The Dark Knight Rises – Movie Review

By: You know the drill—IMDB it.

The Story: Batman trades in one God-forsaken hellhole for another.

The Review: To use a handy legal term of art, I join with Ramon in his overall opinion about this much-anticipated film, but I’d like to clarify what makes The Dark Knight Rises both satisfying and disappointing at the same time.  Ultimately, the movie successfully closes out director Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy on a high note, but not quite as high as the dizzying peak that was The Dark Knight.  What this film suffers from is mostly a case of bad timing.

Without giving anything away, plot-wise, Rises at its core is a story about how much one man can accomplish if he has the right drive.  There really isn’t much difference between the Batman who starts the film and the one who finishes it; what the initial Batman lacks, and what leads to his downfall, is his strength of spirit.  Kudos to Christian Bale for getting this across through sheer presence, because you can clearly sense Bruce in the first act of the film, despite his drive and ferocity, going through the motions.  If he manages to turn things around by the final act, it’s from understanding the value of his life anew, not from his affinity with death.

The Dark Knight Rises

By: Christopher Nolan (director), Christian Bale, Michael Kane, Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman, Anne Hathaway, Marion Cottilard, Jospeh Gordon-Levitt, Tom Hardy (stars)

The Story: Batman has been out of commission for 8 years, but when some other bloke in a mask tries to take over Gotham, Bruce Wayne puts his back on.

The Review: The Dark Knight was better. Let’s just get that out of the way so that we don’t have to question “which of Nolan’s Batman films was the best.” In fact, in many ways Batman Begins is better too. However, this does not mean, in any way, that Dark Knight Rises was a bad film. It survived the Curse of Three! Now the question is how to review the damn thing without giving anything away. The first problem is quite simply that there was no way it could live up to its predecessor. I actually went to the Trilogy Event hosted by AMC and watched all 3 in a row–great for being able to see all those connections big and small….but it also makes Rises have to live up to both films immediately instead of in retrospect. The Dark Knight is just so damn good that when Dark Knight Rises starts, your anticipations and expectations are staggering. Some of them are fulfilled…but enough aren’t.