If things are always “darkest before the dawn,” meet the bleak, black midnight that is Christopher Nolan‘s The Dark Knight Rises. Where 2008’s The Dark Knight featured a colorful sociopath as its anarchist villain, Rises relies not only on the villainy of a man hellbent on brute force destruction, but the loss of hope and suffering of the story’s antihero at the film’s core. As a result you’ll be hard-pressed to find a ray of light as Gotham City falls under siege.
My focus on the grim nature of the film, however, isn’t to suggest I didn’t like it. It’s a message of preparation. You’re going to find yourself drop-kicked into a world where eight years have passed since the end of The Dark Knight and Batman hasn’t been seen since taking the blame for the murder of Harvey Dent. Using the false memory of Dent and his “not on my watch” slogan, a fragile peace endures as the mob has been wiped out and Gotham City has embraced his low tolerance for crime. Yet, you never get the impression it’s a time for holding hands and singing songs… trouble still lurks beneath the dreary streets of Gotham.
Hanging up the cowl for a life of seclusion in his manor, Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) is compared to Howard Hughes due to his reclusive nature. Any hope for a normal life died with Rachel Dawes and he sees little reason to keep on going despite the constant push he gets from his dedicated butler, Alfred (Michael Caine delivering a strong, emotional performance). Wayne’s re-emergence into society comes at the hands of necessity and, to little surprise, a couple of women.
His first encounter with Selina Kyle (played by Anne Hathaway who’s thankfully never once referred to as Catwoman) is when he finds her in his house, pilfering his mother’s pearls. Hathaway is impressive in the role, largely in her ambiguity and the way Nolan does his best to present his heroes and villains as people of necessity rather than contrived characters in tights. Selina’s bag of tricks could use a little more detail, but I’m willing to forgive this bit of vagary, especially in a film that tends to “tell” a little too much.
The other femme fatale is business woman Miranda Tate (Marion Cotillard) whose interests lie in Bruce and Wayne Enterprises, the latter of which has dissolved into shambles due to Bruce’s lack of involvement and money spent in areas that may never be able to be put to use.
And, of course, we must not forget our chief villain, Bane (Tom Hardy). I’ll keep his motives to myself, so as not to spoil any of the film’s surprises, but expect a man much like The Joker in his penchant for killing and disregard for human life, but different in most every other way. Hardy was an excellent choice for the role even though his face is covered for the duration of the feature by a contraption that’s never entirely explained, though realized as a necessity.
This “mask” does, however, affect his voice, which is equally frightening in it’s deep, sometimes robotic tone, as much as it is, at times, difficult to understand and sometimes a bit silly. More than once he reaches a high pitch that reminded me more of Adam Sandler in Billy Madison than a terrifying mercenary that would just as soon hit a woman with his motorcycle helmet as he would crush your windpipe under the weight of his knee.
Bane also falls prey to some dialogue that falls well short of previous Nolan films and his words can get a bit mundane and too on-the-nose as a result. Fortunately, he’s not the biggest offender in this matter.
Matthew Modine as Gotham’s deputy commissioner is a character that should have flatly been cut from the film. He says what he’s thinking at any and every moment and Modine overacts at every chance he can get to the point I began to shrug at his every appearance. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is more than capable of carrying the weight of the film’s law enforcement angle (and he does do quite well) and there are enough “bad guys” in this film that we don’t need Modine’s “I know better than you” attitude and character arc. It’s tired, cliche and definitely above Nolan at this point in his career and the story itself suffers similar, slight missteps throughout.
Yet, at two hours and 45 minutes long, The Dark Knight Rises, fortunately, doesn’t feel too bloated even though, as I just pointed out, some needless fat could have been trimmed. Outside of some great performances — I’d name Hathaway, Hardy and Caine as three particular standouts — the one thing Nolan’s Batman franchise has had going for it since the first frame of Batman Begins is one of the most iconic and effective scores put to film in the modern era, morphing into its latest impressive reprisal.
You’d have to be completely unforgiving not to push any doubt over the film’s narrative, script issues or even some curious editing decisions to not be won over when Hans Zimmer‘s score takes over in collaboration with over 70 minutes of true IMAX footage. It’s the pinnacle of epic. Everything seems bigger when those notes come crashing in, fading into strings as remnants of those original chords vanish into the distance. The music matches the mood, genre and comic book content, putting you in the moment, allowing you to push aside any stumbling blocks that came before and believe, if only for a second, a man would dress as a bat.
Nolan, writing with his brother Jonathan, has delivered a film that delves into economics as a weapon and has a variety of political parallels while remaining immensely entertaining on a visceral level, yet it is the messiest of the franchise. As someone that has never read a single page of the Batman comics, even I recognized several nods to the Bob Kane books that brought the Caped Crusader to life. As a result, you end up with a few obvious narrative turns and bits of bloat, yet I already know fans are going to want more, more, more.
This is how Nolan will leave his dedicated Bat-fanbase, wanting more, and he’s right to do so. I get the feeling he was spent after The Dark Knight and he gave all he had left with Rises — a curious parallel he holds with the film’s lead protagonist — but even the title suggests he only had so much more to give. That said, I’ll gladly receive it and watch it again, but I look forward to, and believe his time will be better spent on, new material rather than territory already tread.
