The Dark Knight Rises: Movie Review

Editor’s Note: This review contains minor spoilers.

The second sequel in a trilogy is always the hardest to pull off.

From Return of the Jedi to Back to the Future Part III, with the third part of a trilogy there are always inherent difficulties and hurdles to overcome, mostly due to the expectations placed on it by the previous two movies, and The Dark Knight Rises (TDKR) is no exception.

It didn’t help that it not only a second sequel, but the sequel to one of the greatest superhero film ever put to screen, The Dark Knight (TDK). With a fantastic story, action set pieces, philosophical themes and performances, particularly by the late Heath Ledger as the Joker, the standards it set made the third movie a daunting task from the start.

Nevertheless, director Christopher Nolan manages to pull it off spectacularly, even if it stumbles just before the credits begin to roll.

TDKR takes placed eight years after the events in TDK, which ended with Harvey Dent’s death and a cover-up by Batman and Commissioner James Gordon of crimes he committed as Two-Face. Crime has dropped to a historic low, and it seems as though Gotham is finally enjoying the peace it has long sought.

Destroying this facade of tranquility is Bane (Tom Hardy), whose constant high level of pain requires the use of a mask that provides him with a constant stream of gas to numb it. Through the assistance of corrupt businessmen as well as a mysterious figure whose indeity is revealed at the very end of the film he plans a supposed revolution that will overthrow the “establishment” ruling Gotham and replace it with a communist state where everything is owned by “the people,” Soviet-like show trials and all.

Like the Joker, however, he is not entirely honest about his true intentions.

At the same time, Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) is living as a recluse inside of Wayne Manor ala Howard Hughes, unable to move on with his life since the death of Rachael Dawes, with whom he was in love. He brings himself out of seclusion after jewel thief Selina Kyle (Ann Hathaway) proves to be as intelligent and resourceful as he. Within the Gotham Police Department there is John Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) who, orphaned at young age, seems to be the one person in Gotham who truly understands Bruce Wayne and the pain he hides behind a smile.

The first thing I’ll address is the the main villain, Bane, because frankly TDK set such a high bar with the Joker, who is the antithesis to everything Batman stands for, that it was hard to imagine another Batman villain who could serve as a worthy foil and still impress the audience.

It is evident how hard the filmmakers worked to present Bane as a worthy successor to the Joker, but not his heir apparent, which is an important distinction to make. Bane is a threat to Batman physically, while the Joker’s main source of influence and power was psychological.

Like Ledger’s Joker, Hardy’s Bane is terrifying, but more in the way a grizzly bear inspires terror than a psychotic. While Bane doesn’t quite match same level as the Joker, by making him so different a villain, Nolan helps prevent natural comparison between them. With half of his face covered the entire film, Hardy’s performance is done mainly through his eyes, and a great performance it is.

Overall, the acting was excellent, especially Bale, who gives a complete emotional range for Bruce Wayne that few other actors have managed to convey.

Hathaway as Selina Kyle, a.k.a. Catwoman, however, was hard for me to accept. Having grown up on the1990s animated series, I was expecting a very different concept of the character than the film’s version. Gordon-Levitt’s Blake is an interesting blend between Commissioner James Gordon’s (Gary Oldman) practicality and Bruce Wayne’s sense of justice.

The story requires more suspension of disbelief than the previous films, but as a superhero film it’s sort of expected. There are far less action set pieces than its predecessor, which slowed down the pace occasionally in a few scenes, but the final confrontation between Bane’s forces and the Gotham Police Department puts a lump in your throat as you realize you’re witnessing a great moment in cinematic history.

Although Nolan avoids the temptation to make the same film with only bigger explosions and more action, which a lot of directors tend to do with sequels, TDKR stumbles in two areas that made TDK a masterpiece.

Starting with Batman Begins, each film in Nolan’s trilogy explores a specific theme that is the focal point of the story and also serves as the climax. For Batman Begins, it’s whether a city such as Gotham, like Sodom and Gomorrah, has become so corrupt and depraved that it must be destroyed, or like Nineveh is not yet beyond redemption and can still be saved. For TDK, it’s whether or not a person’s morality is circumstantial and, if given the right circumstances, anyone can become a monster.

But in TDK, not only are both Batman and Harvey Dent forced to answer that question, but so are the people of Gotham when the Joker gives two ferries full of passengers the option of either blowing up the other boat to save themselves or getting blown up together.

In the end, neither ferry chooses to blows the other up and Batman prevents the Joker from detonating the bombs aboard both ferries.

In TDKR, the theme is about confronting the truth and whether or not one can accept it, no matter how horrible it is.

Unlike TDK, however, the people of Gotham never truly get to answer the question. When the truth is exposed, the audience doesn’t see how the average Gotham citizen reacts, only Bane’s thugs or fugitive police officers. When Bane begins his revolution, Gotham’s response is ambiguous.

By making the large climactic battle between Bane’s collection of psychotics and criminals against the GDP, the film doesn’t really address the theme of a city forced to confront the ugly truth; the image they have of Harvey Dent, whose death inspired anti-crime legislation and as an individual has been virtually idolized, is a lie.

Had the filmmakers included the citizenry choosing to fight alongside the police, they would have answered that question, as well as affirming Batman’s belief that the city of Gotham has good people in it who are worth giving up his life for.

The second area the film suffers, in my opinion, is the ending. So as not to spoil anything, I can only say that it doesn’t fit with the direction the trilogy seems to go. It doesn’t really offer any surprise twists, and for a character like Batman it’s not the sort of conclusion one might expect.

In my opinion, despite being a 60 minute animated film noir, Batman: Mask of the Phantasm still has the most appropriate ending to a Batman film.

Yet, the ending isn’t disappointing enough as to hurt the film overall. And to be honest, I give the film slack because of the hype it had to live up to. Had it come before TDK, rather than afterwards, my expectations wouldn’t have nearly been as high as they were. I also watched in a lightly-populated theater, compared to the midnight showing of TDK where every seat was taken. The audience you view a movie with definitely impacts how it affects you, something which I took into consideration.

TDKR stands alongside Batman Begins as a great Batman film and an example for other filmmakers of what makes the third film of a trilogy, for the most part, work.