The Dark Knight Rises Review

A game of Rock, Paper, Scissors goes horribly wrong leading to a snow covered revolution

I remember talking to people in July of 2008 shortly after The Dark Knight was released and we were talking about sequels. There was a collective agreement that creating a sequel to The Dark Knight was essentially an insurmountable task. That Christopher Nolan had crafted something so fantastic that just the mere thought of something better seemed impossible. In fact, I'm fairly confident I believed that it simply couldn't be done.

As time went on, as more information was revealed about The Dark Knight Rises, I began to start believing. I attempted to keep my expectations in check, but the themes that were seemingly going to be explored, as well as the ever growing talented cast, made it appear that this was going to definitely be one sequel that lived up to the hype.

So now here I am a day removed from seeing for myself, and unfortunately, despite an incredibly solid and entertaining entry, one that feels satisfying as a conclusion, the film just doesn't live up to the bar set by its predecessors. Which is almost an unfair statement to make, given that each film should live as its own animal. But I couldn't help walk out of the theater feeling like something was missing.

I'll keep the plot synopsis short since we've all heard it by now. Eight years after the death of Harvey Dent, Gotham is living in a time of peace. The crime that had once nearly destroyed the city has been all but eradicated. Much of it from a law that was put in lauding Harvey Dent as a hero. The Batman hasn't been seen since, framed for the murders committed by Dent, and a masked man known as Bane is attempting to take over the city. Meanwhile, Bruce Wayne stays confined to his mega-mansion with a bum knee and Selina Kyle does her morally ambiguous thief thing.

The performances were all top notch. Anne Hathaway's Catwoman, who was the only character I was on the fence about, definitely proves herself here. There just seemed to be something off  about her inclusion in all the press materials, but I suppose that's what you get for viewing things like that out of context. Because whenever she is on screen, she definitely steals the show whether through her stunt work or generally playful attitude that the series has been lacking up to this point. Strange that I had these doubts, given that Hathaway has always been a solid addition to any cast. Gary Oldman's tortured Commissioner Gordon looks like the man who has been burdened with the guilt of a soul crushing lie over nearly a decade to the point where his family has left him. Alfred (Michael Caine) and Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman) are as dependable as ever, barring some extreme circumstances.

The new cast is certainly sufficient if slightly underwhelming. Miranda Tate (Marion Coilitard) is a clean energy investor on the Wayne Enterprises board whose life becomes intertwined with Bruce in an almost jarring start of a relationship. While John Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) shows up as a beat cop who is apparently a master of deduction on par with Sherlock given some of the information he has.

And Bale definitely continues to deliver (save for his kind of ridiculous Batman voice) as the conflicted Bruce Wayne. Wayne continues to torture himself following the loss of Rachel Dawes in the last movie and uses that as an excuse to not move on with his life, allowing Batman to stay out of the limelight until Bane forces Wayne's hand.

The true highlight of the movie though is the one-on-one fight that happens between Bane and Batman about halfway through the movie that has imagery reminiscent of the popular Knightfall arc from the comics back in the 90s. The scene is presented with such brutality, lacking all music and only destructive sound effects. And whenever there is action on screen, Rises is mesmerizing with carefully constructed sequences that truly seem grounded despite the heightened reality. And in IMAX, as the movie is definitely meant to be seen, these sequences are simply jaw-dropping. I wish all directors took IMAX as seriously as Christopher Nolan.

The themes in this movie are rather nebulous, as Bane appears to have a "give back to the people" attitude while simultaneously causing wanton destruction, offering no real solutions to the problem other than just the well-planned terrorist activities that he executes from time to time. Granted, the ending provides ample explanation as to why this is so which ends up deflating Bane's intentions slightly. But prior to this point, the film attempts to be very seriously teeing up a modern day financial allegory that never gets fully explained.

Of course, we also have to deal with Nolan's penchant for momentum stopping exposition. Characters, some of whom inexplicably have what would appear to be very confidential information, will out of nowhere deliver motivation explaining monologues that just seem so inorganic. The information is certainly necessary to understand everything that is going on in a very dense movie, and the actors delivering the lines are fantastic in their own right, but the content is just so blatant that at one point a character literally says "Now this is the important part" when another character is delivering exposition, as if the audience couldn't grasp that fact on their own.

The most unfair criticism I could possibly have is one that I am going to reluctantly take here and that is the lack of Heath Ledger's Joker. The Joker was such a powerful force that his absence in this, as well as the fact that there is not even one mention of him in the entire film, is deeply felt. His perspective among the chaos of Rises would have surely brought the film from very good to obscenely brilliant. Especially a film so determined to take itself so seriously. It's certainly not fair to make that complaint given that it was a literal impossibility for him to reappear in this, but again, when you see how everything else is brought to a natural conclusion, that just feels like a loose end that we're supposed to ignore.

Yet, when all is finished, there is definitely a sense of a completed journey, one that follows a well-defined arc over the course of three films. From a storytelling perspective, and not from a Batman-centric perspective, there is simply no other way for the film to have ended. There is a bittersweet quality to it and a sense that this world will continue beyond what we, the viewers, will experience. While I would definitely love to see more stories told in Nolan's Gotham City, there's a sense of completion that allows me to feel satisfied in a way most other third entries in a series end up. (I'm looking at you, Spider-Man 3.) Few franchises are able to maintain this level of quality, so even if I don't feel that Rises lives up to the levels set by the earlier installments, it's still 10 times more brilliant than most of what passes for blockbuster entertainment these days. I definitely look forward to seeing this one a few more times.

GRADE: B+