Finishing up his trilogy of Batman films with bombast and
style The Dark Knight Rises is a juggernaut of a film, as massive in scale as
the fan hype that has accompanied it to the big screen. For the most part it
succeeds in bookending Nolan’s trilogy and tying up loose ends, whilst not
slamming the door for possible future entries in the series. However it is also
not a film without its issues, as much philosophical as they are structural,
the films bloat exceeds that of the previous entries, and despite Tom Hardy’s
best efforts it is a film grounded with a villain who is nowhere near as
compelling as Heath Ledger’s joker. Its reach seems to almost escape its grasp
at times, having so much ground to cover and a story told on such a scale that
relating the small and human to the wider context is difficult, leaving plot
machinations at the heart of what should be deeper and more personal.
Eight years have passed since the death of Harvey Dent, in
that time Gotham has become a safer, virtually crime-free city. Bruce Wayne,
meanwhile, has become something of a recluse, boarded up in the rebuilt Wayne
manor mourning the death of Rachel and refusing to re-engage with the world.
But there are stirrings of a gathering force beneath the city, led by the
notorious Bane, a mercenary born and raised in the world’s toughest prison, and
of a reckoning that will force Batman back into the spotlight.
Like the other films in the series the Dark Knight Rises
starts slowly, re-introducing characters and new faces alike, of these
newcomers Anne Hathaway and Joseph Gordon-Levitt are the standout. Hathaway’s
Selina Kyle is never named as Catwoman but she imbues what could have been
merely a foil for Batman with a conflicted morality that develops nicely
throughout the film. Levitt has a somewhat tougher task playing a rookie cop,
John Blake, who is drawn into the fight against Bane. It’s a tricky role, one
that is largely reactive and set up with a clear purpose that is relatively
obvious early on, but Levitt plays it well crafting a real character from
someone who could have been much less. Michael Caine is wonderful once again as
Alfred, but his character in this is reduced to heavy-lifting the film’s
emotional beats, making them feel slightly perfunctory rather than truly
earned.
The lack of Batman himself though is a definite problem, throughout these films it has often felt like Nolan was never truly comfortable with the character himself, presented in the context of the grounded realism of Gotham this man in a costume never quite gels. Here when he is involved it works slightly better, perhaps because the film in general is bigger and less grounded than its predecessor, but it still left me reflecting on how little we actually see of the character in action and how this version of Bruce Wayne feels slightly muddled.
The lack of Batman himself though is a definite problem, throughout these films it has often felt like Nolan was never truly comfortable with the character himself, presented in the context of the grounded realism of Gotham this man in a costume never quite gels. Here when he is involved it works slightly better, perhaps because the film in general is bigger and less grounded than its predecessor, but it still left me reflecting on how little we actually see of the character in action and how this version of Bruce Wayne feels slightly muddled.
On the opposing side Bane makes a suitable imposing villain,
his voice though, a sort of muffled British upper-class hybrid, takes some getting
used to and despite clear work to clarify it in the edit (resulting in it often
feeling dubbed over and not physically present) it can still be hard to make
out at times, largely because there is no visual information to accompany it,
Bane’s mask obscuring all but Tom Hardy’s eyes and leaving him the difficult
job of conveying emotion with very little.
It may sound like I am being critical here, but only because
Christopher Nolan sets the bar so high for himself, the film remains a very
entertaining and well made Batman film, it has some great moments but has not
resonated or stuck with me since watching it. Compared to Nolan’s other films
it feels almost perfunctory in a way I am unused to, as if this was a film his
heart was not truly in. It tries to cram so many elements together that it
loses the great sense of thematic unity Nolan so often constructs, teasing it
apart it is hard to discern much really going on under the hood, and where it
does bring back motifs and ideas from the previous films it doesn’t do much to expand
upon them and brings little new to the table. As such it remains a good film
hampered by its history to an extent, whether or not this is a fair judgement
to make is a valid question, but we cannot simply appreciate entertainment in a
vacuum and as I’ve analysed my somewhat lack of engagement, this is the source
as far as I can discern.
Technically as impressive as you would expect and capped
with some great action scenes and character moments I would still struggle to
call the Dark Knight rises a failure in any real sense, after all years ago I would
have been crying out for a Batman film this good, this deep and this enjoyable,
but it also feels that Nolan’s trilogy deserved a better send off, that the
ending feels like a nod to the fans feels contrary to his approach to the films
thus-far. To contextualise it in terms of the films themselves, it feels like
Nolan gave the fans the film they wanted, but not necessarily the film they
deserved.
