The Dark Knight Rises

Following up The Dark Knight, arguably the greatest comic book movie ever made is certainly no easy task.  Pile on the fact that it's the last Nolan-made Batman film, and the trilogy to the epic (I hate this word) series, it has a lot of hype to live up to.  Does it?  In short, almost.

While no replacement for Heath Ledger's Joker, Bane was an excellent choice for the final villain of the series (you'll see why). Tom Hardy was fantastic as Bane, and man did he really pack on the muscle for this role, really cementing in the physically imposing force that Bane is.  Hardy's Bane lived up to the character I knew from the comic book back story.  His character seemed capable of pulling off the incredibly complex plans that terrorize Gotham throughout.  I'm surprised by the amount of complaints about Bane's voice, as I thought it was pretty cool/neat/different for a villain.  However, there were times in which I genuinely didn't have a clue what he said, but those moments were rare.

People were initially concerned by Anne Hathaway's casting as Catwoman (Ledger's selection initially drew the same reaction), however, as I thought, she was perfect for the role.  She's got just the right amount of sass and and athleticism to pull it off.  Certainly better than the god-awful Halle Berry film, which I apologize for reminding you of its existence.  However good Hathaway was, I never really got the impression her character was terribly meaningful to the progression of the film.  I'd have much rather have had a separate Bane film and a separate Catwoman film.

Admittedly I haven't watched either Batman Begins or The Dark Knight in some time, but my biggest problem with The Dark Knight Rises was the incredibly cheesy dialogue.  I don't recall it being quite this cheesy during the first two films.  There were several, and I mean several, terrible one-liners that made me squirm or roll my eyes.  One example that was included in the trailer: Batman finishes fighting a few henchmen, JGL's character chimes in with "you missed a spot." Nolan's smarter than this, just because it's a comic book movie it doesn't need cheap laughs or gags like this.

As the film twists and turns throughout, many of the shifts are explained directly to the audience either by a character, flashback, or dream.  Each time this happens it's entirely unnecessary as the plot twists are not complicated and need no further explanation.  This has always been one of my major criticisms of American blockbuster films, and Nolan should be above it.

Marion Cotillard is another new addition.  Her character was either underused or largely irrelevant, another character that could've easily been dropped from the film.  Cillian Murphy, who owns the worst line of The Dark Knight (possibly even the series), shows up again for some reason.  I genuinely like both of these actors very much, but I didn't see any rhyme or reason to their appearances.  You could make the argument that Cotillard's character was necessary, but if she was, it was poorly developed.

My other major issue with the film was how characters or events happened at just the perfect time.  One semi-spoiler-free example is when a tank gun is aimed at a large number of people, and just as it's about to fire Batman arrives and destroys it and flies off.  I'm sure similar events have happened in the previous films, but it seemed too frequent and obvious, and almost lazy.

Outside of these issues, it's essentially what you would expect.  I likely painted a more negative picture than it was worth, but those issues really stood out, and genuinely irked me at times.

The plot has a good amount of depth to it, as does Bane's character.  So it's not too dumbed down.  It has an anarchistic element, similar to The Joker's boat dilemma from The Dark Knight.  Nolan was however able to bring the story full circle back from Batman Begins, rather than making just another unconnected installment like so many comic book movies do. 

Being the end of Nolan's trilogy, he really did manage to pull off an incredible feat.  He took comic book movies from the formulaic, lazy, special-effects mash-ups that they were, and went in an entirely different direction and was enormously successful.  We're already seeing his mark on film-making with so many 'dark' adaptations coming out.

As well as Nolan wrapped up the entire series with the final installment, the ending wasn't without fault.  I believed Nolan had wrapped up the film in exactly the way it needed to be done, until it kept going... eventually doing exactly what I hoped it wouldn't.  I won't divulge this here, but feel free to ask me what my issues with this were and I'd be glad to discuss them.

B.