she first meets him and deftly disarms him before making her escape. A lot of people seem to think that Bruce Wayne was faking his injuries at the start of the film but I'd like to think that he was actually surprised by her, which then intrigues him enough to want to track her down. You generally get the impression that she is capable of continuing to frustrate him, with the lines "My Wife?" and "Huh, so that's what that feels like" making me chuckle especially.

I think it was important that the rest of the villains in this weren't particularly sympathetic though. Almost everyone rooted for the Joker to some extent but Bane doesn't really have the same attractive personality and seems more likely to kill innocent people in his path. Some of the violence meted out actually made me feel like the film deserved more than a 12A rating, despite the fact that it never shows anything graphic. Though there isn't exactly much competition, I feel this was the best representation of Bane there has ever been. On occasions he seems like a strange mix, especially how his voice doesn't really feel like part of the scene but the calm delivery gives the impression of intelligence that he really needs. In the original comics, despite his strength increasing venom serum, it was always suggested that he only managed to defeat Batman by engineering situations that would break his spirit as well as his body. I certainly found myself on the edge of my seat wondering if he was going to do what he is most famous for in the comics.

What's perhaps hardest to argue against is that the film as a whole doesn't really say anything. Bane's aims and actions seem to have some common ground with this year's 'Occupy' protests (although likely written before they started), which initially seems like a negative commentary on them. But these ideas aren't really followed through and leave it feeling very half hearted. There seem to be a lot of points like this, where there is a spark of something interesting but it doesn't receive much focus. Then there is also the question of what is said by the ending but I'm not sure I can discuss that much without heading into spoiler territory...

*Fairly major spoilers from this point on*

Not everyone liked the ending and to some extent I can see their point, with the powerful message of Batman making the ultimate sacrifice being undone by him surviving - not to mention how much pain and anguish it would cause his friends. But despite all that, to me it felt like what Batman would have done and it specifically reminded me of the end of The Dark Knight Returns. In that story he may have faked his death to continue to train others in secret but giving up the role of Batman felt right for this series and felt like a much better way of introducing a possible new Batman than any attempt that has been made in the comics. I really appreciated what the whole trilogy has done with Bruce Wayne - even if it moves away from the established view of him, he seems more human on the whole. In Begins he initially struggles with the desire for revenge against those who wronged him, rather than immediately trying to fix the system. He wants the world to change so that he doesn't have to be Batman anymore and then even gives up the role after the loss of a loved one, questioning what he has left to fight for. I think it's totally fair that this film then allows his journey to come to an end.

People have said that the revelation of John Blake's real name being Robin made them roll their eyes but I just saw it as a little joke for the fans, especially since Nolan has stated he would never add the Robin we all know. It seemed obvious to me that Blake would take on the role of Batman or at the very least would be jumping straight into a 'Nightwing' like role. What I felt was important was that Blake's character had taken a different route to this point than Bruce Wayne, which indicated that he could be a different sort of Batman. Someone who would focus on the downtrodden and fight against abuses of power by those in control, rather than focusing on criminals amongst the poorest in society. This left me with the feeling that the film wasn't trying to be 'anti-99%' and to paraphrase The Dark Knight's final line, perhaps this new Batman could be the hero that Gotham and the world actually needs right now. I also felt that even though the film brings this trilogy to a definite close in a nice circular fashion, I would still be interested to see someone take it onward from this point.

So my final thought on what I took the film to say is that we will always need Batman - but Batman doesn't always need to be Bruce Wayne.