There are so few movie franchises that
can pull off the movie trilogy. Some
that spring to mind that remain solid films on their own as well as part of the
overall story are Indiana Jones, the original Star Wars, The Godfather, Toy
Story, The Lord of the Rings, and Back to the Future. And there is something all most of these
movies have in common with the final chapter of the Christopher Nolan ‘Batman’
film trilogy “The Dark Knight Rises” it is the weakest of its series. Don’t freak out. “Rises” is not a bad movie by any stretch of
the imagination. The music is boomingly
awesome. The cinematography and visuals
are beautiful. Anne Hathaway as Catwoman is fantastic. The ending is in all ways epic. But it does suffer from the trilogy curse. It has to wrap up a story that took two films
to set up, while introducing new characters.
Plus it has to follow up 2008’s “The Dark Knight” a film I now consider
the best comic book movie of all time.
Nolan does succeed in ending in a big way, but falls a little short in
tying everything together.
The film
takes place 8 years after the events in “The Dark Knight” which had Batman
(Christian Bale) on the run from the police with his friend Commissioner Gordon
(Gary Oldman) leading the charge. What
was able to happen in that time was that the organized crime in Gotham City was
all but eliminated, without Batman’s help.
Now a retired Bruce Wayne comes across a plot involving a terrorist
known as Bane (Tom Hardy), who is attempting to do what previous villains Ra’s
Al Ghul and the Joker were not able to accomplish, the destruction of Gotham. So Wayne must once again don the cape and
cowl to save his city, but will it be too late?
Director
Nolan helped shape this dark and gritty world in which Batman could hide in the
shadows and fight crime as Gotham’s protector.
However he feels the need to cram so much in this last film that even if
you’re closely following all the threads and callbacks in this almost 3 hour
running time, a lot is left relatively unexplored or just plain rushed. Which would not be a bad thing if this wasn’t
the last film of this particular series, but it is. It should feel like we are getting a clearer
sense of closure. So while the last
thirty minutes is the big battle for Endor, I mean Gotham, there are
revelations about certain relationships, and there is much at stake, you don’t
really feel that worried about the outcome.
My favorite moments, were pretty much anything with Joseph Gordon-Levitt
as the young cop Blake. The guy just brought
his A-game to the film, and killed it in every scene despite the limits of his
role. His performance, along with
Michael Caine, and the previously mentioned Hathaway and almost “all in the
eyes” performance of Tom Hardy saved the picture for me. Over all “The Dark Knight Rises” does what it
needs to, it tells the ending of a story.
There are solid moments throughout and as a whole I would put this
trilogy up there in the pantheon with the greats, not just because he’s Chris
Nolan, and he’s Batman, but because they earned it.
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