A good friend of mine who also writes for
this site, whose name I won't call out since I'm still paying
dearly for doing that in another review a while ago, was
watching the movie Argo which pre-ran the trailer for this
movie 'Batman: The Dark Knight Rises - Part II'. She let
me know she saw that trailer and couldn't believe how fired up
she was to watch… a 'cartoon'. Oh gosh. Don't
worry, we took care of it. Scooby Doo is a
cartoon. Animanics is a cartoon. The Road Runner
and Bugs Bunny, while plenty subversive, are cartoons but
this…this is Animated Cinema. At its very best.
The last time we saw Batman (Voiced by Peter Weller) in part
one, which I think was yesterday for us, he had come off a ten
year retirement, put down Two-Face, throttled the beyond
brutal Mutant leader, sent Commissioner Gordon off to
retirement and found himself a new Robin (Ariel Winter).
It all seemed to end well enough for Batman and them, or at
least as well as anything can end for that miserable ass son
of a bitch, but that movie ended with a smiling psycho at
Arkham Asylum remembering who was, so we know that trouble and
chaos are just moments away.
Meanwhile, Batman is steadily cleaning up Gotham and making
enemies in high places. White House high. Somebody
somewhere… I don't know, Frank Miller maybe… had a problem
with 1980's governmental policy, when this story was
originally penned. At this time, superheroes have been
shutdown, involuntarily so it would seem, and Batman putting
on the cape again is causing concern for a certain crusty
President who at one time used to be a Hollywood actor.
Thus this President is telling his boy Superman (Mark Valley)
that he might be making trip to Gotham to shut that loon down
if he keeps this nonsense up. Clark does talk to Bruce,
a talk that went over about as well as a fart in church, but
Bruce has been warned. Meanwhile, Superman has a mission
to go shove some U.S. foreign policy down some Bolshevik
throats. The Cold War just got hot.
Bruce has bigger issues though. The
Joker (Michael Emerson) has conned his way out of Arkham for a
moment, and that moment was all he needed. It appears
the only thing that stay at the asylum did for The Joker was
make him crazier and more violent. Seriously, this cat
is insane and he needs to be dealt with in the harshest way
possible.
And this President we've mentioned has had just about enough
of Batman causing a ruckus. Not because he's doing
anything particularly wrong, but because the United States is
on the brink of chaos and the only city under any kind of law
is Gotham, thanks to Batman, and that's making him look
bad. This president, at least in this fictional reality,
is kind of a dick. It's time for Batman and Superman to
have a meeting of the minds. Surely there's no way a
regular dude with a utility belt could do anything except
kneel down to the Son of Krypton in a man to man battle, but
Superman seemed to forget that Bruce is almost as crazy as the
Joker. And way smarter. An epic battle shall
ensue.
So for my money, for pure entertainment value and animated
mayhem and violence, you can't get much better than this
installment of the 'Batman: The Dark Knight Rises - Part
II'. We do have to recognize, however, that Part II was
far more off the wall and insane that Part I. With both
episodes directed by Jay Oliva, Part I seemed to at least try
to adhere to some semblance of reality, at least as real as a
lunatic in a batsuit with a thirteen year old sidekick, both
kicking much ass, can be. This time however, all bets
were off. One might even call it over the top, with the
sky high murder rate, the blood, the gore, the swastika
covered titties, or the very concept of letting the craziest
person in the history everything out of an insane asylum
without nary an armed guard nearby. Then we have to deal
with the concept of Batman and Superman getting into a
fistfight and conceive that this fight could be remotely fair,
but that's not so difficult to deal with since most of us
following the Dark Knight's exploits knows he tends to think
three to four steps ahead.
Over the top or not, 'Batman: The Dark Knight Rises - Part II'
is dark, violent, brutal, unapologetically hardcore and
completely excellent. The narrative is rich, textured
and layered. It deals with issues of politics, personal
philosophy, loyalty, duty, and revenge and handles these
issues deftly and in a way that's true to itself. You
may or not agree with these politics, but I did love the way
they were presented.
Technically, the voice acting, as we've come to expect, is
fantastic across the board. Peter Weller bringing a
gruff, weary, dogged determination to the voice of Batman and
Michael Emerson takes his own special turn with the voice of
The Joker who is cooly 'matter of factly' insane rather than
simply hysterically cackling insane. The animation
is crisp and clean, and the action and story elements are well
balanced.
When DC started with their animated features back with
'Superman Doomsday' a few years ago, we always tempered any
criticism with the comment that 'At the end of the day, these
are cartoons still largely for kids'. That is not the
case anymore. This is mature, adult cinema that just
happens to be animated, and we applaud Warner / DC for their
accomplishment.
