The Dark Knight Rises
Now that the real most anticipated film of 2012 is out (sorry avengers), and the complete story of the Batman according to Christopher Nolan is told, what else is there to look forward to, in 2012?
The short answer is “nothing”.
The long answer is that perhaps, one day, another whitekknight will rise up in defiance and challenge Nolan’s throne to making the grittiest superhero movies ever. But not today, and I think, not soon. But let’s get down to the review, shall we?
In The Dark Knight Rises, we’re dropped into Gotham exactly 8 years to the day where we left off, which had since been christened Harvey Dent Day. Batman hasn’t been seen since that day, and Bruce Wayne had become a reclusive creep, holed up in his home (still) moping about the loss of Rachel Dawes. (the Maggie Gyllenhaal version, not the Katie Holmes version)
The streets were cleaned up, and all seems fair at Gotham. Until the arrival of Bane and his diabolical plan to take it down.
Once more, Bruce is called upon to don his cowl and cape and save the day. New characters to this sequel include Joseph Gordon-Levitt as rookie cop John Blake, Tom Hardy as Bane, Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle and Marion Cotillard as Miranda Tate.
This last installment is ambitious in many aspects, often taking the action and spectacle to a whole new level, while also trying to tie in all the story threads from Batman Begins and The Dark Knight to form one big, epic narrative.
Can anyone get me a haircut like that? Anyone?
There are many wonderfully glorious set-pieces filmed in imax, and a lot of the action such as the opening scene and the football field scenes are truly magnificent. We witness the journey of Bruce Wayne / Batman come full circle, and gape at the physical threat of Bane.
However, the film is not without some weaknesses. My main gripe would be Bane’s voice, which was unintelligible at first, and later on just sounded disjointed. The fact that his face was mostly masked also means he has to do most of his acting using only body language and his eyes, which takes away a lot of the emotions of certain scenes. This is where many people compared it to the performance of Heath Ledger’s Joker, and where it was sorely missed.
But all in, I really enjoyed the film, plot holes notwithstanding. Oh, and Anne Hathaway did an amazing job with her role as Selina Kyle!
Rating: 8/10
Spoiler Alert
The following paragraphs discuss the ending of the film, so for those of you not wanting to be spoiled, this is your chance to stop reading.