The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

And now we have come full circle. Christopher Nolan has released his third and final Batman film, Christian Bale has worn the cape for the last time, Anne Hathaway won't be wearing leather any time soon...or will she...hope so.

Anyway the most highly anticipated film this summer, if not the year (Though 'The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey' is a high candidate for that), where mercenary Bane (Thomas Hardy) takes on Batman/Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale), beating him down and taking over Gotham. I didn't really give anything away there, the trailers show us what Bane does.


Story wise, it is fantastic, yet bum numbing. At two hours forty five odd minutes, it's almost as long as Peter Jackson's 'The Lord of the Rings' films. And it is justifiable. You have the villain's compulsory opening scene, his origin, what happened to Wayne since the last film, his recovery, Batman's return, the first fight against Bane, Batman's second recovery, Bane taking over Gotham, Batman returning, and the climatic battle. You can't squeeze all that in the normal hour and a half, or the run time that the previous films had.

The acting is of course brilliant. Christian Bale delivers a great performance as a man who has lost the love of his love...um...whatsherface, then as a person who has to recover from that and being given the worst beating of his life, while Anne Hathaway delivers a great performance as Catwoman. Thomas Hardy delivered a great menacing performance as Bane, even if the voice did make it hard to understand what he was saying half the time. Supporting acts from Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Morgan Freeman and cameos from Liam Neeson and Cillian Murphy were great, however Michael Caine didn't have much screen time after being written out for most of the film, which was quite shocking. Marion Cotillard delivers a slightly better than bland performance as Miranda Tate.

The effects are stunning as well, the aerial scenes involving the Bat (A.K.A. the Batplane) and Bane's tumblers are truly the speaking point of this, as well as Catwoman on the Batpod. Um, to be honest I think that's everything. Terrific characters, great story, brilliant acting, fantastic effects, yeah, go see this film.

Well, okay, it's not everything I want to say. It's everything I can say without giving away spoilers. I now want to go over the stuff containing spoilers, so if you haven't seen it yet, leave this post now. If you want to read my more in depth view, please continue.

In all honesty, there was something missing from this film. If you look at 'Batman Begins', it was a good film, but not great. It set up the origin story to great effect, but it wasn't really a brilliant film. 'The Dark Knight' was, in my new trademark phrase, in-fu*king mense. It had everything really, brilliant villain/performance from Heath Ledger, terrific story, great action, it was a truly spectacular film. So, when you line the films up, 'Batman Begins' is...7/10, 'The Dark Knight' is 10/10, 'The Dark Knight Rises'...is 9/10.

Don't start sending me death threats like people did with the critics who gave negative reviews, I still think the film was brilliant, it's just, 'The Dark Knight Rises' lacked something which 'The Dark Knight' had. Let's just put this out there, I think it was mainly the villain. Yes, Bane was a fantastic villain, like I hoped the Christopher Nolan film has made the villain menacing again after the debacle in 'Batman and Robin', but Bane was less memorable than Heath Ledger's Joker. Heath Ledger's Joker, let's be honest, made 'The Dark Knight', he made catchphrases out of lines which shouldn't be catchphrases, like "Why so serious?", "Poor choice of words", and "And here we go,", whilst also having some of the most memorable scenes, such as Joker chasing the police convoy carrying Harvey Dent, the magic trick, and Joker gate crashing Wayne's fundraiser for Harvey Dent.

Bane's most memorable line in 'The Dark Knight Rises' (TDKR) was "Your punishment must be more severe", and that's mainly because it featured in pretty much every single trailer. Bane was a fantastic villain, but he was less memorable  And then there's Miranda Tate. Like I said this bit contains spoilers. Going into the film, Marion Cotillard was facing claims that she was in fact playing Talia al Ghul. Cotillard denied the claims, and this turned out to be 'TDKR's worst kept secret. Cotillard was in fact playing a dual role, she was Talia al Ghul, using 'Miranda Tate' as an alias.

While I went into the film ignoring these claims and seeing what the film throws at me, it did become painfully obvious that 'Miranda' was working with Bane when Batman defeated him and asked him where the detonator for the nuclear bomb was. Actually it was becoming more and more obvious that she was Talia since the film kept referencing Ra's al Ghul and the Legion of Shadows. Looking at it, Cotillard couldn't confirm she was Talia, otherwise we'd be watching the film all the while going "when's she going to betray them?", the producers behind the film were in a lose-lose situation; though they went with the better option.

The other thing, yes, this film was focusing on Bane and Talia, so there shouldn't have been that many references of the Joker. Then again Cillian Murphy reprised his role as Jonathan Crane/Scarecrow and the film kept mentioning Harvey Dent/Two-Face. Yes Bane released the inmates of Blackgate Prison, but I was kind of hoping that he'd do the same with Arkham Asylum (Though I do admit that that would most likely interfere with his control of the city). But, I did kind of hope for some reference to the Joker being out and about in Gotham, like, a burning smiley face, or some graffiti. It would have most likely been a two second clip, but to be honest, it probably would have made the film. Yes, they couldn't show the Joker because of Heath Ledger's passing, but like I said, something that referenced him, maybe even an actor hidden in shadow, that would have actually been brilliant for me. It's a personal thing really.

Apart from that, 'TDKR' did seem to be a copy of 'The Dark Knight'. Like I said 'Batman Begins' set up the origin story, and 'The Dark Knight' created a great anarchy feel to it. 'TDKR'...creates a great anarchy feel to it. Then again, Bane did only bury them underground, effectively only taking them out of the equation until later, whereas Joker didn't really care, he just found it more fun with the police trying to stop him. Joker's method kind of made the public feel more fear, because he was saying that the police couldn't help, no matter how hard they try, while Bane's method sort of gave less of an impact since the public knew straight away the police couldn't help them, except for a small resistance group.


Then there's Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character, John Blake, where, like the Miranda Tate character, you just had one question in your head, "Why are you here?". Like Miranda Tate, he had a payoff; Miranda was Talia, and John Blake inherited the Batcave, whilst also...somehow knowing Wayne was Batman. The thing was, the John Blake character was surprisingly great, making you forget that he was a new character. And then they added a scene where John's full legal name was 'Robin John Blake', of course referencing the Robin character. But, it felt like they were building up to something, and then the second they revealed his real name they hit a brick wall, and then they turned a ninety degree angle to continue onto him inheriting the Batcave. It actually would've been fine if they kept out the bit revealing the legal name, but it just felt out of place.


Now, there's all this talk about them rebooting the Batman franchise so that they can incorporate it into a possible 'Justice League' film (Following the success of Marvel's 'The Avengers'), but with Blake inheriting the Batcave, I really don't see why they should. They should just continue the story with Blake, rather than reboot one of the most successful film series ever.

Again, don't be put off by my views here, the film is still fantastic, it's just missing the sparkle that 'The Dark Knight' had. Maybe my expectations were too high, seeing as how, well, it's 'The Dark Knight Rises', seeing as how it's the final film in Nolan's trilogy. But again this film is brilliant, it's not my favourite, but I not going to say "don't go see it", no, definitely go see it, it's still one of the best films this year, just don't expect it to be the best film of the year.