Before I begin, I would like to observe a moment's silence to all those who lost their lives in the Aurora Shootings. My deepest condolences to the families of the victims and my best wishes for a rapid recovery to the wounded.
And finally, after all the months of hype, teaser trailers, tie-in apps and TV spots, The Dark Knight Rises arrived in theaters last Friday to unprecedented levels of midnight show sales. And before you accuse me of being a Nolan fan boy I'll accept that I am one. I absolutely love his films. I put him right up there with Martin Scorsese, James Cameron and Peter Jackson. Which is why I had phenomenal expectations of the final installment of Nolan's Batman Saga. So, did the film step up and deliver? Did it exceed expectation and provide a fitting finale to the series? Yes and no. **FULL SPOILERS BELOW **
First off, having the watched the film in true 15/70 mm IMAX format, I was overawed by the visual grandeur and the breathtaking cinematography of the movie so much so that, I kinda got a little lost in the plot details for the first half hour of the movie. Bane's introduction in the opening mid-air heist scene was an explosive start to the movie and even though the mask that Bane wears strips him off more charisma, the mannerisms and the British accented growl employed by Tom Hardy was chillingly effective even if it did not rival the lofty standards set by the Joker character. After the opening, the film delves directly into sub-plots featuring the introduction of Anne Hathaway as the burglar and the character Daggett. We are shown an hobbling Bruce Wayne living his life in seclusion in the rebuilt Wayne Manor and are also introduced to the beautiful Miranda Tate played with charm by Marillon Cottilard of Inception fame. The details of who exactly Tate is and how she invested in Wayne Enterprises' energy project remains murky. From this point the plot builds to the mid-film highlight involving Bane's men breaking into the New York Stock Exchange. This sequence and the following chase scene in which Batman makes his first appearance is phenomenally shot and spell binding on the 70mm Imax screen. It was weird that the entire police department decides to go after Batman rather than Bane and even Batman doesn't care much about catching Bane. The scene could have had even more impact if it had been extended a bit.
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| Featured - Bane's hulking muscles. Not featured - His menacing voice. |
Nevertheless, as the plot picks up pace, cat woman betrays Batman and leads him straight to Bane. A weakened Batman stands no chance against Bane as he destroys Batman and famously breaks Batman's back. Kudos to Bane for his diabolical drawl and fiery performance in this scene. Bane then throws Batman in the same prison that he was once imprisoned in and leaves him to watch the destruction of Gotham helplessly. Bane then turns his full focus on destroying Gotham. Nolan comes up with brilliant ideas as to how plausibly he can show one man taking over and holding an entire city hostage in an elaborate and lengthy sequence. These intriguing middle sections of the film show how Bane takes over Batman's armory, and the way he sets a trap for the police department. The epic scene of the exploding stadium, the bridges and the general mayhem caused by Bane on a completely surprised and stunned city is totally worth the price of the IMAX admission. His monologue to the football stadium explains some of his motives and his thoughts on class warfare ending with Bane breaking Dr.Pavel's neck. One starts to wonder, however, Bane's conflicting motives behind his actions. He says that his plan is to give Gotham back to its people and conduct a witch hunt of the city's rich.Why then, would he detonate a fusion bomb which would obliterate every soul in the city including himself and his men ( Bane doesn't seem to have an escape plan) ?
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| The ever-sexy Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle |
The story then shifts to how Bruce Wayne trains himself to get out of prison following a lot of (sketchy) exposition about Bane's origin, the prison itself etc. And when he finally gets out of the prison, he magically appears back in Gotham and the timer on the bomb has counted down to 12 hours remaining. What follows is a sensational 30 + minute climax sequence, that brings all the characters and plot threads together ( though it isn't always clear what is happening to whom) and brilliantly showcases massive fight scenes and set piece action sequences which are truly glorious to behold in 70 mm Imax. Some of the climatic scenes like Batman and Bane's hand-to-hand combat and Bane's death seems anti-climatic and distinctly unepic. But I was more disappointed to discover that Bane was not the mastermind he was touted to be following a weak and contrived plot twist at the end. Also disappointing was how Batman's purported sacrifice was handled. But I guess that had more to do with what producers wanted rather than what Nolan envisioned.
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| The All-Star Cast |
Hans Zimmer's score is suitably bombastic and over the top but somehow doesn't match up to the lofty standards of the score for The Dark Knight and Inception.All the supporting characters are given sufficient minutes to make an impact. Of special mention are Anne Hathaway and Joseph Gordon Levitt. Strong characterization, motive and an evocative performance makes John Blake a believable and sympathetic character although his story arc doubles as an origin story ( for the new batman or for Robin) which kinda denies Batman and the rest of the plot additional screen time.
VERDICT :
The enormous expectations and the fan following ensured that the film broke box office records with a 161 Million $ opening weekend ( Biggest 2D opening of all time) despite the Aurora Shootings. Though this figure is still below estimates of a 175-200 Million $ opening weekend, the film should be able to run strongly for several weeks and is most likely to be the most profitable of the Batman films.
In summary, The Dark Knight Rises is a thoroughly entertaining and thought provoking thriller that is head and shoulders above standard super hero fare like The amazing Spiderman and The Avengers, although it falls short of Nolan's best work and doesn't quite match up to the phenomenon of the 2008 Dark Knight. TDKR is still a fitting and grand finale to a scintillating super hero trilogy and will be remembered for a long time.
Take a look at an official Featurette about the making of TDKR and interviews with the cast and crew.
3 comments:
Great review!
I agree with you about this being an fitting end to the trilogy. Chris Nolan ended his trilogy in style. Chris Bale was phenomenal as Bruce Wayne.
Check out my review .
Cheers!
As always a nice crisp read that is a welcome relief from all the crap on the internet. Whew. Thanks for that!
"One starts to wonder, however, Bane's conflicting motives behind his actions. He says that his plan is to give Gotham back to its people and conduct a witch hunt of the city's rich."
Dude, don't you think you are missing the entire plot? Once the nuclear core was removed from the reactor, it was a time bomb that would go off in 5 months based on Dr. Pavel's statement. In the meantime, Bane intends to torture the people of Gotham, in a manner not unlike that Batman would be subjected to in that ancient prison : mental torture that comes with the idea of hope. Bane makes this pretty clear in his dialogue when he leaves Batman in the prison.
So the people of Gotham have to go through the anguish and pain that comes with hope, for 5 months . Bane has to make sure that the outside world does not interfere, and the people of Gotham do not offer too much of a resistance. I can't think of a better ploy than that in the movie to accomplish something like that.
Of course, if something does go entirely wrong, Bane can have Tate pull the trigger and ensure the mission is still a success.
"Some of the climatic scenes like Batman and Bane's hand-to-hand combat and Bane's death seems anti-climatic and distinctly unepic"
Agree on the hand to hand combat which wasn't very satisfying, disagree on Bane's 'supposed' death. The firepower was simply phenomenal and extremely gratifying.
"I was more disappointed to discover that Bane was not the mastermind"
Ah, I feel the pain bro, but I think that has more to do with Marion Cottillard's performance towards the end. She is a phenomenal actress and I couldn't help thinking she was not powerful enough in the end. It was almost like she couldn't get out of her goody goody role she played prior to the twist in the tale.
"Of special mention are Anne Hathaway and Joseph Gordon Levitt."
And they get only one line in your review! Come on man! The girl-next-door from the Princess Diaries and the guy-next-door from 500 Days of Summer have totally upped their act and played their part to perfection. Every single word spoke by Hathway was from Catwoman rather than Anne herself. She was mind blowing. And no mention of how the Batpod seemed to be perfectly tailor made for her, er, silhouette? And Levitt's potrayal of how Blake handles his superior in the police chase was something you'd have to award that kid for, simply phenomenal.
Oh and the police chase... Foley being the second in command after the Commissioner, in his blind greed for the moment of Glory of capturing Batman redirects all resources to get him rather than a bunch of tech guys who at that moment had done nothing but brandish guns and steal nothing from the Stock Exchange. Think about it..
Apologies for the long comment and here's the disclaimer. I watched the movie WEEKS after the release, meaning, I was siting with a crowd of clueless parents who had brought their kids all decked up in Batman t shirts thinking the most violence would the 'pow' 'bammm' in colourful bubbles. So I had to be the one clapping and whistling and screaming, yes me. So imagine the kind of crowd. So I had time to process all the scenes and drink in all the dialogue :)
@theslayer
haha....agree that I should have written a bit more about Hathaway, but disagree on the Bane arc. All this stuff about giving hope and taking it away is all fine, but my gripe with the time bomb is that most of Bane's henchmen were the dredges of Gotham's underworld. Why would they put their lives on the line and stay in the city till the end when they full well knew that the bomb will kill every living thing...I would understand that if they were members of the LOS ( whose MO is sacrifice) but they are not...and Bane's original diatribe ( speech in the football stadium) is about giving Gotham back to the masses...In what way does nuking the city and imposing martial law, constitute that ?...but yeah..these are minor gripes in the larger scheme of things and I might have missed some of the deeper exposition / meaning behind the actions...but the movie was mind blowing..and i so loved bane's voice and dialogue delivery...
P.S: Take a look at "Bronson" a 2008 film with Tom Hardy in the starring role based on a real life person...that is some of the most diabolic and mind blowing performance ever...
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