Trouble is just around the corner of
course. There's Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway) who has
broken into Wayne Manor to steal something of value from
Bruce, this something which may be used to bring ruin down
upon Wayne Enterprises. Albert (Michael Caine) is
concerned about Bruce's well being since he has no life
without Batman, and then there's Bane (Tom Hardy), a brutal,
mean, evil, muscle bound brute of a man, so crazy than even
Raj al Ghul had to cut him loose. Plus he has a cause
and there's nothing worse than a psycho, with a budget, and
with a cause.
One more little thing, Bruce has been working with the lovely
billionaire Ms. Miranda (Marion Cotillard) to develop this
cold fusion thingie that would provide endless clean energy,
and while it works, Bruce has kept it on wraps for fear that
it could be used as a weapon. Which means it will be
used a weapon. This much we know.
Bruce needs to take Bane down, despite the fact Albert warned
him he couldn't beat this guy, kind of like Mickey warned
Rocky about Clubber, but did he listen? No he didn't and
now Gotham's in a bad way. The usual suspects such as
Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) and Lucius Fox (Morgan
Freeman), along with new comer Detective Blake (Joseph Gordon
Levitt) are trying to hold it down while Bruce is out of
commission, trying to find the Eye of the Tiger so to speak,
but it's looking bleak for Gotham City. Unless The
Batman can make it back in time, with the clock ticking down
to triple zero. Seeing how the citizens of Gotham react
to a little adversity, maybe Raj al Ghul's vision of Gotham
was the right one. I'm just saying.
'The Dark Knight', which admittedly was a superior film to
this one, was unique in that it was debatably more of The
Joker's movie than a 'Batman' movie, and this dichotomy is
even more pronounced in 'The Dark Knight Rises' as Batman and
Bruce Wayne have even less screen time in this go around, the
movie focusing more on Bane's attempt to bring class equality
to Gotham through mass murder, and the rise of Detective
Blake. This isn't a bad approach by the filmmakers
considering by this point we are all familiar with the downer
of depression known as Batman so shifting the focus, somewhat,
to other characters works well. The only issue with this
is that Bane just isn't The Joker, more of a testament to
Heath Ledger's performance as The Joker than a dig at Tom
Hardy as Bane, because Bane was plenty oppressive.
At close to three hours long, which I did start to feel after
a while, there are lots of characters to sift through in this
movie, lots of plot, arguably too much plot, lots of political
and societal issues are unearthed, and of course to be true to
his name, lots of darkness to delve into. This is
probably the darkest Batman yet so there's not a lot of humor
in this one, with what little humor there may have been either
comes on the heels of some overwrought tragedy or is dryly
provided by a surprisingly effective Anne Hathaway as
Catwoman. But with all these characters and
over-plotting the movie often struggles to find it rhythm
early on, but this is only temporary as the tension
consistently rises and Christopher Nolan's mastery of his
craft starts to kick the festivities into high hear all the
way until its rousing conclusion.
Admittedly I'm not completely sure what Bane and his mystery
accomplice were ultimately trying to prove considering this
plan of theirs took five months, when it looked like it
could've taken five minutes or less. I mean I know they
wanted Bruce Wayne to suffer and all, but all they really did
was give him excess time to acquire the Eye of the Tiger so he
could knock Clubber out in the rematch. And this rematch
was a little anti-climactic considering Batman didn't do too
much differently from the first time he got his ass kicked by
Bane.
'The Dark Knight Rises' was a darn good movie and we are sorry
to see it end, though we know a billion in box office receipts
means the end of nothing really. We just have to see
where The Batman will show up next.
