The Dark Knight Rises Review

"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known."


Those lines (as quoted from Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities), spoken by Gary Oldman in the final moments of The Dark Knight Rises, reflect how I feel after seeing the conclusion to Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy.


This film has had unreasonable expectations placed on it ever since Heath Ledger donned the white make-up in 2008's The Dark Knight. 


Were these expectations, bordering as unrealistic, fair?  No.


Did TDKR meet these expectations?  In almost every case, a resounding yes.


Christopher Nolan sets his finale 8 years after the events in The Dark Knight.  Batman has taken the fall for District Attorney Harvey Dent's death, Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) has taken the burden of hiding the truth from the citizens of Gotham, and Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) has taken an emotional and physical beating at the hands of the Joker; leaving Bruce limping around Wayne Manor in an ultra-depressed state of mind.  Hope is lost- read one of the trailer's tag lines- and for Bruce Wayne, it truly has.


He is brought back from the living grave by suspicious cat burglar, Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway).  Kyle is caught stealing pearls and fingerprints at Wayne Manor by Bruce, but Mr. Wayne is not even strong enough to stop a sexy Ms. Kyle.  This meeting piques Bruce's interest and sets the events in motion that would bring back the Batman.


The first act of the movie is purely for set-up.  It moves slowly at times, but is the perfect balance of action and exposition needed to provide the audience with the proper amount of back-story moving into the film's explosive second and third act.  In the opening sequence we meet Bane, as played by Tom Hardy.  Bane is not as well-known as Heath Ledger's Joker, but I think he is just as mesmerizing.  His voice, although hard to understand at times, is menacing enough that you don't mind that you hardly see Hardy's face.  The key thing for me about Bane, is what Tom Hardy did with his eyes, invoking a sense of terror in each of the characters he comes across.


We find out, at least in part, that Bane's plan is to fill out the legacy of Ra's Al Ghul (Liam Neeson).  For those of you who need a refresher, Ra's plan in Batman Begins was to bring Gotham to it's knees, for "any city who has reached the pinnacle of its decadence--we return to restore the balance."  Bane is an intelligent villain who, for the first time in Nolan's series, presents Batman with a physicality he has not yet seen.  This is shown in a gruesome opening battle between hero and foe.  A scene played without Hans Zimmer's booming score, a tactic that intensifies the battle in my opinion.


Batman has come back into the game too early and needs some...time away, to get his thinking right.  This is the movie's major flaw--the timeline.  The movie takes place over several months, but at times, feels like several days.  I know Warner Brothers couldn't let Nolan make this film two- weeks long, but I think that it deserves it.  Batman is gone and Bane has taken control of the city as a mastermind war-lord with nuclear bomb, created by Wayne Enterprises.  Oh, the irony.


Politics has an overwhelming presence in this movie, from Bane's attack on the stock exchange, to Miranda Tate's (Marion Cotillard) clean energy program.  I liked this direction very much, as it is very relevant in today's climate.  Christopher Nolan has been awarded the right to make this movie as dark and depressing as it is, and just as a movie like The Avengers can be all gloss and no story, TDKR is all grit and no flash.  This is a political/disaster/war/crime/suspense/thriller set in Gotham City.  It is not a superhero movie with the aforementioned undertones, and Nolan makes that clear from the start.


Nolan worked with his usual crew on this movie.  Wally Pfister (D.P.) and Lee Smith (Editor) pull of Oscar-deserving jobs in this film.  It is shot beautifully and edited with precision.  What makes this movie even stronger though, is the acting.

(Director Chrisopher Nolan, Tom Hardy, Marion Cotillard, Gary Oldman, Anne Hathaway, Christian Bale, Morgan Freeman, Joseph Gordon-Levitt)

Christian Bale is an Oscar-winning actor.  I have seen nearly every film he has been in, and I think that this is his best job to date.  He portrays Bruce with such emotion and drive.  We can really tell that Mr. Bale is living his character on the screen, and it pays off in a big way.


Oldman, Michael Caine, and Morgan Freeman give outstanding performances as Mr. Wayne's moral compass, and it is interesting to see how the three work together to give Mr. Wayne a direction whether it was in Batman Begins in finding his identity, The Dark Knight in getting lost in it, or TDKR finding it all over again.


The newcomers are often the brightest spots of the movie.  I have already talked about Bane in detail, but Anne Hathaway as the other lead villain (never called Catwoman) delivers easily the best performance of her career.  Hathaway's casting is what gave me the most anxiety about this movie, and even to the minutes leading in I was hesitant.  But as with Ledger, Hathaway pulls of an incredible performance that few thought would happen.  She is the perfect Yang to Bruce's Yin, even if it is never clear whether or not she is on his side.  


Both Hardy and Hathaway were great, but out of the newcomers, Joseph Gordon-Levitt is the best.  He plays police officer John Blake.  A role that has had fans speculating since the casting, is one of the most enjoyable to follow, and at times it seems as if TDKR is the story of Blake and not Batman.  JGL's character has the most specific arc in the movie. I could tell you what that arc is, but why should I have all the fun?  Follow the story, and leave the theater amazed as I did.

The Dark Knight Rises is nothing short of an epic movie-going experience.  Along with Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, Christopher Nolan has masterfully written and directed the best film trilogy to date.  The pacing of the movie, accompanied by Hans Zimmer's amazing score, is intense.  The visuals are as stunning as Inception, which won an Academy Award for visual effects.  The acting is nearly flawless.  The script, penned by Nolan and his brother Jonathan, is clunky at times--but lets not forget: despite the thematic elements, the scope, and the emotion, it still is a movie about Batman.


This film has a series of twists and turns, much like all of Nolan's movies, but some of them just don't seem deserved.  Faithful fans of the comics would know certain things that happened, but for an average fan, the pay-off is not as strong as it could have been.  Christopher Nolan is a master filmmaker, but perhaps his best trait, is his ability to create a cathartic and engaging ending.  TDKR is no different.  The last five minutes of this film are as satisfying as even the most hard-core fanboy could have imagined.  It leaves us wanting more, while extremely grateful of what we have been given.


I have waited for this film for 4 years, with expectations as high as one could imagine, and in no way did it disappoint me.  I was actually a bit surprised on how well Nolan & Co pulled it off.  If the The Dark Knight  was Batman Begins on a Red Bull, than The Dark Knight Rises is The Dark Knight on the harshest steroid known to man.


Having tried to be as spoiler-free as I could have been, I will say one final thing that could be deemed "spoiler-ish:"  Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale have repeatedly said that they are done making Batman films, and that Nolan knew how it would all finish off for him.  He has even gone so far as saying that he will not be involved in the proposed Justice League film.  


With that information in my head, and after seeing TDKR, I couldn't help but think that, Christopher Nolan is NOT done with Gotham City.


The Dark Knight Rises is the film we deserve.


5 stars out of 5 stars.


*** I would like to take this time to give my thoughts and prayers to the victims of the shooting at the movie theater in Aurora, Colorado.  What that man did was a disgrace to humanity and he deserves to die for the atrocities that he committed.  Movies are made for us to escape reality and enjoy living someone else's life for a few hours.  They are not made to entice people to live out their fantasies in whatever sick, sadistic way they feel they need to.  May the families of the victims find some sort of peace in the coming weeks.  And may we, as the movie-going public, remember what a movie is made for.  Despite how big this movie is, and how excited we are for it, we must never forget to live our lives in reality.