Favorite Franchises: The Dark Knight Rises

The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Starring: Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Tom Hardy
Directed by: Christopher Nolan


Here's another Batman movie that I'm not going to sugar cut. I hate this movie. I HATE this movie! I sat in the movie theater on opening day, ready to see the Dark Knight trilogy come to a glorious end. And by the time I left the theater, I thought to myself "What the heck was that?" I knew that this film would have a really tough time living up to the cinematic achievement that The Dark Knight set, but I was at least hoping for a movie that was up to par with Batman Begins. I didn't get that. Instead, I got a film that I found myself to be in a minority on for hating. I went on for years, telling all my friends how much I was disappointed by The Dark Knight Rises, and everyone told me I was overreacting. It's been over 3 years now, and I think there's a good number of fanboys out there that have stopped sipping that Christopher Nolan Kool-Aid and have finally woken up to admit this was a disappointing finale. It's not a bad movie on a technical standpoint, I will admit that. Just because it's a movie I hate, doesn't make it an entirely bad movie. But, there's enough fouls on the creative directions for the film that leave the film feeling completely bloated and underwhelming. So let's look at the major cons and minor pros of The Dark Knight Rises.

So let's start by addressing the major villain advertised for the film, Tom Hardy as Bane. For starters, I hate the voice. This voice is dumber than Batman's and really easy to make fun of. It's just silly sounding and you can barely understand half of what he's saying. Also, I'm not a fan of how he doesn't really look that physically imposing in comparison to Batman. I know they couldn't really incorporate the Venom steroid into this film, and they at least gave him his sense of intelligence and psychology. But if I can't imagine him being physically imposing to Batman, I can't believe that he would be able to cripple Batman in a fight. That's just common sense on selling a threatening villain to an audience. I also hate the ending of this film, making Bane a sidekick to *SPOILER ALERT* Talia al Ghul, played by Marion Cotillard under the character name of Miranda Tate. That just completely pulls me out of everything the movie was going for and enters the "jumping the shark level." They tried to replicate the ending they had in Batman Begins, this time ending up as a predictable and underwhelming plot twist.

The only major villain that works for me is Anne Hathaway as Catwoman. Ok, villain is a strong term. She's more of an anti-hero. Anyways, I wasn't expecting much from Hathaway when I heard she was cast, but one scene in and I was completely fascinated by her character. Her unassuming demeanor really plays to her advantage and I like how a lot of her outfit is made to be a functional part of her cat burgling. I also really enjoy the chemistry Hathaway has with Christian Bale. You could believe in a short period of time that Batman and Catwoman would fall for each other. Well, kinda. I guess. It does come a little out of nowhere considering how much Bruce couldn't get over Rachel. In fact, a lot of that happened with Bruce Wayne's scenes with Miranda Tate. I'm suddenly reminded why I hated a lot of the directions this film takes with the storytelling.

The other actor that is trying hard to do well in the movie is Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Detective John Blake. He's one of the most morally pure characters in the film, and leads to both Bruce Wayne and Commissioner Gordon trusting him with valuable information and tasks. Of course, there's a huge spoiler attached to his character, which you don't find out til the end. But trust me when I said, I also saw this twist coming a number of months before the film came out. It's not a bad twist, leaving the film on an ambiguous "to be continued...?" note. I liked how Levitt played the part, making me care about his character more than most of the established characters in this universe that appear in this movie.

Hans Zimmer did the music for this movie, and it isn't bad music to listen to. The only problem is that it doesn't really sound like great Batman music. I still think the Danny Elfman score is still the most appropriate soundtrack for a film about Batman. Not much else to say. The music is good, but it isn't the best Batman music I've heard.

For a nearly 3-hour runtime, The Dark Knight Rises has a serious pacing issue. Trying to cram in a whole bunch of new material, while trying to tie together all the loose ends from the last two movies. It's just a creative mess. You can throw a whole bunch of new characters and plot devices our way, but it has to mean something. This should be something that properly feels like it's the logical payoff for both Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, but something feels off. Maybe something feel through in the story development process. Maybe it was going to have more direct mention of The Joker, and they had to scrap that due to Heath Ledger's death. There was probably potential for a really good finale, but this isn't it. It's in this installment where all the plot holes and questions you've been trying to ignore really begin to unravel everything. So, do yourself a favor and make a choice. You either check your brain at the door, which doesn't seem like something you would have to do during a Christopher Nolan movie. Or, you do what a lot of people have done with The Godfather trilogy and stop watching after the second film.


Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

The Dark Knight Rises is a film that looks good and has a handful of standout performances. But that's all it really offers. Every other accolade the fanboys have been giving it is pure fluff based on a bias love of Batman, the other two films in the trilogy, or Christopher Nolan films in general. It's a very polarizing comic book film. You're either gonna love it or hate it. Me personally, I hate it and that's never going to change. But maybe, like Batman & Robin, I can forgive it over time when another good Batman film comes along.

The Dark Knight Rises and movie images are copyrighted by Warner Bros.