The Dark Knight Rises is Weird and Captivating

21 Sep, 2023

This past weekend, I took the opportunity to see The Dark Knight Rises at the movie theater, since the whole Nolan Batman trilogy was back for a couple days. Actually, I also rewatched the whole trilogy on 4K Blu-Ray a couple months ago, and it reminded me again why these are three of my favorite movies.

But The Dark Knight Rises has always been an easy pick as the worst of the three to me (which is the case with a lot of third entries in movie trilogies, isn’t it)? In comparison to The Dark Knight, where you had a villain whose presence felt genuinely threatening, the story of Rises seemed a bit goofy. And after these two recent viewings, my opinion there… has not changed. I still think it’s goofy. This time, I felt like I understood more parts of the story than ever before, though that didn’t quiet my frustration completely.

Let’s be real though, it’s a wonderfully entertaining film, and I love it! But I’m still gonna pick on the story!

It’s More Complicated Than It Needed to Be

The first half-hour of Dark Knight Rises feels like a rapid downpour of exposition. So many details are unveiled in quick bits of dialogue, sometimes from characters we’ve never met before.

• Crime in Gotham is at an all-time low. Jim Gordon is still police commissioner, but his life isn’t that great right now. His wife took the kids and left, apparently, and also, the mayor wants to dump him soon. This information is revealed by a new police officer character, Peter Foley.

• Bruce Wayne has not been seen in eight years. However, during that time, he spent a lot of money creating a revolutionary clean energy project, but now has nothing to show for it. This endeavor was funded in part by one Miranda Tate, who seems quite idealistic.

• Ok so there’s a rich guy named Daggett, and he wants more power of course. He’s the one who brings Bane to Gotham. This is briefly mentioned in a conversation between Bruce and Alfred, if I remember right. Of course, in reality, Bane is in control all along, and him working for Daggett as a mercenary is more of a front, one that seemed to fool Batman. Also, Selina Kyle steals Bruce Wayne’s fingerprints so that they can dump all of his money at the stock exchange.

• Dr. Pavel is a nuclear physicist who Bane kidnaps in the beginning of the movie and later uses to turn Bruce Wayne’s nuclear energy device into a bomb. To be honest, the first time I watched I made no connection between those two scenes; it didn’t really matter at all how Bane obtained the scientist. Was I dumb? Is it because I was watching on a TV? Well, honestly, the prologue is more about Bane, anyway, and how charismatic and what a big guy he is. For you. Uh…anyway, what I never understood until this year is why Bane takes blood from Dr. Pavel and puts it in a dead guy. Because it never seemed to matter. However, then I realized that two characters mention that Dr. Pavel died in a plane crash months ago. They faked his death. And you know what? I still don’t think that matters. Except to show how cool Bane is. Bet you didn’t expect him to bring out a dead scientist to create a nuclear weapon, did you?

The thing is, if you miss some of these details, it doesn’t really matter that much. Once Bane takes over Gotham, you know what needs to happen: Batman needs to defeat him and stop the bomb from going off, simple as that. And the buildup towards that confrontation is consistently thrilling.

But then, if many of the details aren’t actually needed to enjoy the movie, are they needed at all? Illustrating Bane’s intellectual prowess and toying with ideas of wealth redistribution and anarchy—these are interesting aspects of the movie, but perhaps a few of the layers could have been removed without losing anything truly of value.

I Like Most of the New Characters

As I mentioned, there’s a lot of new characters in this movie. And I really gotta give props to everyone involved, because I like most of these characters.

• Peter Foley: yeah I actually don’t really like this guy though. I feel like he was added mostly to ensure that the police were antagonistic towards Batman, for the sake of that one cool part. Then later he hides inside his house instead of trying to fight Bane, but when he sees the Bat Signal, he goes out to fight in the final battle the next day. So there’s a bit of an arc there, eh. He dies in the battle, sadly.

• John Daggett: This dude is such a lame dork, and I love him for that. Even though he was an arrogant jerk who paid Bane in a plot to try to take over Bruce Wayne’s company, he got so scared when Bane killed him that I kind of felt bad for him.

• Catwoman: Anne Hathaway is so charismatic in this role. I find a couple of moments with her a bit goofy, but for the most part, her one-liners are funny and I love to see her onscreen with Batman.

• John Blake: I honestly never remember this guy’s name. I just remember him as “Joseph Gordon-Levitt guy.” He’s a cool detective. I like him. I don’t love him. I think the scenes where he’s talking to Bruce, or Selina, or Gordon, are all good. I think the scene where he accidentally shoots someone is funny. Someone get this hothead out here!

• Miranda Tate: She’s fine. She seems to be an intelligent woman who really wants to make clean energy happen. In reality she’s doing a really long, really sneaky revenge plot. Never really thought much about her though; she doesn’t have much personality outside of being secretly evil.

• Bane: Bane is awesome, man. His voice actually sounds pretty cool in its lower range. But when he’s shouting a speech—yeah, it’s funny. He’s very strong and says very cool things.

• CIA: Tell me about Bane! Why does he wear the mask?

There are a couple other new characters like Catwoman’s friend and Daggett’s assistant. And some congressman who Catwoman kidnaps.

The returning characters are as great as ever. It felt like Gary Oldman was allowed to be more intense than in the previous two movies, though I swear that also made him sound less American sometimes (not complaining, I just find it funny).

Bane’s Motivations

I have to talk more about Bane, because as the main villain of the movie, he’s pretty important. The first half of the movie shows that Bane is a super smart guy. I don’t know if every part of his plan was exactly necessary, but dang it, nobody suspected a thing. And then he trapped the entire police force underground. That was pretty stupid of them to fall for that.

What I never understood is Bane’s plan once he takes over Gotham. It’s like, ok, let’s do a revolution. Take down the corrupt, give Gotham to the people. If anyone messes with it, we blow the city up. But also, the city is going to blow up anyway in a few months, and that’s really the end goal here to be honest, because I must fulfill Ra’s al Ghul’s work.

Makes the revolution seem kind of pointless, doesn’t it? I mean what are we even accomplishing here?

But remember, Bane told Batman he was going to torture him. So when he sticks him in the prison, he makes him watch the events in Gotham on TV. But… why does he care so much about torturing Batman?

The missing piece of that puzzle is Talia al Ghul. Bane protected her when she was a child. It’s safe to assume he still cares for her. And now she’s angry at Batman for her father’s death. And she apparently is really trying to make this revenge hurt.

I mean she got him to trust her completely; she made him move on from Rachel even, and then finally she reveals who she really is and stabs him. Must have hurt, although there’s not really any time for him to dwell on it at that point.

Now, don’t get me wrong, Bane cooking up that elaborate plan and tormenting Bruce Wayne on her behalf is still goofy. But if you were really just trying to fulfill Ra’s al Ghul’s destiny and destroy Gotham… wouldn’t you just do it? Would you really wait around? But then again, I think Bane probably wanted to do the sham revolution simply because he’s into that sort of thing.

Giving the people of Gotham false hope in order to increase their despair is an interesting idea, and the way the open-air prison parallels it is quite brilliant.

I still just struggle to find convincing logic behind Bane’s actions, even when you factor in Talia.

Rule of Cool?

I want to talk about the climax of this movie, specifically where an army of police battles Bane’s troops.

Actually, first let me say that I find the role of the police in this movie to be kind of funny. In both Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, the Gotham police department clearly has problems with corruption. Gordon is “a good cop—one of the few” according to Batman in Batman Begins. And those aren’t empty words—we see clearly in the movie that the organization has dudes working directly with the mob. And in The Dark Knight, a number of cops accept payment from Joker to cooperate in his schemes, resulting in several deaths and Harvey Dent’s disfigurement. (“No more dead cops!” says that one random cop).

However, in The Dark Knight Rises, the police seem more like good-intentioned but bumbling fools. Well, at least they solved the corruption problem.

So, basically the entire force gets sent into Bane’s tunnels right as Bane is about to put his full plan into motion. And of course, they all get trapped in there and have to live there for several months. So that’s pretty wild.

But anyway, on to that “all-out assault on Bane.” The police force runs straight at Bane’s army, which does not seem like the best strategy for a battle where guns are involved. In the midst of the fighting, Batman finds Bane and they fight one-on-one.

Now in a moment like this, are you gonna complain about realism, or appreciate how dang cool these shots look? I choose the latter, because the scene looks amazing! Snow is falling. People are fighting in every corner, and Batman has risen from his earlier defeat, stronger now, ready to conquer the strongest foe he’s faced. It’s cool!

You know what’s less cool? When Bane says “So you came back to die with your city,” and Batman says, “No. I came back to stop you.” It’s like…yeah. That seems obvious. I thought he was gonna say something cool. Now, this exchange has more significance if you remember that Batman did want to die earlier after Bane defeated him. But it still sounds so awkward.

But that aside, I think the epic war scene is pretty great.

Oh, and people love to talk about “how did Bruce Wayne get back to Gotham???” but I’m not sure why Bruce Wayne being resourceful enough to find a way to get there is so hard to believe. It’s also possible that the time of when he escaped the hole was earlier than what was shown in Gotham (the TV in prison can’t disprove that, since Bruce broke it). Well maybe that’s a stretch since the movie never hinted at any nonlinear storytelling going on. But still.

You know what I do wonder about though? Where did Bruce get that “clean slate” thing from? Did he make it himself at some point? He and Fox have made some crazy stuff so I won’t deny the possibility. I just wonder when. And when did he get a chance to grab it?

It’s also goofy when Daggett is like explaining the whole concept of the “clean slate” at length just to stall for time. I recognize that he is trying to point out how stupid the idea is… but then, the clean slate does turn out to be real, I guess? So yeah I just find that scene a little funny.

It’s not that the previous two movies were realistic, truly, but they were better at hiding it—especially The Dark Knight, I’d say. This one will challenge your suspension of disbelief quite a bit (like how did Bruce heal from his broken back like that). And sometimes that might be annoying. But as fun as it is to talk about, it’s not really that big of a deal as long as the movie is cool. And it is cool.

Did the Lies from The Dark Knight Really Matter?

One thing among many that makes The Dark Knight much different from other superhero films is its ending. Batman decides to take the blame for Harvey Dent’s murders so that Harvey can be remembered as a hero. Meanwhile, Alfred burns a letter to Bruce from Rachel which revealed that she chose Harvey.

At the time The Dark Knight Rises begins, these secrets have been kept for eight years. Legislation was passed in Dent’s honor that gave police expanded power, and that’s how the city was able to fill up the prison with mobsters. Jim Gordon was gonna spill the beans, but then he thought, nah.

Going into this story though, you’d naturally assume that the consequences of hiding the truth are going to come back to bite…someone.

Alfred ends up spilling the truth about Rachel himself, and as you’d imagine, Bruce is shocked and hurt, and their relationship is fractured. That makes sense.

So, what about the other lie? That one ought to have some massive implications for Gotham, I would think. The Dark Knight did promise some bad consequences if the truth got out, after all.

Well, I’m gonna be honest. I’ve never felt like the movie delivered on that promise in a satisfying way.

Soon after Bane takes over, he reads to everyone the letter from Gordon, revealing the truth. And that’s his justification for freeing everyone in Blackgate.

But here’s the thing. Bane rolled up there with a tank. He shot the wall of the prison with a tank. He’s threatened the city with nuclear annihilation. Why does he need a justification for freeing the prisoners? Seems to me he would have freed them anyway even if he hadn’t found the letter.

Does it weaken the opposition? Well they’re not gonna put Gordon in front of a camera to be a leader for the people now, so that’s something. Blake is kind of disappointed in him at that moment. But in the rest of the movie, Gordon is still working with the others to fight against Bane. No one seems to treat him differently because of what happened, and it’s never actually mentioned again.

I wonder if the revelation of the truth about Harvey Dent would have had more impact if Bane had revealed it before all the bombs and everything. Create some more chaos, and then take over the city. Seems more interesting than just coming in with a bunch of explosives, to be honest.

The unravelling of the lie just doesn’t seem to mesh with everything else going on in the movie. I would think it had potential to unleash chaos on its own, but instead it’s just one more bad thing in a pile of already bad things; you can’t even tell the difference with it there.

To me, it’s the biggest failing point of The Dark Knight Rises. As a sequel to The Dark Knight, it dropped the ball—well, with the Harvey Dent stuff, anyway. Alfred’s part was great.

Conclusion

Although I can’t help but to feel some frustration when I think about The Dark Knight Rises, it’s still a movie that will have your eyes glued to the screen for the final hour, if not the entire runtime.

The scene where Batman climbs out of the pit is one of the greatest things ever. The beauty of the IMAX shots combined with that score, and the chanting and cheering. I get chills just thinking about it.

Speaking of IMAX, wow this movie has a lot of IMAX shots. I hope it plays in IMAX again in the future, because I have not had the chance to see it in that format. Watching the 4K Blu-Ray with its constantly shifting aspect ratio is possibly the next-best thing—though it was definitely worth seeing the cropped version in the normal movie theater, too.

The music in this movie is great, though I think most of its memorable melodies are reprised from the previous movies. I say memorable melodies, but that doesn’t mean the new themes aren’t memorable in other ways. The soundtrack for Bane is defined by either the pounding of drums or a droning, foreboding low brass sound, depending on the scene. The latter of those always made a strong impression on me, and for a while, I think, it made me perceive the movie as being darker and sadder than it actually is.

On that note, the movie is funnier than I used to think it was. Sure, The Dark Knight beats it in humor easily, but that’s unfair; who can really compete with Heath Ledger’s Joker? Like I said earlier, Daggett is a dork and very funny to watch. I like when he wants to celebrate and says “Can we get some girls in here?” and then Catwoman, who’s been waiting there, seizes that perfect opportunity for a one-liner with “Careful what you wish for!” It’s stupid and I love it! Catwoman does have some pretty funny lines throughout the movie. Bane, of course, is funny. I know that’s largely because of the voice, but make no mistake, he has some really witty lines, too. The police chase of Batman has some great humor because there’s an old cop who has clearly missed Batman, and a young cop who shoots at Batman which makes him glare at him like, “Seriously dude?” Probably my favorite bit of humor in the movie is where the football player returning the kick doesn’t notice the ground collapsing behind him and manages to score a touchdown. The timing is hilarious in a dark way, considering what’s going on.

There’s so much I love about The Dark Knight Rises. And yeah, maybe in the past I was mad at this movie for a bit—but I was a child then. Now I can appreciate it. It has flaws, but watching a movie that has flaws because it swung for the fences is truly fun. The fire rises.