Tragedy or no, of course I had to see this movie. I love Christopher Nolan. I loved the other two movies in the trilogy.I’m a nerd. Duh.
(Oh, and in case you missed the news? Christian Bale is a fucking superhero. For reals.)
I liked The Dark Knight Rises, quite a bit. Though I didn’t like it as much as The Dark Knight. I think it felt like it was just a bit too long, and a few of the expository points were a bit too heavy-handed. Which is to say it was still an excellent movie and you should definitely go see it. It was dark and moody and a fitting end to the trilogy, action and suspense and more bat toys than you can shake a stick at. All of the actors did great work. Anne Hathaway has now fully erased the horrors of Halle Berry and her CGI butt from my mind. Tom Hardy deserves a medal for managing to convey so much emotion with most of his face obscured by a ridiculous mask.
Really, Michael Caine stole the show as Alfred, though. That man made me cry. Twice. Best Alfred ever. He puts so much depth into everything, and just the weight of the relationship between Alfred and Bruce is crushing.
Of course, I never get tired of Christian Bale doing the Batman voice. I admit it.
And then there will be some spoilers.
SPOILERS BELOW
Honestly, there were a couple of things that did kind of bug me about the movie. First and foremost was Bruce Wayne sleeping with Miranda. It just seemed very out of the blue, particularly considering all the real chemistry there was in that movie was between him and Selina. Pretty much at the time that happened, I remember thinking, “…what?” Then by the end it just feels like a cheap trick to squeeze a little more impact from Miranda’s betrayal, when she really wasn’t enough of a character to even begin with. I didn’t feel all that shocked at the big reveal, because there just hadn’t been quite enough time setting her up.
I think the problem really was the movie wanted to have only one interest.Catwoman really crowded whatever development there might have been to build up Miranda. Or at least to get me to care about Miranda at all.
The other thing that bothers me a little is the setup for the “rabble” taking over Gotham. Now, on one hand I really don’t get all the bitching that I’ve seen on Twitter about this movie being quasi-fascist, or about fearing the mob, or anti-99% or whatever. I don’t think that was the point at all. The way the upper classes of Gotham were presented there was nothing to sympathize with, and the plight of the poor was made pretty damn clear. Rather, I easily saw the parallels to A Tale of Two Cities as soon as that plot line ramped up. My god, the first time you ever see the court room, it should smack you in the face.
But then the problem becomes that it’s not a real revolution or a good parallel to the Reign of Terror, because it’s something that was imposed top down by Bane. It wasn’t the underclass rising up against the worthless rich; it was Bane telling everyone he was going to turn the city into a sea of glass if people didn’t play by his rules.
So that setup didn’t quite work for me. I’m not sure I buy Gotham falling apart quite like it did. Though I can buy that once things have gone totally to shit, people who have nothing to lose probably wouldn’t feel too bad about seeing the decadent get their comeuppance.
I will tell you this. The Dark Knight Rises managed to do the impossible. I’m actually thinking of reading A Tale of Two Cities again. That’s even more amazing than the level of emoting Tom Hardy managed with just his eyebrows.