For many people, there is “Before The Dark Knight” and “After The Dark Knight.” A colossal film that deftly broke down the barrier between being “a comic movie” and “a movie” in the eyes of many, it’s a film that was a gamechanger. Taking home an Academy Award posthumosly to Heath Ledger (whose fantastic performance surprised many) and bringing in a billion dollars world wide, this wasn’t “just” a Batman movie or “just” a superhero movie but something everyone could see, and something everyone wanted to see. So many things changed with it, in terms of how competing companies wanted to represent products to how other films similar to it endeavored to be made, all seeking to capture the magic Bat-formula Nolan, the cast and the crew concocted for it. The Dark Knight, in no shorter terms, proved how great movies based on comics could be.
With that element in mind, there is of course no possible way that the Dark Knight Rises could ever live up to such a grandiose levels. It’s impossible; no matter how great of a filmmaker and storyteller Christopher Nolan will be, no matter how good Christian Bale is at growling or Tom Hardy is at being awesome, it is inconceivable that the stars would align as perfectly as they did for the Dark Knight, in which every little thing just went right down to the most minute detail. That’s why, when looked at in context with the previous two Batman films (or even Nolan’s full body of work), there’s only one real judgement to be had: The Dark Knight Rises is only a “pretty good” movie.
There are two obvious flaws to the The Dark Knight Rises. The first is a simple one: “the Bane problem.” Tom Hardy as the actor behind Bane is just fine, doing more with body language and his eyes alone than most of the actors in the film. The problem with Bane comes from the inherent fear that due to the character’s face being kept in a mask that muffles a voice in which the actor channels two separate accents, no one will be able to understand him. It’s certainly a logical conclusion to make; if there was but one complaint most had about the previous film (or the one before it) it was Bale’s throaty gurgles, and it would seem obvious that the studio nor the director had any interest in the litany of jokes created based on the teaser trailer and Bane’s “ermahgerd brrtmrrn” dialogue. To combat this, however, the studio had remixed Bane’s dialogue over everything else to a rather painful extent in order to try and make this clearer. In their effort to help, they only made the ostensible problem of the situation that much more noticeable, and the fact that Bane’s dialogue does not rest easily into the rest of the audio (which is made particularly egregious when someone speaking in a megaphone is) becomes more noticeable as the movie goes on, to the film’s greater detriment.
The other flaw of the film, and this is arguably the one that hurts it more, is that it is incredibly predictable. Comic books and the movies based on them certainly relent to various tropes that they cater to, and both of the previous films in the trilogy are certainly just as guilty here and there. Yet where Batman Begins can be let off the hook for being an origin story, Dark Knight Rises has the unfortunate disposition of following up a movie fueled by chaos and anarchy. The Dark Knight is a movie where it’s rather impossible to tell exactly what will happen next (outside of “Batman will win”) because the central antagonist has no motive, no rhyme or reason. It leaves you on the edge of your seat while you shudder to think whats around the corner. Dark Knight Rises, on the other hand, is so predictable that if you’ve watched the trailer and have ever seen a movie/read a book/watched a show/played a game before, chances are you can tell what will happen before you even walk in the theater. That’s the most distressing factor: when a storyteller like Nolan delivers something as paint-by-numbers as this, you can’t help but wonder if this really needed to be a trilogy (the ending to Dark Knight is pretty perfect, after all).
Continued belowThat’s not to say it’s all bad, however. There are other little flaws as well (a few forced lines of heavy-handed dialogue here, some awkward editing choices there) but for the most part The Dark Knight Rises certainly has a enough good in it to counteract the bad. Just because the story is predictable doesn’t make the ride any less entertaining, and watching Tom Hardy steal scenes and rampage across the screen is always a delight. The new cast members mix in well with the familiar, and how exactly the story gets from Point A to Point B is a triumphant little tale. There are even quite a few loving nods hidden in it, both to the previous films and the Batman mythos, and fans invested in either should be pleased with the little touches. The Dark Knight Rises is a big film that caps off a big story, and to see it all tie together without anything being seemingly forced at the last minute (albeit still 100% predictable) is about as loving a tribute as a character like Batman, what he stands for and what his existence represents as an idea, is ever to get.
Although, truth be told, the best part about the film is the fact that this is as close to a live-action “No Man’s Land” film as we’re likely to ever get. Considering that that is one of the best Batman stories of all time, let alone a better story than “Knightfall,” it was certainly nice to see a version of it on screen.
I won’t be the first to say this (I know for a fact I saw this somewhere on Reddit) nor will I be the last, but the easiest way to look at Nolan’s Batman trilogy is to compare it to the original three Star Wars films. The first film, despite being an origin story, stood as a refreshing and unique take on a genre after a long string of subpar films with similar goals. The second is the best, showing exactly what can be done and how to do it right, remaining everyone’s favorite and the one frequently referenced and returned to. The finale? Well, it’s pretty good; doesn’t beat the previous two and it certainly has its obvious flaws when compared to what came before, but it’s still a great ending to a series — and in time, it all becomes one big thing in your head anyway. On its own, the cracks of the Dark Knight Rises are obvious, but since it has the good fortune of being a good movie in a great series you can forgive the flaws more easily.
So no, The Dark Knight Rises does not send the series out on a high note, but all things considered it’s the best possible note it could conceivably go out on. The Dark Knight Rises stands on an interesting precipice, since there was no way it could live up to expectations but at the same time there was no real way this would be a bad movie by any measure. Disappointment in this film is the equivalent of an A+ student coming home with a B instead; he could’ve done better, but he’s still at the top of his class. Nolan, Bale and all involved have done something that — for all the good they’ve done — Marvel Studios will never match, and that’s the real triumph. Marvel and their Avengers films, while entertaining, they’re making comic movies; Nolan and all involved found the wall that differentiates between all preconceived notions and stereotypes and smashed through it. DC Entertainment will quite possible never make a series of films as good as this (if Green Lantern is any indication, at least), but it doesn’t matter. They don’t need to: the Batman Trilogy will certainly have its place among the great trilogies of cinema, and that’s the ultimate victory of it all.
