Ok, guys. Let's talk Batman.
I saw the film on Saturday, almost a week after it was released in theaters, and despite my best efforts I couldn't quite shield myself from all the reactions pouring in. With one major exception, I did go in spoiler free, but I wasn't free from the baggage of those detestable fanboys who took it upon themselves to actually threaten the movie critics, and I certainly wasn't free from the pall of Aurora, CO. My heart breaks for those families.
Because of the hurricane of emotion surrounding The Dark Knight Rises, I don't think it's possible to watch it free from expectations or preconceptions. However, I believe that The Dark Knight is as close to cinematic perfection as I've ever witnessed, so I was both prepared to like TDKR and comfortable with the idea that it would not, could not reach the same heights as Christopher Nolan's second Batman movement.
I had...feelings about it. Not all of them are good. As I put it on twitter right after the show, the film had some excellent parts - but the sum wasn't equal to them, and multiplying excellence by zero (zero being, in this case, a tremendously wooden and boring Marion Cotillard, who I am normally quite fond of) still leaves you with zero. She is perhaps the perfect illustration of my biggest issue with the film: it reeks of missed opportunities. Without spoiling you deeply, there could have been a fascinating story here about revenge, power, tragedy, hubris, and identity - but due to poor writing and two poorly developed (and deeply important) characters, the film never quite gets there.
Rarely does it feel like Nolan puts plot points in his films just to have them exist - yet he does that here, not just once but several times. Including a brief, and ultimately pointless, romance for Bruce Wayne that seems occur only for some comic book accuracy...accuracy which comes across as, again, pointless, when you consider the gulf between the Bane of Nightfall and the Bane we see here. Why, when given an actor of Tom Hardy's caliber, do you waste him on a mushy-mouthed musclehead with no unique features? I'm told the Bane of the comics was not only Batman's physical equal, but his mental equal as well. That would have been nice to see.
Nolan is tackling some big issues (and a lot of them) here, but I wish he'd stuck more solidly to the identity questions that have run through his films since Batman Begins. His Batman trilogy feels daring because it questions the very nature of heroism: does Gotham City need Batman? Superficially, the answer is yes; but consider how much of Gotham's problems originate because Batman exists. His very purpose is held up for judgment: does Gotham need Batman? This is the issue I wanted Nolan to explore even further, the philosophical question that has driven the whole trilogy. Instead, a large part of the film is given over to class warfare and economic questions of ethics; important topics, yes, but I'm not sure Nolan is saying anything new here.
The more interesting feature of The Dark Knight Rises is that it is a Batman film with very little Batman. I have heard this aspect of it criticized, but I think it says a lot about the world Nolan has crafted, that it is complete in and of itself, and not wholly dependent on the cowl. Gary Oldman and Joseph Gordon-Levitt command a large portion of the second half of the film, in a compelling siege under Bane-as-warlord. It's a good thing our Commissioner and his prodigee turn in such strong performances, because (regardless of how you feel about Bane as a character or villain) he's weak sauce; not just compared to the chaotic force of nature that was Ledger's Joker, but even to the sardonic, almost whimsically mad Cillian Murphy, reprising his role (once again) as the good Doctor Jonathan Crane.
I'd also like to interject a word here about Anne Hathaway's Selina Kyle, who is slinky, 1920s femme fatale perfection. Her voice drips with sleek disdain, and even though she runs around the ruined city in stiletto boots she never feels less than perfectly capable. There are a few shining moments of flawlessness that could not have been so great with someone else in the leather catsuit.
There are fleeting moments of perfection. The opening sequence, which begins without context, is heart-stopping and daring; the collapsing stadium, which we all saw in the trailer, is tremendously tragic in its level of sheer destruction. It is being said in reviews that any comic book/super hero movie would kill to be the weakest Nolan Batman film; I'm not sure I agree, but I can say for certain that even though Nolan crashes some leaps, there are places this movie soars.
I saw the film on Saturday, almost a week after it was released in theaters, and despite my best efforts I couldn't quite shield myself from all the reactions pouring in. With one major exception, I did go in spoiler free, but I wasn't free from the baggage of those detestable fanboys who took it upon themselves to actually threaten the movie critics, and I certainly wasn't free from the pall of Aurora, CO. My heart breaks for those families.
Because of the hurricane of emotion surrounding The Dark Knight Rises, I don't think it's possible to watch it free from expectations or preconceptions. However, I believe that The Dark Knight is as close to cinematic perfection as I've ever witnessed, so I was both prepared to like TDKR and comfortable with the idea that it would not, could not reach the same heights as Christopher Nolan's second Batman movement.
I had...feelings about it. Not all of them are good. As I put it on twitter right after the show, the film had some excellent parts - but the sum wasn't equal to them, and multiplying excellence by zero (zero being, in this case, a tremendously wooden and boring Marion Cotillard, who I am normally quite fond of) still leaves you with zero. She is perhaps the perfect illustration of my biggest issue with the film: it reeks of missed opportunities. Without spoiling you deeply, there could have been a fascinating story here about revenge, power, tragedy, hubris, and identity - but due to poor writing and two poorly developed (and deeply important) characters, the film never quite gets there.
Rarely does it feel like Nolan puts plot points in his films just to have them exist - yet he does that here, not just once but several times. Including a brief, and ultimately pointless, romance for Bruce Wayne that seems occur only for some comic book accuracy...accuracy which comes across as, again, pointless, when you consider the gulf between the Bane of Nightfall and the Bane we see here. Why, when given an actor of Tom Hardy's caliber, do you waste him on a mushy-mouthed musclehead with no unique features? I'm told the Bane of the comics was not only Batman's physical equal, but his mental equal as well. That would have been nice to see.
Nolan is tackling some big issues (and a lot of them) here, but I wish he'd stuck more solidly to the identity questions that have run through his films since Batman Begins. His Batman trilogy feels daring because it questions the very nature of heroism: does Gotham City need Batman? Superficially, the answer is yes; but consider how much of Gotham's problems originate because Batman exists. His very purpose is held up for judgment: does Gotham need Batman? This is the issue I wanted Nolan to explore even further, the philosophical question that has driven the whole trilogy. Instead, a large part of the film is given over to class warfare and economic questions of ethics; important topics, yes, but I'm not sure Nolan is saying anything new here.
The more interesting feature of The Dark Knight Rises is that it is a Batman film with very little Batman. I have heard this aspect of it criticized, but I think it says a lot about the world Nolan has crafted, that it is complete in and of itself, and not wholly dependent on the cowl. Gary Oldman and Joseph Gordon-Levitt command a large portion of the second half of the film, in a compelling siege under Bane-as-warlord. It's a good thing our Commissioner and his prodigee turn in such strong performances, because (regardless of how you feel about Bane as a character or villain) he's weak sauce; not just compared to the chaotic force of nature that was Ledger's Joker, but even to the sardonic, almost whimsically mad Cillian Murphy, reprising his role (once again) as the good Doctor Jonathan Crane.
I'd also like to interject a word here about Anne Hathaway's Selina Kyle, who is slinky, 1920s femme fatale perfection. Her voice drips with sleek disdain, and even though she runs around the ruined city in stiletto boots she never feels less than perfectly capable. There are a few shining moments of flawlessness that could not have been so great with someone else in the leather catsuit.
There are fleeting moments of perfection. The opening sequence, which begins without context, is heart-stopping and daring; the collapsing stadium, which we all saw in the trailer, is tremendously tragic in its level of sheer destruction. It is being said in reviews that any comic book/super hero movie would kill to be the weakest Nolan Batman film; I'm not sure I agree, but I can say for certain that even though Nolan crashes some leaps, there are places this movie soars.
