THE DARK KNIGHT RISES Review
By Darin Skaggs
I love a great film trilogy. The Lord of the Rings, Indiana Jones, Toy
Story, The Man with No Name and the Original
Star Wars trilogies are some of my favorites. The history of film has shown that, despite
the ones I’ve just named, it is hard to make a good trilogy. Most of the time the biggest challenge of
making a good film franchise is the addition of the third film, especially for
superhero movies. Examples of bad
trilogies include films such as Spider-Man,
X-Men and Alien. So when I went to see Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises I was very nervous
to see if it lived up to the hype of Nolan’s previous two amazing Batman films,
Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. Well I’m glad to say that Nolan’s Batman
series can be added to the list of great film trilogies with the new inclusion
of The Dark Knight Rises.
Nolan’s new film takes place eight years
after The Dark Knight in which Batman
takes the blame for the crimes of Harvey Dent and becomes a fugitive. The city of Gotham, because of Batman’s
sacrifice, has significantly dropped in crime.
No one has seen Batman in years and Bruce Wayne, Batman’s true identity,
has become somewhat of a hermit. Everything seems to be going fine in Gotham
city until the villain, Bane shows up and starts causing mayhem around the
city. That’s when Bruce decides that it
is time to bring back the Batman and stop Bane with help from an expert thief
named Selina Kyle.
The
big star in The Dark Knight was the
Joker. There were other good characters, but everybody left that film
remembering him. However When I left The Dark Knight Rises, I had many of the
different characters roaming around in my head.
Kyle, who is also Catwomem though she is never called that in the film,
is a really interesting and dynamic character.
Other characters from the previous films are given more to do, such as Fox,
Alfred and even Scarecrow has a nice cameo in the film. Bane, who throughout is merciless and is downright
evil in his actions, becomes sympathetic near the end of the film. The story of Bruce Wayne/Batman is explored
to a great conclusion and brings his character back around to who he was in Batman Begins and who he has become.
None of these character’s arcs would be
possible without the writing and especially the acting. Anne Hathaway, who as
an actress I love, plays Kyle does a great job with the role. Tom Hardy who plays Bane has restrictions because
of the mask and can only act with his eyes and his posture. This is proven to
work throughout the film, especially in the opening scene. Christian Bale, who always did well in the
role, as Bruce steps up his game. I would go as far to say that no one in this
movie gives less than a good performance.
The best performance for me was Joseph Gordon-Levitt as cop turned
detective, John Blake. It is a hard
thing to do, in the third film in a franchise to introduce a new character and
give him an arc that is satisfying and also give all the other beloved
characters satisfying conclusions as well, but the direction of Nolan and the
acting of Gordon-Levitt make this possible.
If you couldn’t already tell I love this
film, but it is far from perfect. In
2010 a similar issue took place with another Nolan film Inception. This film was
fairly popular with the film community despite being less than perfect and full
of plot holes. I did not enjoy Inception for that very reason. I enjoy The
Dark Knight Rises however despite its flaws because in Inception that was an imagined world with rules we were not familiar
with and had to be learned from the movie.
I think the rules of the world were not explained very well and
decreased the quality of the film. The Dark Knight Rises however is set
mostly in the reality that we live in. This helped me forgive all the plot
holes and faults because I could find an answer for what was not explained unlike
the dream world presented to me in Inception.
This film makes you feel so much, when you
realize that Batman is out of his element you cringe at him when he is not
getting the victory we are so used to him getting, which makes his victories
much more glorious and well deserved. The
emotions get high when you realize what Bruce will do and all he has done for
Gotham. It even gets a little emotional
with the story of Bane. There are even a
few nods for die hard Batman fans and Nolan brings the whole story back around
from Batman Begins.
Much like Joss Weadon’s Marvel’s The Avengers, Nolan made a superhero film that can speak
to you on so many levels. It’s fun, with
great characters and makes you think. Nolan
has made a franchise that can be looked at more than just a few superheroes
movies, he made great cinematic art.