Review: The Dark Knight Rises

After being blamed for the ‘murder’ of Harvey Dent, Batman hasn’t been seen in years, and brooding millionaire Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) has become uber-reclusive. A new villainous threat, the hulking and seemingly unstoppable Bane (Tom Hardy) is wreaking havoc on Gotham City, and this reluctantly coaxes the Dark Knight out of exile. Meanwhile, a sexy but selfish cat burglar named Selena Kyle (AKA Catwoman, for the slow-witted) has just stolen some Wayne family jewellery, which may or may not be her idea of foreplay. Let’s just say they’re both into tight rubber suits. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays idealistic young cop John Blake, Marion Cotillard plays a smouldering business colleague of Wayne’s, Matthew Modine plays Deputy Commissioner to Gary Oldman’s Commissioner Gordon, Aussie Ben Mendelsohn plays a rich villain, and we get return appearances by Michael Caine’s loyal butler Alfred, and Morgan Freeman’s equally loyal gadget man Lucius Fox.

 

I don’t like the Christopher Nolan (“Memento”, “Inception”) vision of Batman or Gotham City, nor do I think Christian Bale makes for a good Batman. He’s terrible (and just as bad as Val Kilmer and George ‘Hi, I’m Batman!’ Clooney), and only slightly better as Bruce Wayne. It’s just not my idea of what Batman is. I know comic book...er...graphic novel nerds...er...enthusiasts will tell me that Nolan gets it spot-on, but I don’t give a rat’s arse. Batman has become an icon well past one format’s interpretation of the character. Everyone has their own idea of what a Batman film should be like, and for me, Tim Burton got it right with 1989’s “Batman”. It was a dark, Gothic vision without forgetting to be entertaining or indulging in glum brooding tortured soul crap. Hell, I even have a soft spot for the campy 60s TV show, and believe Cesar Romero is the definitive Joker. And I feel no shame in saying that.

 

Each film in Nolan’s trilogy has had its positives, usually in regards to the supporting cast. “Batman Begins” had Morgan Freeman and Rutger Hauer. “The Dark Knight” had fantastic performances by Aaron Eckhart and the late Heath Ledger as a psychotic Joker far removed from Cesar Romero’s cackling campiness (or Jack Nicholson’s quite enjoyable interpretation for that matter), but undeniably compelling nonetheless. So it is with this 2012 final entry into the “Dark Knight” trilogy, that for all its flaws, the film still contains scene-stealing work by Anne Hathaway’s naughty Catwoman (the best Catwoman of all-time, hands down), and especially Tom Hardy as the fearsome-looking Bane. Hathaway has come a long way as an actress, and her Catwoman is naughty, flirty, beautiful, and sexy as hell. The character isn’t the straight-up villainess you might be used to (though she does have ties to Bane), nor the semi-super heroine Halle Berry played in the reviled borderline 90 minute Revlon commercial “Catwoman”, but that makes her somewhat intriguing and elusive, as well as somewhat hardened and aloof. That aloofness is perfect for the part. She’s also surprisingly tough and effective in action scenes, something that might surprise you. In fact, my only problem with her is that she’s left off-screen for great stretches of the film, which is almost criminal, really because Catwoman gets lost in the shuffle whilst Batman/Wayne undergoes his Eastern mysticism variant of the “Rocky IV” training montage which stops the film dead. It’s way overlong and seems out of a Shaolin monk film, not Batman. The absolutely stunning Marion Cotillard is no slouch as the other major female character in the film, but she too could’ve used more screen time. There is a lot of wasted talent in this film, with Michael Caine in particular barely used. Then again, I’ve never found his cockney accent a precise fit for Alfred the Butler anyway.

 

As for Tom Hardy’s Bane, it’s unfair to compare him to Ledger’s Joker for a variety of reasons, but they are different kinds of villain and I think Hardy’s Bane is really effective in its own way. I’m not sure why Hardy has chosen to mimic Patrick Stewart’s voice projected through a muffled mask (apparently Hardy based the voice on a bare-knuckle fighter I’ve never heard of, but get stuffed, it’s Jean-Luc Picard for sure), but he otherwise makes Bane an incredibly commanding orator under very constrictive circumstances. It’s a tricky role, because physically he’s so restricted and even his voice is modulated, so either you’re hooked into the character and find it compelling or you simply never get into it. I got into it wholeheartedly. There’s a touch of real-world terrorism to the character that I tend to rally against in a comic-book film, but I think that’s an issue with Nolan’s vision, not Bane. No matter who the villain was, he’d work in some of that stuff anyway. At times he comes across like a Bond villain, but a tad too outlandish for that perhaps. That makes him spot-on for a comic-book villain, however. He also has a strong, bulked-up, and fearsome presence on screen that is somewhere in between animal and machine, with barely a human trace outside of his verbal skills. Bane is one badass mofo, and a very formidable opponent in his own extremely physical, seemingly perfectly prepared way.

 

Also worthy of a mention is Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a dedicated young policeman, and the twist regarding his character might be guessed in advance by some of you. It’s a really interesting role and Gordon-Levitt is certainly more appealing on screen than frumpy, tired-looking Gary Oldman, once again miscast as Commissioner Gordon. Aussie Ben Mendelsohn, however, impresses in a small role that is certainly better than his work in “Trespass”, and more likely to get him noticed, too. Nice job.

Unfortunately, Christian Bale is still in the title role of Batman/Bruce Wayne and he is still terribly unconvincing and uninteresting. Bale’s gruff, tacked-on Batman voice is laughably forced and takes me out of the film every single damn time. As Bruce Wayne, Bale does a slightly more interesting repeat of his tortured soul/wannabe Shaolin monk deal than in “Batman Begins”, but there is way too much emphasis on it as I mentioned earlier (despite Batman probably playing a smaller role in the film than ever before), and this bleeds into one of the film’s biggest issues; The story is too epic in scale and populated by too many characters, the whole thing needed serious streamlining. For starters, it results in Batman looking too much like an “Avengers”-style team player and not the Lone Wolf he’s meant to be (except for Robin and Batgirl of course). And there are some characters here that just aren’t necessary, and merely take up screen time that could’ve been afforded elsewhere. The characters played by Matthew Modine and Burn Gorman are especially extraneous. But this is what happens when people think comic book movies need epic length, character depth, and endless brooding. I feel like films like these ones and “Iron Man” have lost some of the point in pursuit of gravitas and depth. For starters, in this case it results in a film with no excitement or energy whatsoever. Fun is the most important element, depth is a bonus. Start with fun. I must say, though, that I did find some of the character stuff interesting, especially as it relates to unfortunate childhoods and class systems and so on, that see similarities in Bruce Wayne, Bane, Catwoman, and Gordon-Levitt’s John Blake (The Occupy Gotham stuff, however...Grrrr).

 

The other thing that bugs me about this film, as with the previous films is Nolan’s directorial visual style and his vision of Gotham City. I’m of the belief that Tim Burton’s ‘Gothic’ Gotham City was absolutely spot-on, whereas Nolan’s version of Gotham could be...Anytown USA. Or New York. Yes, I know Gotham is a nickname of New York and Frank Miller describes Gotham as ‘New York at Night’ (though this film was filmed in Pittsburgh), but I’m sorry, it just doesn’t look like Gotham to me and it’s called Gotham, not New York. It’s a fictional city, at the end of the day. Everyone has their own ideas about Gotham, and none of us are right or wrong, but to me, it should look more...Gothic. Nolan’s Gotham is as boring as batshit. Even Metropolis tends to be presented as an uber-Metropolis. But Nolan’s Gotham? It just looks like a city. And don’t even get me started on the Batsuit, which is clunky and more rubbery-looking than Joel Schumacher’s nipply S&M designs which at least looked more comic book-esque. As for the rest of Nolan’s visual style, well I’m a huge detractor of his over-reliance on amber filters employed by cinematographer Wally Pfister (Nolan’s “The Prestige”), which just make the whole thing look ugly and...well, amber. Nolan’s other films haven’t overly indulged in this sort of colour correction nonsense, but this trilogy is rife with it. A fireplace does NOT bathe everyone and everything entirely in amber you half-wit!

 

Credit where it’s due, the music score by Hans Zimmer (“Rain Man”, “Inception”) is far and away the best in the entire trilogy, which is to say, I actually noticed it this time around. His previous scores (shared by James Newton Howard, who is absent here) contained nothing iconic, stirring, powerful, or memorable, but this time around he pretty much nailed it.

 

A good 20-30 minutes long, and with problems regarding the central character (or performance), and Nolan’s visual interpretation of Gotham City, this is once again not my kind of Batman film. If you’re a fan of the series, good for you. I’m not a fan in the slightest. However, like the previous films, there are a few fine elements here and there, and especially good work by Tom Hardy and Anne Hathaway keeping things watchable.

 

Rating: C+