Ok so The Dark Knight Rises. Let me start by saying it was a good movie. Not great, not bad. In terms of sheer scope, it is bigger than Begins and TDK but in terms of narrative and character development it is no where near Begins or TDK. Starting with the good things: The performances by everyone in this movie are amazing. Tom Hardy does something very different as not to be compared to Joker like a Sean Connery-Darth Vader (and he sounds even more interesting than that description). Hathaway does a great Selina Kyle. Marion Cotilliard and JGL are good, but my gripes with their characters will be written later. Everyone else that has been part of the franchise (Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman and of course Christian Bale) deliver what we've come to expect. The action is brutal and intense and the ambition of the story is awesome, but it also doesn't totally deliver because of how much is going on. And its not even the fact that you have to be "smart" or analyze the movie like what so many people said about TDKs ending, its that there is just literally too much going on. Too many characters with stories and some characters fall flat because of it.
Now that I said what I liked about it, from this point on is SPOILERS and basically ripping the movie a new one.
Although the performances of each character were top notch, honestly, I didn't really care for or like anyones personal story besides Gordon. The man keeping a secret for 8 years to keep society safe and its eating away at him and later it comes back to bite him. He plays the Commissioner well and his farewell to Batman at the end gives you all kinds of emotions. Everyone else...their stories, development and relations to other characters were just not up to par with this franchise. Selina Kyle struggles the most. Her character is awesome and is portrayed brilliantly by Hathaway but after the beginning she struggles so hard to stay relevant in the movie that it almost feels like an insult to bring her back. She betrays Batman which leads to him getting crippled for months, yet he goes back to her for help at the end? Or did he forget the reason he basically was in the prison for months? (Don't get me started on the prison, which I will address later). Alfred had a very sentimental touching arc, and I understand in the gravity of everything else going on he shouldn't be in the story, but this is a father figure to Bruce and a main character in these movies that is gone for nearly 1 1/2 hours of the movie then pops up back in the end (still what happens is emotional but I wanted to see how his decision to leave affected him as well, maybe). Then there is Miranda Tate or Talia. Whatever. I didn't like it. It might have been the fact that literally EVERYONE knew this was coming but her inclusion to the story ruined it for me at the end. They were building Bane as such a badass character, a perfect match for Batman and then they reduce him to a henchmen of Talia. You can't just do that. People were nervous enough about Bane as it is with Tom Hardy being shorter than Bale, with the vast changes to the mask (which turned out ok although they don't explain how he eats) and the voice, and then they diminished whatever credibility they accomplished of making him an actual fearsome character to reducing him to a henchmen, making way for a character that isn't even interesting to be the "actual" villain. It felt like such an unnecessary cop out. I would have preferred if Bane actually was Rahs' son as long as he turned out to be the villain at the end. It was HIM I wanted to see fighting Batman till the end with the bomb, not this woman. Also, the inclusion of Talia as a love interest takes away from the beautiful development that could have been there of the relationship between Batman & Catwoman. Here is a woman that could handle herself. Like Batman, she has an alter ego. She knows what its like to prowl the rooftops at night and prefers being that to the boring other, Selina. She represents the extreme grey area Batman walks along and if they got rid of Talia as a love interest the BETTER love story that could have been told could have flourished.
And next comes hothead rookie cop John Blake. This is just a minor pet peeve but how many times could they fit the word "hothead" into the script like seriously? He had a likable character sure and I guess since every cop died in TDK they needed a new one. How he found out Bruce was Batman was too convenient. I get what they were trying to do. Blake understands orphans/masks/yada yada and those themes are supposed to lead to him carrying on the legacy "anybody can be as symbol" but it is just all too convenient for me. And another thing, his name being Robin. umm ok. I accept it as he is not legitimately any actual Robin that came before, but a mixture of the IDEA of all Robins, (orphan/detective/a young man who needs guidance). But even this idea is flawed. What, he's supposed to take up the mantle of Batman, or make his own symbol? With what training? Or help? Batman doesn't save people and fight crooks with a heart of golden and shiny smile. Was he finding the Batcave supposed to be just a little present to Blakes devotion to Batman? The whole "laws becoming shackles" thing suggests otherwise. What they SHOULD have done was give this whole legacy and teaching somebody the meaning of a symbol and responsibility arc to Catwoman, to make her more of a character. I mean besides she actually IS a character from the comics even if they're claiming Blake is a Robin symbol. With a few story changes, anything Blake did could have been replaced by Gordon doing it, giving his character more to do as well. I loved JGLs performance but in the bigger picture of things...his character wasn't needed.
Lastly, the big two: Bane and Batman. I feel like including the League of Shadows in this movie as much as they did was a big mistake. The first two movies can be watched without knowledge of the other and you can still totally enjoy each. Again, I get what they were doing, including Dent and LoS in the story to make the whole trilogy feel like it comes full circle and complete but its sad that it relies THAT heavily on everything that came before it. I loved Banes use of Dents conspiracy to start the uprising but the fact they do the whole "he was a child of Rahs, they excommunicated him, he now runs the LoS, wait no he's not the child" was just too much. They didn't make Bane his own character they made him molded by everything so far instead of giving him his own interesting story. I would have preferred it if he was just trained by LoS. Thats it. Nothing more. No Talia, no son of Rahs. No leading the LoS. It explains where he got his training and possible size from but I wanted him to have his own story. Like the prison thing was fine, if he was the actual one to make it out instead of Talia. Then he went on to become like an actual leader/general/revolutionary overtaking small areas in Spain or somewhere then he sets his sights on Gotham.
Which then leads me to his motivation. Here is yet again another "destroy Gotham plot". With a doomsday device. With a timer. I mean sure they grounded it in reality with the energy project bull but all that was just a means to an end to have a cliched "We have to destroy the bomb!" ending. Don't get me wrong I was as engrossed in the ending as many others with the Bat escaping rockets and trying to crash the truck racing against the time, but also we've seen this before. Not 100%, but we've seen the idea before. Countless times. The ending to TDK is far superior to TDKR because it was all about the characters and it was something original and powerful. This was exciting and fun but it is soooo forgettable. I loved the raw realness a story surrounding Bane as a dictator taking over Gotham and creating an uprising could have been, also because you haven't really ever seen that story before (done in this way) in movies let alone comic book movies. Bane is a forgettable villain this way. He had potential to (maybe not top the Joker) but still be iconic in a different way. But his story will fade in a matter of months, meanwhile the Joker from TDK is still popular today.
And then there's Batman. What do I talk about? Hmmm. Well first off how about the lack of Batman in a Batman movie. I understand the reasoning behind him not being in like the first 45 minutes. It's to make it powerful when he first comes back, the whole Dark Knight Returns story and all. Also, just a side annoyance, when he first does come back it makes no sense to not have ONE cop car following Bane and everyone on Batman. Anyway he has some cool short scenes, the fight with Bane then he's gone for another like 50 minutes. Then its the ending. I mean in the context of what went on in the movie I understand why Batman was in it as much as he was which makes we wonder why they wrote it the way they did then. Like, Batman is not in it that much. 15-20 minutes tops. Bruce is in it, yea but not Batman. And then plot holes galore. There's no way you heal from a back injury that intense in a matter of months by replacing the bone and doing crunches and pushups. Even when they put the bone back they showed a shot of his back when doing pushups and it wasn't even bruised. At least make it look like he's in pain. The first time he fell back down, the abrupt stop of the rope should have destroyed any progress he made healing his back and broke it again but nope HE'S BATMAN. While we are in this scene can we just talk about it? Who are these people down here? You have a nice doctor helping Bruce but isn't it supposed to be filled with the worlds sickest most villainous prisoners or something? I mean thats what Alfred alluded to. And they have a little cheerleading section for each other to escape? They didn't seem that bad. And when Bruce DOES escape...he gives them the rope to escape. Criminals and prisoners...He's Batman. Why would he do that.
One thing I did love about that scene though was the bats appearing right before he made the jump. Some of my friends thought they were literal bats because they were in a pit but I took it as a whole psychological trip. Bats were the first thing Bruce was afraid of and he overcame that fear and since they reappeared it was a reminder he could overcome this obstacle he has which is to escape. A nice homage to the theme of the first movie. AAAAND back to the plot holes. If Bruce doesn't have a cent to his name, and Gotham is barricaded/guarded from the bridge and thin ice covers the city AND Bruce is all the way in either Africa or the Middle East or wherever the prison is....How in Odin's Beard did he get back into Gotham. Seriously. I mean he IS Batman....but there was literally no way into the city. You often can explain it with money, he ordered a jet or something...but he was broke. He just shows up. Thats cool I guess.
I'm not sure what else to talk about chronologically. The end fight was brutal between him and Bane. I liked how destroying the mask is a reference to cutting the tubes like how Batman defeats him in the comics but that seems to simple. As I recall, in the first fight Batman punched him in the face multiple times and did no damage to the mask. I wish they would have referenced Venom though. In any regard. It didn't have to be a super-serum or anything. A steroid or inhaler thing that reduced pain or something that fed into his mask would have been cool. I even thought they were going to bring it up thematically when Bane was saying "Hope is like a poison" I thought he would have said something "hope used to run in my veins like a Venom and now I will give that to the people of Gotham". BUT NOPE.
Ok so now we're at the ending. I'm not sure how I feel about it. I might have preferred it if he actually died. The theme of this movie was that he would give it his all. "You've given them everything" "Not everything, not yet". That sentence would have been perfect if he actually died. I'm not sure. I like the nod to Alfred's dream and how Bruce gave Alfred what he always wanted by being happy with a girl, away from Gotham. But like I've said before, Batman and Catwomans relationship wasn't developed enough for me to buy Bruce likes her that much let alone loves her to run away with her and start a new life. I feel like when everyone realized Batman was the one who took the fall for Dents murders and Batman fights for Gotham at the end and he sacrifices his life to save Gotham, that would be the proper way for Gothamites to have true hope and for Gotham to be safe forever. Meaning, there is no need for a legacy character (Robin) to come after him. And even though Alfred would be heartbroken he would also understand since the moment his parents died, there was no other way for Bruce to live. He was meant to do this, to save the city his parents tried to, even if it meant his life and its what Bruce wanted. So in a way I would think Alfred would understand. Thats how I would justify Batman dying at the end. If Nolan had balls, he would have done it. But these movies of course have to have a happy ending even if it means not staying true to the character.
Also the first time I saw the movie I was in shock and excited that I overlooked some details and I legit thought everyone found out Bruce was Batman. I mean they had to right? Bruce Wayne and Batman both reappear after years of absence at the same time. If one person that was checking the trust fund in TDK could find out Fox was supplying Batman with Tumblers and weapons then surely the people who helped Fox build the Tumblers would recognize them rolling around Gotham. And notice the Bat. because Fox couldn't have built everything himself and there had to be some news coverage in Gotham. AND SURELY when Batman dies saving Gotham and BRUCE WAYNE appears to be dead people made some connection.......right? I actually thought it was a given but then it sunk into me my second time viewing "Wait...no one seriously has made this connection". And that pisses me off. You want to talk about suspending belief in comic book movies? THAT is pushing it. If Bruce actually did die, everyone should have found out he was Batman. They could have at least done some explanation as to why they both die at the same time. Like maybe a line or two about how they thought Bruce was one of the many victims of the trials Bane and Scarecrow carried out and his body was taken out to sea or something to give it an alibi. But they didn't.
On the positive side of things, it was beautifully shot, the music was wonderful and the performances were great and it ultimately does prove to be a somewhat satisfying ending to The Dark Knight Trilogy but I'm going to say it: It is plagued by the trilogy syndrome in that they tried to do too much. It was ambitious and some of those ambitions worked to make spectacular unforgettable scenes and sequences but at the price of some of the characters and other aspects of the story which are hard to look over.
3/5 stars.