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One can best describe 2012's The Dark Knight Rises as an exercise in self-indulgence. Christopher Nolan fans have worshipped the man for years, exalting his modus operandi of gritty self-seriousness and faux gravitas without providing Nolan with the constructive criticism he needs to grow and mature as a filmmaker. Due to the overzealous praise, Nolan's movies have been growing increasingly overlong and ponderous, and his ego reaches critical mass with this third Batman adventure. Thus, instead of working to improve his directorial technique, Nolan sticks by his usual filmmaking idiosyncracies here, hoping to get away with lousy pacing and pedestrian action scenes by smothering everything in relentless dramatic music and overcomplicating a straightforward narrative to make people believe they're smart for following it. This is not to imply that The Dark Knight Rises is a terrible movie, however - it's just a severely flawed, tediously long-winded effort that needs further editorial discipline. Although polished enough to satiate devoted fans, The Dark Knight Rises suffers from significant narrative and pacing issues.
It has been eight years since Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) allowed Gotham City to believe that his Batman alter-ego murdered District Attorney Harvey Dent. The events led to Bruce retiring as Batman and resigning himself to a life of solitude spurred on by his despair over Rachel's death. Although organised crime largely dissolved in the aftermath of Dent's death, Gotham soon faces a new threat: the super-strong, masked mercenary known as Bane (Tom Hardy). Also entering the picture is a cat burglar, Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway), who is hired by a millionaire socialite named John Daggett (Ben Mendelsohn) to help in his plan to take control of Wayne Enterprises. Circumstances soon compel Bruce to bring Batman out of retirement, turning to friend and inventor Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman) for assistance while also receiving support from a devoted young Gotham police officer, John Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt).
The problem with The Dark Knight Rises is that it's a structural and storytelling mess. The picture feels like two movies awkwardly mashed together, resulting in two underdone stories leading to a singular payoff. See, the film initially concentrates on Bruce Wayne battling cheesy inner demons as he weighs up whether or not to don the Batman cape yet again. Once Batman finally rises, though, Nolan hits the reset button and returns us to square one, with Bruce needing to work his way up to becoming Batman again. It feels clunky, destroying what could have been an interesting narrative flow and causing all sense of momentum to founder. It makes the initial rising - and, in turn, the entire first hour - feel like a waste of time. The Dark Knight Rises runs a colossal 160 minutes, yet the plotting is not necessarily complicated. Plot and character development are essential, but the movie is loaded with filler, not to mention Nolan stretches out the simplest developments to make them FEEL complex. If the plot is intricate and multilayered, why can it be summed up so simply? If the characters are well-developed, why is it difficult to feel anything for them?
Directly because of the picture's clumsy structuring, Batman receives a woefully short amount of screen time, as Bruce mostly appears without the cape and cowl. This point does not imply that the movie should have been full of mindless Caped Crusader action, but Batman adventures should use the character properly rather than diminish him to the point that he feels like any other generic hero. Furthermore, the treatment of the protagonists is maddening. For instance, Bruce retires Batman and essentially gives up on life due to Rachel's death, but this notion is ridiculous. Losing loved ones is the defining force that has driven Batman since the beginning - it created him and sustains him. If anything, losing a beloved childhood friend should make Bruce more determined to fight crime. Meanwhile, Alfred (Michael Caine) loses faith in Bruce and abandons his master. This development admittedly raises the stakes, but it betrays the character of Alfred to his very core. Furthermore, Bruce should learn meaningful lessons as part of his character arc, but he never learns anything significant or profound. The Dark Knight Rises carries a self-serious tone, yet for such a pretentious movie, it's not actually about anything. Sure, Nolan uses Harvey Dent's death as the film's "9/11 moment", and Bane's reign calls to mind the "Occupy Wall Street" movement, but such material is heavy-handed and silly, ladled on with the subtlety and sophistication of a shotgun.
The script (by Nolan and his brother Jonathan) is equally troubled in terms of dialogue; the "telling rather than showing" aspect is off the charts, with the characters spending a lot of time laboriously over-explaining every motivation and relationship. This is felt most glaringly in a late plot twist reveal when a silly monologue dutifully spells out every background detail of a specific character's past. It's lazy spoon-feeding in what's intended to be a sophisticated action-thriller, halting the climax for much too long. Furthermore, Nolan's approach to his Batman movies hinges on "gritty realism", but the picture nevertheless contains unforgivably idiotic moments. The opening scene involves Bane's men faking someone's death by transferring a dose of his blood into another person, apparently changing their DNA profile. Additionally, without spoiling too much, an atomic bomb detonates in the ocean near Gotham City, yet no neighbouring cities suffer from radiation poisoning, and there's no tidal wave as a result of the explosion. Plus, the kid-friendly PG-13 rating forbids Nolan from being genuinely dark in terms of violence - whenever Bane promises to do something badass, the camera awkwardly shies away from capturing it.
Another hugely problematic aspect of The Dark Knight Rises is the character of Bane. The comics paint Bane as the ultimate supervillain, an immaculate mix of brains and brawn. While the film addresses his intelligence, Bane's physique is severely underwhelming here, which significantly betrays the character. Tom Hardy stands under six feet in the role and looks more pudgy than muscular. It's a substantial problem that Batman and fucking Alfred are taller than what's supposed to be the most physically intimidating threat in the Batman universe. Hardy just looks like an ordinary dude - in fact, random henchmen from previous Batman movies are more physically remarkable than Hardy. As a result, various narrative machinations are hard to swallow, especially since Bane is apparently able to hurt Batman despite his bulletproof armour. How can such a regular-built individual achieve this? It's impossible to believe Hardy as Bane, and it doesn't help that his dialogue is, at times, utterly indecipherable. Liam Neeson's Ra's Al Ghoul easily remains the most badass villain of Nolan's trilogy.
For years, Christopher Nolan has received flack for his poor construction of action sequences, and such criticisms remain justified for The Dark Knight Rises. The big set pieces are often startlingly incoherent here, as the geography of certain locations is hazy, and it's genuinely difficult to discern where everyone is at any given moment. This is felt most glaringly in the opening aerial action sequence, which is full of close-ups and shaky cam, and is consequently hard to follow. Additionally, the hand-to-hand combat remains as underwhelming as ever, often marred by frenetic camerawork and humdrum choreography.
The Dark Knight Rises is not irredeemably bad, but the film's positive aspects are not as interesting to note as its numerous shortcomings. Certainly, Hans Zimmer's score is suitably engaging, Wally Pfister's cinematography is slick and eye-catching (action scenes notwithstanding), and the production values do impress (it was made for $250 million), but the slipshod writing is more noticeable than these strong surface-level attributes. At the very least, the acting is predominantly excellent. In particular, Gary Oldman and Joseph Gordon-Levitt bring their A-game to the film. Oldman's Commissioner Gordon is articulate and smart, while Gordon-Levitt affords genuine charisma and believability to his role of the young cop. Easily, these two are the best things in the movie, and the scenes they share are better than any of the action sequences. It's also hard to dislike Morgan Freeman or Michael Caine; the two veterans are predictably great here. Meanwhile, Anne Hathaway is reasonably good as Selena Kyle, a.k.a. Catwoman (though she's never referred to as Catwoman at any point). Hathaway is colourful and sensual in the role, although she and Christian Bale fail to sell the love interest angle that is awkwardly shoehorned into the script. Speaking of Bale, he's still just okay as Bruce/Batman. Rounding out the notable players is the Oscar-winning Marion Cotillard, who performs potentially the most laughable death scene in cinema history.
To be fair, the things that work about The Dark Knight Rises do work; it takes bold risks, and there are a few moments of badass Batman combat. At the end of the day, however, The Dark Knight Rises is merely okay - it's not great, not flawless, and by no means is it a masterpiece. Ultimately, Christopher Nolan's trilogy capper is brought down by its long-winded nature and poor script construction. Due to this, and due to the lack of Batman screen time, the movie feels like a mediocre Christopher Nolan action-thriller that happens to feature Batman. It seems that Nolan has grown bored with the series and no longer cares. Nolan was reluctant to return to the franchise directly because of this, and he only took up the director's seat due to fan pressure and the promise of a huge paycheque. The film's ending reflects this attitude, as it leaves room for further adventures but announces that Nolan has no interest in helming any.
5.9/10
