Review: The Dark Knight Rises

I made a conscious effort to stay spoiler-free in reading any review of this film prior to seeing it last night, and I was largely successful in doing so.  However, the reviews I had read weren't quite as predominantly positive as I had expected.  I read everything from "major disappointment" to "good, but not as awesome as The Dark Knight" to "the greatest conclusion to the trilogy possible."

As you can probably tell, I wasn't sure of what to expect from The Dark Knight Rises.  That was probably to my benefit so I could watch the movie for what it was versus having it not live up to my expectations.

Not only did the film live up to my expectations, it was better than anything I could have predicted.

Eight years have passed since the events of The Dark Knight, which in and of itself was an interesting direction taken by co-writer/director Christopher Nolan.  That long of a time period between stories allowed for lots of physical and mental scars to heal, as well as new ones to form.  Gotham City is no longer the crime-filled hostile zone that it was early in Batman's career, and Harvey Dent's legacy has led to over 1000 men arrested and put in prison for their crimes.  Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) hasn't put on the cowl and cape at all during that time, and he lives mostly in recluse away from the public eye.

This is all the calm before the storm, however.  There's a new force who wants to make a statement to those in power, and his name is Bane (Tom Hardy).  What he wants isn't quite clear at first, but his entrance in the film's first action sequence shows he has the will, the motivation, and the manpower to pull off some serious stuff.

Then there's the mysterious Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway), who has motives of her own.  She breaks into Wayne Manor and meets Bruce Wayne early in the film, only to make a swift getaway.  She's in cahoots with a rival corporation of Wayne Enterprises for their own financial gain.  She's also radically different from any other version of Catwoman in the past; she's much more of a traditional femme fatale than anything else.

Speaking of Wayne Enterprises, tell me if this sounds like a reflection of modern times: due to a number of poor financial investments the company has made, the company is facing either filing chapter 11, or be bought out by another investor.  Enter Miranda Tate (Marion Cotillard), who Bruce Wayne trusts Wayne Enterprises' future to.

All of these details come about within the first 40 minutes or so of the film, which are individually small parts of the film's much larger plot.  I haven't even touched on Bane's ultimate plan to take over Gotham City or how he plans on doing it.  You'll also notice I haven't mentioned what Batman does in the film, since he doesn't actually show up until a massive bike chase through downtown Gotham City.

There's also John Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who's quickly become one of my favorite young actors), a young police officer who builds a strong relationship with Commissioner Gordon throughout the film.  Blake becomes critical to the plot by the climactic war that breaks out, but I can't go into too many details about him without spoiling a whole lot of details along the way.

I have to comment on the one major issue I have with the film, though: Batman is hardly in the movie.  He only shows up in costume for the major action sequences in the film, which nearly undercuts the film's title.  His two major battles with Bane are supreme throwdowns, and as awesome as those moments are, they are too far apart from one another.  Batman couldn't show up till halfway through Batman Begins by design, since we had to care about Bruce Wayne as a man first.  In The Dark Knight, Batman was front and center from the beginning all the way to the end of the film.  Here, we had to wait for Wayne to want to suit up again, but Wayne isn't so much the star of this film as he was before.  It's more John Blake and Bane's movie than anyone else's.

Make no mistake though - as compelling as Bane is as the villain of the film, he isn't half as fun to watch as Heath Ledger's Joker was in The Dark Knight.  There are a handful of lines where Bane's muffled voice is hard to decipher, but it's a whole lot better than early trailers made him sound.  Since Bane's mouth is covered with his mask, Tom Hardy can only emote with his eyes for the most part; there were a few moments where his hand gestures played a role in his acting, but he spends the majority of his time staring at whoever he talks to.

Director Christopher Nolan brings all these threads together by the end of the film with stakes higher than anything else done in most action movies.  It's all out war between Batman and the police force versus Bane and his minions, and it's complete mayhem.  What's particularly marvelous is how little CGI is apparently used for most of the action sequences, aside from Batman's flying contraption dodging missiles (if there is more CGI used during some of these action sequences, it's exceptionally good since it isn't easily discerned from the rest of what's going on screen).

This is the rare third part of a trilogy that satisfies expectations while still offering something new to enjoy.  I didn't see the film in IMAX, but I definitely intend on seeing it in the IMAX format.  It's not quite as awesome as The Dark Knight, but it's still a stellar film.