THE DARK KNIGHT RISES AND THE TRILOGY BELT

For many The Dark Knight Rises the most eagerly awaited film of the year. Its predecessor was one of the most well liked action films of the last decade and everyone want’s to know if Christopher Nolan has done the impossible and topped The Dark Knight. In part one of this series, I theorized that a trilogy that measurably topped itself with each entry would win a sort of trilogy belt. We’ll get to that, but first lets talk about the film itself.

It’s been 8 years since the catastrophic events of The Dark Knight. Hero district attorney Harvey Dent is dead, and Batman has taken the fall for his crimes. A law passed in the wake of all this has rendered Gotham essentially crime free, but for our heroes, things are not so good. Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) is racked with guilt that he’s had to protect the legacy of a man who tried to kill his family. Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) is even worse. He’s got a bum leg and wanders around his once great mansion in a Howard Huges like solitude. Bruce is going to need all the help he can get because a new enemy named Bane (Tom Hardy) has moved into Gotham’s sewers with a secret army of mercenaries and one of the most diabolical evil plans to come along in a long time.

The film starts off a bit slower than its predecessors, taking a wider view of Gotham city. The slow burn nature of the plot feels necessary after the anarchic chaos and implication heavy ending of the last film and while not all of the plot’s multitude of moving parts work (the McGuffin is introduced very messily), the slower buildup gives us a better idea what Gotham, this city Bruce cares so much about, is like. We meet a young beat cop John Blake (Joesph Gordon Levett) who does a lot of the legwork putting the mystery together. We also meet Selina Kyle, A.K.A. Catwoman (Ann Hathaway), a mysterious cat burglar who knows more about what’s going on than she lets on.

Ultimately things get really dark. Without giving too much away, Gotham eventually becomes a dystopia of sorts. There is massive social upheaval and class warfare, but it’s not Occupy being invoked so much as the Reign of Terror, complete with kangaroo courts. The films have always had some sort of political subtext but it’s a shift in away from the Bush era Ends vs. Means undertones of the last few films. The second half of the film still plays out like the worst nightmare of the War on Terror generation. As such the film looses some moral ambiguity but surprisingly, it isn’t missed too much.

The actors all do a nice job. All the major supporting characters return and do a fine job even though some of them have less screen time. People who are bothered by Christian Bale's bat-voice will still find no relief. The new players acquit themselves well. Ann Hathaway is the best new addition and plays Catwoman as something of a female Han Solo. Tom Hardy was the perfect choice to play Bane. Hardy is an actor with excellent control over his physicality which is useful here as he needs to imbue a character who’s face is completely covered with a cold intellect.

Ultimately this is a better film than then it’s predecessors. It succeeds where Dark Knight stalls. There are no clunky action scenes and it seems that Nolan has, at long last, truly arrived as an action filmmaker. The film is full of beautifully done, lip biting sequences. The mid-air extraction that opens the film may be the greatest Bond style prologue ever captured on film. The siege of Gotham sequences at the end of the film make for some incredible, silent movie epic level spectacle that makes Avengers look like a mid-budget indie film.

Beyond showing us that Nolan has finally, unquestionably nailed his action scenes, Nolan has also grown as a dramatic filmmaker. The first half of the film has some legitimate issues, but Nolan builds to one of the best constructed third acts he’s has ever done. More importantly the film has an earned emotional resonance that hasn’t been present in his work since Memento and perhaps The Prestige. The tragic elements in this film work on an emotional level where as the same elements of the last film felt a little too “thesis statement” for my taste.

As for whether or not Rises is better than Dark Knight and earns the so-called trilogy belt I theorized about in part one of this series, the answer is a firm, absolute “debatable.” Rises is a better film than Dark Knight, but ultimately I’m not sure I like it more. The antagonism between Batman and Bane isn’t as intense as it was between Batman and Joker. That said, I don’t think it was meant to be. Joker’s plan was to expose Batman and his allies as frauds. For Bane, Batman is a minor concern. Someone to be gotten out of the way and that has a massive impact on the dynamic of the film. It’s not that the later approach is worse, but it’s different and it reveals that the city of Gotham is the real main character in the film. Then there is the ending. Without spoiling it, the finale takes a few unexpected directions. They are not bad directions and they are set up very well, but your satisfaction levels may vary.

The more I sit with this film, the more I like it, but I don’t like it enough to award it a Trilogy Belt, but that’s okay. The trilogy goes out with a bang and brings the series to a memorable and satisfactory conclusion. The Dark Knight Rises isn’t the film we wanted, but it’s the film we deserve. 

 Grade: A- 

Note: About 70 minutes of the film was photographed in IMAX and undisclosed percentage of the remainder was shot on traditional 70 mm film and the results are breathless. Seeing the film in the format, to the extent that Nolan uses it is a great treat that should be enjoyed by anyone who can. In an age where the industry is shifting towards lower resolution digital photography, it's reassuring to see Nolan moving the other way towards sharper, brighter, bigger images.

Be sure to check out our page on Facebook and to read parts one and two of this serries:

Entries in this series:

Intro /Batman Begins

The Dark Knight

The Dark Knight Rises