It’s been months since I’ve done an update, and rightfully
so; in that time I’ve earned myself a nifty new post-graduate degree. Now that
I have all this extra free time after work, I have the freedom to watch movies,
play sports, go out with friends and do things that I’ve been dying to do but
couldn’t in the past 21 months. My first update will be about the Dark Knight Rises, my number 1anticipated movie of 2012.
The Dark Knight Rises was everything I
had hoped it to be, even with a running time of 165 minutes, far exceeding the
length of the first two films. The movie begins 7 years after the events in The Dark Knight. Gotham is quiet and
crime free, while a badly worn out Bruce Wayne hides inside his mansion
mourning over the death of his love Rachel and struggling with an internal
battle realizing how much he has given up, for so little in return.
The
three new characters introduced are the most interesting parts of The Dark knight Rises. They include; a talented
cop, John Blake (JGL) , who suspects Bruce Wayne to be Batman, Selina Kyle
(Anne Hathaway), a mysterious jewel thief who is described to be an associate
of the main villain but appears to only act in her own selfish manner, and the main villain Bane (Tom Hardy), whose
menacing voice and monstrous appearance hides behind a respirator. The new
characters are pivotal to the climax of the movie. Nolan did a fantastic job
building the relationship of Selina and Bruce and at the same time intertwining
the stories of the first two films to uncover Bane’s master plan. Hathaway is
perfect as Selina, (but don’t call her Catwoman!) as Nolan portrayed her in a
tight, black suit with cat ears that fold down to night vision goggles. Bruce/Batman also has an incredibly memorable
fight scene with Bane and Nolan depicts quiet clearly how the 7 years held up
in his mansion has taken a toll on his body and it appears Batman is most
definitely physically outmatched.
The
complaints I have are minor in scope. I didn’t expect Nolan to produce
excellent action sequences and I was right to assume so. The Dark Knight Rises probably has more action set pieces than the
previous two films and with the exception of one emotionally great sequence
involving a stadium, the Dark Knight
Rises chugs through bits and pieces of car chases, fist fights and aerial
shots that are not exceptional. They also don’t need to be. They feed the story
fine. Nolan also doesn’t do humor. There’s no witty comebacks like Spider-man
is known for, no cute banter that makes Tony Stark so charming, there’s just
stone cold Bale.
And my biggest gripe about Nolan (SPOILERS AHEAD *** skip
this paragraph) is his inability to induce any sense of a drama into a villains
defeat. We saw what happened to Two Face in The Dark Knight, which could possibly go down as the weakest character
death in the history of all cinema. There
was speculation that Two Face wasn’t dead and was being held inside Arkham
Asylum, but the Dark Knight Rises squashes
that theory pretty quickly. But more annoyingly, the movies spend a great deal
of time building up Bane as an unstoppable monster only to dispatch him in a pseudo-deus
ex machina event.
Although
Nolan had more time to tell his story, there does seem to be a bit of rushing
editing involved. Nolan is known for using cross-cutting (a type of editing
that simulates events occurring at the same time) in his past films but there
are sections of The Dark Knight Rises
that really stand out as rushed. In Nolan’s defense, the cross-cutting is a
technique used to power the audience through a lot of the silly (but important)
pieces of information but the audience is vulnerable to get confused on just
how much time has actually passed between scenes. None of these critiques affect
the love affair I had with the on screen characters. They were casted perfectly
and to read more about how Nolan and David Goyer (an avid comic book fan) were
influenced on all three movies, I invite you to read 20 Batman Stories Most Influentialto “The Dark Knight” Trilogy.
In the
end, Nolan left the Batman universe with another tremendous effort with a
satisfying conclusion, which should leave Batman fans smiling. Chris Nolan has
ended his saga with Batman with a beautifully written love letter. The hopes of
Nolan being involved in a future Justice
League movie are doubtful. It’s best for him to walk away at this point,
let someone else spin a Batman story of their own. But Nolan has transformed
comic book adaptations as we know it (as evidence with The Amazing Spider-Man and The Man of Steel).
Not only will the next Batman predecessor have a huge challenge in front
of them, the filmmakers will be challenged with creating a story following the best trilogy ever made.
Grade: 95
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