I will say it's a brilliant movie, that really ties together Nolan's Batfilms into a true trilogy, as opposed to just a series of three. The acting is superb, with Anne Hathaway being a true standout along with Tom Hardy. It's flaws, and it does have them, have little to do with verisimilitude (he's the goddamn Batman!) and everything to do with it being a film that, especially in its ending, wants to have its cake and eat it too, which while emotionally satisfying does ring false on a few levels. Still, it's the second best live action Batman. See it in Imax, support film formats. It's 98% great, but I had a few niggling problems with it and it's not as good as DARK KNIGHT. I don't agree the entire movie was so awesome that it can't be questioned. I think, on the whole, I would enjoy the entire thing more if two small changes were made. Which is not to say I didn't like it, because I did, but I found it two nitpicks away from perfect, so those nitpicks really niggle in my brain.
I think I like the second film more because it does feel more like a whole piece. BB is a standalone film with a weak third act, TDK is a standalone film that is consistent in quality throughout, TDKR definitively relies on the previous two films for its plot and power and sometimes its seams shows, but on the other hand its acceptance of serial storytelling and its effort to work in all the various things that make it end up disjointed make it an epic and ambitious film that deserves respect. I actually thought it had far more of a "fun factor" than The Dark Knight. It felt more blockbuster comicbooky to me, less horrific and existentially horrifying. I remember feeling like I was in shock after TDK ended. After TDKR ended my reaction was "huh. So that was cool."
It legitimately impressed me how much of the comicbook's storyline was in TDKR. Almost every Batman film before was basically assembling a new scenario with a mix and match of characters, but TDKR was plotlines, scenes, even dialogue from the original source, only remixed just enough to be original, unique, and surprising. That's good adaptation. It was funny how they took a lot from the comics (Dark Knight Returns, Knightfall and No Man's Land in particular) but mixed and matched all the details so that things could still be surprising somewhat. One of my favourite elements of TDKR is that it retains the original comics notion that Bane and Batman are mirrors of each other. A man born in a mansion and a man born in a prison, but both trained themselves to near physical perfection, both became more than men but became ideas, but representing opposite values. The same methods, differing goals. Bane is the anti-Batman. Or, to place it in literary terms, Carton and Darnay. Apologies to ScarJo, but Anne Hathaway's Catwoman is the sexiest thing I've seen in a movie in a long time. Sexier than Pfieffer even, and people who know me well know that's saying a lot. And, note to DC Comics management, Hathaway did it without having her suit zipper pulled down to her navel impossibly and constantly for no reason.
Or zipped down at all, for that matter.
I couldn't buy the ending. I loved the entire movie pretty much right up until that point, in fact. It felt too cute and too perfectly wrapped up for me. Maybe it's just weird seeing an ending for Batman in general, but I feel like with a few tweaks I would've been more satisfied with the one Nolan wanted. Sorta like Mass Effect 3 for me, in fact. Overall awesome, problematic but not completely bad ending. The only logic issue I have regards a character who isn't the goddamn Batman, so I feel it still stands.
***SPOILERS***
Yeah I thought the ending was too cute and wrapped things up too neatly, I don't think Bruce would ever wholly quit Batmanning, and I think "Robin" is gonna get killed in his first week out as Batman. Bruce Wayne had years of ninja training and tons of tech he paid for and designed himself. Sure "Robin" John Blake has that tech now, but he's basically just a beat cop in over his head. He's gonna get himself killed. I kinda wish that instead of the movie ending with Bruce and Selina happy in Florence because hooray for marriage, that instead Hermit Wayne had met Blake in the cave and began instructing him Batman Beyond style That's my issue. I just don't believe that ending. A DKR style ending where Bruce is directing things from the shadows of the cave would've made more sense to me. Even if he was still in Florence banging Selina Kyle but had left like video messages for Blake. Like, the cave turns on and Bruce's voice says "theatricality and deception can be yadda yadda yadaa."
As it was, the ending is a lot like having your cake and eating it too, essentially.
My other issue was the Ra's cameo. I wish that instead of Liam Neeson fading out, that they had just cut straight from the vision to Bruce waking up, so it could be left to interpretation whether Ra's was still alive or not. As it is, it looked really cheap, like suddenly he was a ghost in a 1920s movie. Like the problem with the way it was done was it means NO, Ra's ISN'T alive, but on the other hand it implies YES, he IS a Ghost who can communicate with Bruce from beyond the grave
Like seriously, most of the stuff Nolan changed from the comics was JUST so he could do Nolan-style twists with an audience that already knows the comics -- giving Talia Bane's backstory, making Robin's name John Blake, it was only so it would be a twist at the end. It's basically misdirection, he knows we know the comic book version of the story so he uses it to draw our attention away. I even believed the Bane is Ra's son thing because in the Legacy storyline Ra's declared Wayne unworthy to be his heir and named Bane instead so there was precedent.
****
For all those Republican pundits who claim DARK KNIGHT RISES is pro-Democrat socialist propaganda, did you take enough time to notice that the guy spouting the socialist, eat the rich rhetoric is the VILLAIN OF THE PIECE?
The Heroes of DARK KNIGHT RISES: A billionaire vigilante, two cops, a scientist, and a selfish thief.
The Villains of DARK KNIGHT RISES: A socialist thug and a do-gooder environmentalist.
I find it difficult to believe its politics are left-wing.
While I agree Nolan's left plot threads dangling, I would say that any movies continuing on in Nolan's universe without Nolan himself would be roughly pointless. That's his Batman and his Gotham, just as the five foot five misanthrope who burns people alive and lives in a city consisting of a couple of streets and a matte paiting is Burton's, and the doe-eyed closeted homosexual with a rubber fetish living in a neon nightmare is Schumacher's.
1. BATMAN: MASK OF THE PHANTASM (1993, animated)
2. THE DARK KNIGHT (2008)
3. THE DARK KNIGHT RISES (2012)
4. BATMAN: UNDER THE RED HOOD (2010, animated)
5. BATMAN: YEAR ONE (2011, animated)
6. BATMAN BEGINS (2005)
7. BATMAN BEYOND: RETURN OF THE JOKER (2000, animated)
8. BATMAN (1989)
9. BATMAN (1966)
10. BATMAN RETURNS (1992)
11. BATMAN/MR. FREEZE: SUB-ZERO (1998, animated)
12. BATMAN: MYSTERY OF THE BATWOMAN (2003, animated)
13. BATMAN FOREVER (1995)
14. BATMAN VS. DRACULA (2005, animated)
15. BATMAN & ROBIN (2007)
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