Revisiting The Dark Knight Rises

Two years ago, I watched and reviewed The Dark Knight Rises. Now, removed from the hype and most of the emotion, I look at it again.

Even if the rest of this movie sucked, it earns points for Tommy Carcetti/Littlefinger being the CIA agent at the beginning of the movie. The fact the neither of them could charm/connive their way past Bane is enough to make him worthy as a villain.

People, for whatever reason, don't like Anne Hathaway and I truly don't get that. Because she trades on affectations and haughtiness, I guess? Have these people never met actors before? Is Hathaway supposed to hide her true self? Not everyone can be Jennifer Lawrence. And, frankly, Lawrence is far too relatable and endearing for me not to be suspicious. Anyway, the only thing wrong with Hathaway's Catwoman is the heels, and that wasn't really her call. People who aren't won over by the information-trading scene in the bar were never going to cotton to this character.

John Blake knows who Batman is from the beginning (he even has a suspicion that Bats was involved in the death of Harvey Dent). In a movie where every other character gets nine minutes of exposition, we're just supposed to accept that Blake recognizes another orphan and correctly pegs him as Batman. You know what would've been amazing? An honest, effective cop like John Blake hunting down the Batman. The Dark Knight sets that story up and it's completely abandoned here. Yeah, he's been retired for eight years, but what if Blake is on the heels of Bruce Wayne, heightening the drama of his decision to put the cowl back on? You can keep Bane and most everything else, but what if Batman actually had to face the music? It's hard not to feel like the first two movies pointed that way, before the third opted for a standard super-villain plot.

Thomas Lennon plays the doctor who examines Bruce. He was also the doctor in Memento. I don't know about the rest of you, but I like to imagine that he's the same character and that all of Christopher Nolan's movies take place in the same universe. Lennon does, anyway, and that's good enough for me.

Did this need to be another city-wide hostage movie? I get that you need a big threat for the final act, but note that the strongest movie of the trilogy is the one that doesn't threaten to blow up Gotham. And I also get the desire to bring this back around to the beginning with the League of Shadows, which wants Gotham reduced to rubble. But somewhere in here, there's a smaller, more intimate story to be told about the breakdown of the victorious--if compromised--Batman, against whom a shattered, weakened organization seeks to enact its swan song revenge. If you're thinking that's too bleak and too small scale for a summer blockbuster, I'd counter that it's also too bleak and too small scale for an Oscar bait stab-all-hope-to-death movie. It's not that I don't love the gritty reboot of the "some days you just can't get rid of a bomb" sequence (because I do), but Batman almost works best on the margins, without hype and without earth-shattering spectacle. In the dark, if you will.

Revisiting Bane's voice: the real problem is the inconsistency. In scenes like the plane heist or the speech out front of Blackgate, he's fine. But during the hit at the stock exchange, for example, it's like Sean Connery hepped up on painkillers. And it's especially a shame because Tom Hardy comes off genuinely imposing throughout his performance.

As long as we're talking about incoherence: Gordon's speech about institutions becoming shackles is almost entirely incomprehensible to me. Which is too bad because it sounds nice. But he whispers most of it over Hans Zimmer's characteristically bombastic soundtrack before transitioning into a yell at the end of it. It's an odd transition. And it seems so unlike Gary Oldman to make weird choices with his words.

Lastly, Bruce should've died. I mean, obviously, he can't hide anywhere in the world and his means for escaping are pretty meagerly defined. But even apart from that, there's an indulgent aspect of his surviving the blast. It worked for me at the time, but two years later, it just feels like the filmmakers are trying to have their cake and eat it, too. Once again, there seem to be few real consequences to Bruce's decision to be Batman, a thematic decision that might work for some superhero stories, but this series has gone out of its way to underline that vigilantism casts some very dark shadows.

This dichotomy extends to Blake's inheritance of the cowl. While Robin's Blake's fate relies on the imagination of the viewer, a trilogy that took pains to outline the downsides of vigilantism can hardly expect to be able to promote any excitement around a potential new Batman. I wonder if Nolan & Co. were aiming for fan indulgence, rather than trying to make a lasting statement. At the end of a popularly received trilogy, it's hard not to take the bait of rewarding one's fans, but when you've made your bones on gritty realism plausibility, this ending is just too easy. I don't know what the answer is. Kill Batman outright? We could completely upend most of the story as I slip into fan fiction mode, but neither you or I want to go through that (short version: Bruce doesn't rehabilitate after his fight with Bane, but is found by Blake, who helps him strategize from the cave to help the cops fight the League of Shadows; maybe Batman shows up in an exoskeleton suit, ala Kingdom Come). As a broad arc, it fits the character nicely--take everything away from him, give him the worst possible situation, and he still Batmans his way out of it--but it almost belongs to another, less self-serious take on the character.

Previous grade: A
New grade: B

I still like it. And though it's the weakest of the three, I can watch the full trilogy without feeling like it goes out on a sour note (Rises was never going to top its predecessor). But without needing to love it like I did in 2012, an ending that seemed like it had struck a perfect balance before plays a little muddled to me now. A few flat notes among some strong, undeniably Batmany work hurt the film but don't drag it down entirely. Overall, it's a strong enough series that I don't need another Batman film ever again.

Not that I would refuse one...