Christopher Nolan – The Dark Knight Rises (Ryan Demarco)
Christopher Nolan is an amazing filmmaker, which is a huge understatement. In the last decade alone he has crafted works that achieved such acclaim that have turned him into a household name. He has inspired audiences and filmmakers all over the world. His works include Inception, Interstellar, The Prestige, and the Dark Knight Trilogy. However, among all of his huge successes, there has been only one misstep in the acclaimed writer/directors career – the last entry in the Dark Knight Trilogy, The Dark Knight Rises.
Nolan defied expectations and earned universal praise with Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. He waited four long years for the final entry. Needless to say, fans expectations were sky high,. The pressure to end a beloved trilogy was never greater.
What we got did not hold up at all. The Dark Knight Rises earned over a billion dollars worldwide but could not generate a solid film, or even a cohesive story. A fine line was drawn dividing viewers who appreciated the finale and those who found it rather dumb. This writer falls into the latter. Let’s get into it. What’s so bad about this film?
Well, for one, the story was just bad in so many ways. It starts off 8 years after the events of The Dark Knight. Bruce Wayne has been in hiding and the Batman has become more of a mythical campfire story instead of a fear striking vigilante. Gotham is practically crime-free. That’s so off from who Batman is and what Gotham is about. What’s next, Batman just fakes his own death and retires with Catwoman? Oh wait. The dialogue is clunky and just unnatural. Riddled with dumb plot points including every GCPD officer getting trapped underground for MONTHS while Gotham is held hostage by Bane. That makes sense. Oh, how about the part where the World’s Greatest Detective couldn’t figure out that Bane’s whole operation was happening right under Wayne Enterprises? And that ending. Oh god. What a way to conclude a trilogy. If you told me that John and Chris Nolan had two-thirds of a screenplay written out and the studio told them they need the final draft on their desk in 20 minutes that would make sense to me. A clunky final fight between Bane and Batman, a plot twist with Talia Al Ghul, a nuclear bomb, the batwing autopilot conspiracy, and a cafe in Europe where Alfred sees Bruce Wayne (who at this point is practically his son) alive and well….and just leaves?
To be fair, not all things were bad. They were just downright otherworldly insulting. After Bruce Wayne receives a body breaking spinal cord injury from Bane, he’s casted out of Gotham and sent to a desert hole prison. It gets better. He receives life advice from a dirty cell mate who perhaps was an accredited chiropractor back in the day and has Bruce hang on a rope to heal his back. Presto! It worked. Thanks dirty cell mate! And just like that, Batman is back. He does 20 push-ups and climbs out of the hole and somehow slips back into Gotham undetected within a matter of five screen minutes just in time to save the city.
What’s unbelievable is that there are some really cool sequences peppered into the film: Bane’s opening scene, the stadium explosion, the battle in the street. A lot of eye-popping visual effects that made Nolan a top rank director are in the film. We also receive a number of great performances: Christian Bale does great work as the challenged and physically drained Bruce Wayne, Tom Hardy as the terrifying brute, Bane, and the surprisingly delightful portrayal of Catwoman by Anne Hathaway. But in the end, the bad just outweighs the good for this one. It is not only a bad Batman film, but a bad film in general with an uninspired story, dumb subplots and somewhat of an insult to the passionate fans of these characters. I’ve gone back and re-watched the film numerous times trying to find moments that might change my mind about this film. I’ve never found such moments. As a big fan of the first two, especially the first, it pains me to admit that this one is a stinker unfortunately.
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Interesting list! For Weltz though, I’d have picked The Green Hornet. Bloodnofsky was the best part of that shitshow.