Following Shumacker's previous entires which sought to portray the hero as a more modernized take on the campy Adam West era character, WB sought to reboot the Batman franchise. Under the direction and writing of the Nolans, Batman received a huge revival with 'Batman Begins' that grounded the hero in a realistic setting with more plausible villians. Not that the film didn't take flights of fancy with regards to Batman's arsenal of weapons & action scenes alongside some other out-there science fiction aspects... But it was enough to get audiences to see Batman in a new and believable light, whereas some fans lamented the removal of the more fantastic gothic impressionistic takes on Batman and his rogues gallery.The second film 'The Dark Knight' arguably elevated comic book superhero movies to a level of respectable filmaking for adults looking for a more mature and serious storyline. Add in fantastic performances by the talented cast Nolan assembled, including that of the late Heath Ledger as the Joker, and we ended up with a film many hailed as the blueprint for how to successfully adapt fantastical comic books into something that appeals to both top critics and mainstream audiences.
As you might imagine, the 3rd installment in the film would have a lot of expectations to live up to... Particularly problematic was that the unexpected death of one of the principal cast members required a change of direction with regards to how future films may have been approached. There also seemed to be issues brewing between WB and DC wanting to follow Marvel's lead with their film projects to create a similar pattern with regards to a Justice League movie. But many felt this would conflict with Nolan's Batman setting which eschewed the more fantastical elements that would be required for the other Justice League cast to be plausible. Whatever the behind the scenes workings, 'The Dark Knight Rises' was finally announced as being the final film in Nolan's Batman Trilogy.
So what is the final verdict? Is 'The Dark Knight Rises' a great end bookending a fantastic trilogy? Or does it by chance fall into the issue of a problematic third act that fails to live up to expectations? In my opinion... it did not turn out as good as I'd hoped...
I have a bit of trouble trying to elaborate as to why I was let down, a major reason being that I don't want to spoil the film in this review, but a lot of my criticisms have to do with several plot points and revelations which I feel fall a bit flat, and for which many other fans might similarily feel let down by with regards to how it reveals or portrays certain characters.
Another reason that I wrestle with is whether a portion of my issues have to do with my own expectations for what I wanted the film to be; or rather with the character I believe Batman ought to be versus what Nolan portrays him as... Given the number of reboots and intepretations of the Batman character over the years, Nolan is certainly entitled to his own... but I don't think that's really my issue with this film; and perhaps I might also be guilty of looking for reasons to excuse the film and attempt to mine some good out of it...
The largest gripe I have with the movie is that it suffers from an identity crisis of sorts. There are too many characters each with their own motives, too many things that are happening simultaneously, too many changes have occurred to practically all the characters from the very start of the film in the period between 'The Dark Knight' and the start of the 'The Dark Knight Rises' that we need to be informed about before we really get going... Bruce Wayne has hung up the cape and cowl, Comissioner Gordon is separated from his family, all crime in Gotham is practically eliminated thanks to something called the 'Dent Act' etc. etc. It all feels like you've missed out on a couple of episodes in the middle of your TV series and decided to watch it from the middle somewhere... A lot of background information is delivered through expository dialogue; you're told, but never really shown many things. It's not that you can't understand or follow what is going on, it's just that you begin to feel very detached from the characters all of a sudden, odd given that you've followed many of them for two films already... but they're no longer the same people you knew. You're not really given any time to settle in with them. Sometimes this works for sequels to an extent to set up new character motivations, but this doesn't pan out so well for 'The Dark Knight Rises' in that it either feels inconsistent or we feel we missed something...
A similar issue is the sense of time we're supposed to keep track of throughout the movie. The film encapsulates a story that is told over a period of months, but you rarely feel the passage of time and sometimes Nolan's direction becomes confusing... Some events are not necessarily occuring in strict choronological order, or rather not really in tandem with scenes you've just seen. On screen it feels sort of like a mess of things all trying to be told as quickly as possibly. This is simply a case where a film suffers from being over plotted and too large in scale than even its longer run time of 3 hours can handle. The film is filled with mcguffins where you'll have to assume many things that you are neither shown nor told with regards to the situation, perhaps due to time constraints...
Most everything else about the film is good as far as the acting and visual effects, and let's not ignore the great atmospheric score Hans Zimmer cooked up! The 'Rise' chanting will stick in your head for days! It's worth it to check it out in IMAX or Ultra AVX if you're interested, especially for the scenes shot in the IMAX format. Bane comes off as very intimidating and a nice change of pace from your typical villian in some ways... when you can understand him anyway... There indeed will be times where what he's saying cannot be easily discerned... Catwoman is portrayed in a very cool manner as a woman who is out to look after nobody but herself using all the feminine charms at her disposal. My only issue is with regards to the relationship between her and Batman in that it comes off as being very arbitrary as to why Batman has any reason to go easy on her or even to depend on her later in the film...
Nolan also conveys present day political themes throughout the film ranging from social politics, government, finance, terrorism, the Occupy movement, the gulf between rich and poor, the court systems, etc. But frankly, the central theme of the film... overcoming obstacles and failure and rising up again... gets lost in the midst of all of this. For those who know the famous story between Batman and Bane, the importance of the story is seeing Batman recovering from his defeat at the hands of Bane. But I feel this wasn't really conveyed well enough and merely acts as a side story in the midst of many other stories being told. Batman's recovery happens quickly as far as what we see on screen, and he then attempts to escape from his prison by climbing out of it. Much of it is told in a way to harken back to 'Batman Begins' of a young Bruce Wayne fallen down a well recalling hid father's words to get back up again after he falls. Even the whole League of Shadows arc comes around again here as a way of bringing things full circle to end the trilogy... But what ought to have been poetic rethreading of old themes re-explored falls flat based on how little time we are given to appreciate and grow accustomed to what is happening.
There are a lot of good topics worth exploring in the film, but its chief enemy is its run time for trying to do too much with too little. In my opinion, Nolan's film might've been served better by being released as two separate films shot back to back. A two-parter similar to the recent Harry Potter finale. The first part could be titled something like 'Knightfall', and should've followed in the vein of 'The Empire Strikes Back' where we can follow the story of Batman as he loses the will to continue being Batman; where we see the stress being brought to bear on Gordon's family life; where we get to see the strain in relations between Bruce and Alfred; where we get to see Gotham institute the Dent Act which seeks to rid the city of all villians and by what methods while hunting Batman as a vigilante and murderer; where we get to see more of Catwoman in action alongside some other possible major criminal that would emphasize the face of Gotham during such a time; and all the while in the background the League of Shadows under Bane build and builds, readying themselves to overthrow Batman and take Gotham from him. The film should end with our heroes in dire straits, and then 'The Dark Knight Rises' should be another film that pick ups up where 'Knightfall' left off and tell us how Batman recovers and how he and the citizens of Gotham take back their city.
That's the big issue: we don't get to see Batman fall... Sure we get to see him lose in a fight with Bane, and also easily outrun the cops before that; but all the other important character moments the film brings up from Bruce still trying to get over Rachael Dawes death, to his being hunted and unwanted in a city that now seems to have the criminal element under control, to his deteriorating health and social and financial life and the strain on his relationships; all these things are never witnessed, thus we never really feel the full effect of Batman's losses, and so his subsequent comeback rings hollow when we witness it. it feels like simply going through the motions... After all, your rising can only be as good as your falling. If we don't get to experience the depth of the fall, we then fail to appreciate the subsequence of the rising.
And thus that along with some other things I find inconsistent greatly diminishes 'The Dark Knight Rises' for me. It's not that I particularly dislike the film.The problem is that I didn't love it and I fully expected to. The final result feels rushed and very average... And for the final film in what has been a great take on Batman so far, that's heavily disappointing... the way things end also leaves much to be desired for a film finale. Also as a personal taste, I'd much rather see Batman tackle crime on a much smaller scale compared to the escalation of events that occur in this film, and things do grow quite large in scope! And maybe that also has to do with the Achilles' heel inherent in Nolan's Batman films. His desire to ground them in a more realistic setting with more plausibility can in such an instance work against him when he attempts to escalate things to grander levels.
This is not the Batman film I expected it to be. But sometimes overturning people's expectations can work out surprisingly well. Sadly, this Dark Knight finale fails to rise to that challenge.
