The Dark Knight Rises…….Film Review By Emperor Cole

So I finally went and saw the epic conclusion to the Christopher Nolan Batman trilogy, and I must admit I was not very intrigued to see this film until at the very last minute. The trailers that I saw were kinda ehhhh and it wasn’t until I saw the 13 min Feature Preview that I became enthusiastic about hitting the theater for this movie. And here goes my review of The Dark Knight Rises…

1st if you haven’t seen this movie yet I STRONGLY recommend you go and re-watch Batman Begins & The Dark Knight. This movie makes several references to both of these movies and the plot points are tied in with the first two films.

The PRO’s: 

The Dark Knight Rises grabs your attention immediately with an AMAZING aerial stunt sequence with Bane going from prisoner to plane hijacker and ultimately plane crasher on a CIA flight in only a matter of moments. The instant suspense and the mystery that is created around the movie’s lead villain is undeniable and very entertaining.

In  Gotham it is 8 years after the events of The Dark Knight and Batman is now a wanted vigilante who has taken the fall for the murder of Harvey Dent. Crime in Gotham is at a bare minimal and Harvey Dent has become a hero and icon of hope and all that is good in the world. Bruce Wayne has gone into a reclusive depressed type of existence– and he even now walks with a pronounced limp– a limp so bad that he requires a cane.

Now this is the first thing I would say is kind of off right here…now I understand that Nolan has taken a very realistic and real world approach to how he has depicted his version of Batman. With that said I can understand why Bruce Wayne would have developed a leg problem but that bad leg and how overall physically weak he was presented in the film I have a VERY HARD TIME believing he could have beaten Bane or matched up with him at all.

This film goes into several places that you would not expect it to explore– in that I mean it goes into some dark subject matter and most wouldn’t dare take a movie in this day and age. In a post 9/11 film world not many directors/producers are willing to do a plane hijacking,  explosives laced all over the city, a bombing at a major sporting event and takeover of New York City all in one project. For this I commend Nolan for having the balls to do this and do it well might I add. The scope of The Dark Knight Rises is truly EPIC! The audience feels that the entire world is at stake in this movie.

The Acting performance of the whole cast were very very good. Particularly Tom Hardy as Bane and Ann Hathaway as Catwoman– although she is never referred to by that name in the movie- really stood out to me. Hardy packed on 30 pounds to play the role of the villainous Bane. I was worried months ago when I heard the bad guy in this movie would be Bane because I watched the 90’s cartoon of Batman and I like the character so much that I didn’t want him to be botched when brought to the “Hollywood Big Screen”.

For anyone who doesn’t quite know what I mean by “botched”—> go watch 1997’s Batman & Robin and see Joel Schumacher’s direction for the acting of Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mr.Freeze. Now anyone who has seen that movie knows that it blows goat all round.

Ann Hathaway as Catwoman: 

Ann Hathaway was an excellent Catwoman; she embodied a great deal of mysteriousness mixed with a hidden agenda behind her pretty smile. Although she lacked the all out “WOW” sexiness that Michelle Phifer and Halle Berry had when they reprised the role and wore the all black skin tight leather outfit. I still think she did a better and more realistic job of being Selina Kyle than both of them. The storyline of the character was tweak somewhat as we all knew it would be. Instead of being a wealthy business woman who gets her kicks stealing high priced items, this version of Selina Kyle is a girl who grew up doing whatever she had to in order to survive. She is able to fool/outwit Batman/Bruce Wayne and get the drop on him not once but but twice in the movie. (More of that a little later)

Tom Hardy as Bane: 

Hardy did a SUPERB job has Bane! He was a villain’s villian and he brought Bane to life in a way that I wasn’t even sure was possible. I commend him for being able to hit the gym hard enough to gain the necessary weight to really look like the character. Nolan added a beautiful touch with giving Bane an English accent in his voice. I feel like that made him an even more formidable foe for Batman and the police because now he “sounds smart” and comes across elegant and educated. Then when you add that he is a hulking figure who was trained by The League Of Shadows it just gets even better.  Bane has some FANTASTIC dialogue and one liners in the movie. Like the plane scene where he ask “what good does it do to shoot a man before throwing him out of a plane?” And the scene where the business man Daggett realizes he’s been played for a fool. Bane says to him “Because you gave me money do you think that gives you “POWER” over me?….Tell me do you feel in control now???” The entire audience had a real laugh out loud moment when Bane got up on Daggett and told him that right before he broke his neck.

Hardy as Bane is in my top 5 for BEST VILLAIN in any move all time!!!

I’m just really happy that these two actors really put on a great performance and made the characters there own. There have been times in the the past where the wrong actor was cast as a major bad guy and that actor didn’t fit that role at all——> See Street Fighter—-> See Raul Julia as “M.Bison”—-> GET THE F*&# OUT OF HERE WITH THAT BULL*&@!

The plot to the movie is very epic and does take several months to play out. One problem that I had with it simply that is Bruce Wayne hasn’t had to throw on the Batman suit and run around Gotham in 8 years AND his has a leg that cause him to limp…I really don’t see how he would have been able to recover after Bane broke his back and he was in that prison for all those months.

I like that they used that a storyline which comes straight from the comic book “Knightfall” but in the comics Bruce’s injury took him the proper amount of time that it would take to heal——> ABOUT A FULL YEAR!! In the comics he had to find someone else to be Batman for that time period while he healed. This is where I thought Nolan was going to take it with the introduction of  Joseph Gordon Levitt and he does to a certain extent but that occurs at the very end of the film.

This movie did an exceptional job of keeping my attention and even though there are some storylines that aren’t fully delved into there is the feeling of too many characters that don’t all get their proper screen times. An example of this is Lucious Fox (Morgan Freeman) who is a very minor character this time around, also so is Alfred (Michael Cane). The both don’t appear much in the movie but Alfred makes his scenes count as he tries to convince the Bruce that he should let go of being Batman before he gets himself killed. He even reveals to him that his love Rachel in The Dark Knight (she died in the explosion) choose Harvey Dent in a letter that he burned up. This was done in an attempt to save Bruce from his own ambitions. The scene was powerful to me.

Nolan made this final installment play out and feel far more like a terrorist takeover/siege type of movie than the typical superhero flick. I admire the courage that he has shown throughout all three of these films. He brought The Dark Knight into the real world of the 2000’s and didn’t hold back on the grittiness nor did he sugar coat anything. I will say in TDKR I know he had to maintain a “PG-13” rating so the killing scenes in the movie are all “implied” and not really shown– which to me sucks. But from a studio “lets get all the money we can” point of view I understand it.

Joseph Gordon Levitt did a good job as Detective Blake who in my opinion was OBVIOUSLY being set up or introduced to be “the next” something. For me it was clear that he was being brought into the fold to become a major character in the scene where he goes to Bruce’s house and tells him that he knows he is Batman…at that point I figure he is going to be the next Batman since Bruce is on his last leg—–> Pun intended. Or he is going to be a “sidekick” of some sort…hint hint.

The CONS:

The biggest thing I didn’t like was how Bane was killed. They spent a good deal of the movie building Bane up as this ultimate super villain who is witty and damn near unstoppable…only for him to be killed the way he was??? I won’t spoil it for who ever hasn’t seen it but that was EXTREMELY disappointing.  Now it goes into another point that I have—> there is NO WAY Batman could have defeated Bane in a head up to the death fight. Especially after doing months in a 3rd world prison with a broken back.

The movie has so much going on in it that I feel like it would have been better to break it up into 2 parts just like Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows and The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn.  This would have given Nolan ample run time to handle the multiple storylines in more depth as well as allow him more character development of several key players in the film.

Overall The Dark Knight Rises is a GREAT MOVIE and has CLEARLY secured Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy as one of the top 5 Trilogies of ALL-TIME. This was an excellent way to “end” the series and I say that loosely because anyone who has seen the film knows that it’s like there will be more coming. But Nolan has expressed that this is his last Batman movie because of how time consuming they are and the expectations involved.

MindBender Movie Meter Score 

The Dark Knight Rises……91%

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