Last updated on March 4, 2013
Or, we can call it “The Batman Update”, I don’t care either way.
NOTE: Spoilers ahead.
The Dark Knight Rises – It was a great idea, but it was a bad movie.
Allow me to elaborate. Having watched Batman Begins and The Dark Knight right before seeing it, I knew what kind of Batman experience Nolan creates: the realistic kind, more a police drama and procedural than a comic book hero. There’s nothing wrong with this approach in itself; however, when a film believes it’s important, it can’t just rest on its laurels. If it’s going to be a trilogy of films, it’s especially true. The Dark Knight Rises, then, should become a capstone to the series, encapsulate its themes, and hopefully provide a satisfying conclusion.
Unfortunately, the end of Nolan’s opus doesn’t really suceed in this end for a few reasons.
First, Batman just isn’t an interesting character. I get it, I get it – he’s a symbol. This was made clear enough in the first film and the second. The first was the origin of the crime fighter who believes in justice; the second shows the challenges that the symbol must face from powers that want to destroy the social order for no particular reason than to watch the world burn; the third shows the problem with removing that symbol of hope and building the foundations of society on a crude lie – subsequently, it displays these consequences by showing just how easily Gotham slips back into darkness.
Christian Bale, to his credit, does as much as he can with his relatively small role on the screen. In Batman Begins, Bruce Wayne is complex and interesting because he has to wrestle with his own personal issues and overcome them. When he finally overcomes that evil, the audience can relate and understand; he fights as a symbol for good and to uphold the social order. The second movie, though trying to develop his character, becomes so overwhelmed with the Joker (a masterful performance by Heath Ledger) that Batman becomes a fall-guy. Batman isn’t in the movie at all, save to demonstrate a particular moral dillemma the Joker presents. It’s disheartening that it works this way because you never get the sense of Wayne and Batman as opposite sides of the coin. Batman, here, becomes a symbol rather than a character. The Joker, though a symbol in himself, ultimately sticks in the mind because he represents the opposition to Batman’s ideal of social order. The first and second films work together well (although I prefer the first), and it’s not surprisingly that Nolan wanted to end it right there and then. Batman is the Dark Knight: the silent guardian and protector, even when he is persecuted for doing the right thing. One man has to have the strength to sacrifice himself and transcend the law, but also rescind that power when the deed is done.
See, the ideas are fascinating, truly! But there’s a downside to this format: it can easily descend into preachiness and lessons (Cue “Robin”. “I BELIEVE IN BATMAN!”). It can also make us forget about the characters on screen, who represent ideals. There’s no emotions to be had, for the film touches the mind only, not the heart. This is the propaganda film for the Batman philosophy, rather than a complete work. The third film exemplifies this. It’s trying to rekindle the spark by using material from the first film, but it fails miserably. Supposedly placing Batman in an Uzbeki prison makes things interesting, but it doesn’t; there’s just not much depth to Bruce Wayne. He has to learn to fear death again, apparently? Why should I care? And that’s why he can’t defeat Bane? Seriously? Nolan was so good at showing, rather than telling in Memento and Insomnia; why does the Batman philosophy vehicle have to be so darn clunky? Rather, you’re watching a battle of ideologies in both The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises.
If I wanted that, though, I’d watch a documentary or a dialogue movie, not a Batman film. When Batman becomes an idea, he ceases to become a person, and Batman ceases to become a movie. Rather, it’s a paean to conservative principles and the eternal fight for justice. If you notice in the first film, people talk like people; it’s a refreshing breath of air. The Dark Knight ups the stakes, but everyone starts speaking like they’re in a live-action morality play, with the Joker exalting the platitudes of nihilistic anarchy, and Batman speaking in cryptic tones. The third movie goes even further in this regard; if this is supposed to be realistic, as Nolan obviously desires, then why does everyone speak like a bunch of witty writers in a room from an undergraduate philosophy class talking about civics? Why does everyone have their heart on their sleeve and give us soliloquies? No wonder this film is so long!
This is most apparent in Bane. I’m sorry, but Bane’s boring. He is in the comic books, and he is here. Once you’ve had the Joker around, Bane isn’t scary because he has a motivation (and a stupid, contrived one at that). He’s a less entertaining Joker, and he becomes even less entertaining once you find out he wasn’t even the real villain – it was some person you’d never guess! Frankly, this bait-and-switch routine got old the first time I saw it in movie X, and it’s dumb that the screenwriters have to resort to a dumb twist instead of making Bane frightening. They establish him as powerful, smart, and cunning in his one-on-one with Batman, but he unceremoniously dies. Why bother developing a villain if you just drop him the moment that things just aren’t exciting? Isn’t it interesting that all of Batman’s villains in the Nolan movies die due to external forces (even as he says he won’t kill anyone), except the Joker? Not sure why this is, other than a convenient device to rid us of the villain without Batman having to violate his principles. Also, Catwoman – nothing needs to be said. Has Catwoman ever been interesting in any movie – she’s an empty and witty love interest, nothing more. You might say “Hey, she starts as an anarchist and become different”, but she’s barely in the film. Who could tell this unless the movie made it hilariously obvious? The same goes for Miranda Tate, and both character end up in a different place. That’s not playing against type, that’s just lazy.
Now THAT would be a movie. Not the appearance of evil like in this trilogy, but Batman ACTUALLY killing people. But, of course, we can’t take things to their logical extremes because of DC Comics. The situations in The Dark Knight Rises never become too difficult for Batman to conquer, except at the arbitrary whims of the screenplay. Nothing develops here. Nothing new happens in the movie that, really, we didn’t see in the last two. Bruce Wayne even lives in the end; the “ultimate sacrifice” means he escapes somewhere else with Selina Kyle, and all is well! If you want me to care, don’t jostle me around with false sentimentality; give me a plot that makes me think, and characters I care about. Even a super hero movie can fall into place after that.
It’s telling that the movies provides flashbacks to the first film – which you dumb audience members didn’t remember – to augment its plot points, as if taking a throwaway line here and there lends credibility to the narrative. It wants you to think it’s epic and important. And is the pacing ever bad! Why does this film have to be 170 minutes? There are MORE than enough unneccessary parts that could remove this languishing pacing. For God’s sake, that scene at the graveyard sounds like it came out of a Shakespeare play; even a bit of Michael Caine melodrama can’t convince me otherwise.
So yeah, the ideas are interesting, but the overall effect was less than stellar. Your emotions are manipulated into thinking you felt something when someone on screen says “Inspirational thing about fighting for what’s right!”, and then I’m supposed to feel good or whatever. Not buying it, guys. If this was a work of political philosophy, I’d say it was pretty good! But as a movie, it falls flat in execution.
To summarize: it’s a movie full of ideas, but only ideas, not real men and women fighting against evil. It’s not a movie as far as I can tell, or at least a very ineffective one. Pretentious wouldn’t be too far from the truth; the edifice, built in The Dark Knight, topples in The Dark Knight Rises. As some family members of mine said “I didn’t even know I was watching a Batman movie.” That’s a bad sign anyway you look at it, and not because of “branding”. Somehow, the Nolan’s snuffed the human element out of Batman, and I don’t like it one bit.
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Monday Update is starting to become “Zach rants against something not related to video games”, or Critical Monday. Fitting to the beginning of the week, perhaps.
