I’m going to just rip the band-aid off quickly before it
becomes too excruciating. The Dark Knight Rises isn’t very good. There, I said
it. Before I devour all the faults of the film, I want to make it very clear
that it’s not awful. It’s an okay movie, and had it been the first film in the
series (even if that would have made absolutely no sense) I would have been a
little less harsh on it. But the simple fact of the matter is that I couldn’t
walk into this movie with an objective point of view because I’ve seen the
first two Batman movies and I love them to bits. It is humanly impossible for
me to detach those two movies from my mind while viewing this one, and I don’t
see any reason why I should. A precedent was set, and said precedent was not
lived up to. I would also like to clarify that precedent is different to hype.
I actually wasn’t very excited for The Dark Knight Rises. I tried very hard not
to think about it and let it creep up on me. I remember talking with a friend of
mine and saying “when we see The Dark Knight Rises” and subsequently realising
we were going to see it the following week! I was more hyped for The Dark
Knight than for The Dark Knight Rises, and I was far more satisfied with it
than I was with this. Here is why.
One of the major problems I had was with the pacing. God, it
was all over the place! The first act lasted all of about 5 seconds (that may
be a slight understatement), jumping from scene to scene introducing characters
and plot points far too quickly for them to feel anything but artificial. Right
after that, we were treated to a horribly stretched-out second act where
nothing of much significance happened for the first half at all. The third act
was a little better, but still not nearly as tight as what we’d ordinarily
expect from a Christopher Nolan movie. The epilogue could also have gone on for
far longer than it did. This is the end of an epic trilogy! It’s fine if they
spend some time finishing everything up (also, real quick, the ending was half
good).
As well as the bad pacing, there were some plot points that
I really wasn’t very happy with. There’s one really big thing that I found
completely ridiculous (you’ll know it when you see it) which brought down the
movie by a large portion in my eyes. Additionally, the film opens with an eight
year timeskip that feels totally unnatural. Batman has disappeared, Bruce Wayne
is a hermit, and none of the actors look like they’ve aged a day. The film then
proceeds to spend the entire first act telling us how Batman and Bruce Wayne
coming back (or rising, I suppose) is a big deal and everyone’s been wondering
where they’ve been, but it doesn’t work at all because we don’t feel the same
way about any of it as the characters in the film do because we never
experienced the absence of Batman or Bruce Wayne.
On a more positive note, the acting wasn’t too bad. But that’s
about it, really. Some of the returning characters felt a little underwhelming,
but that was mainly due to a lower quality in writing than anything else
(Batman’s badass retort to Bane: “No, I came to stop you”). Tom Hardy did a
great job as Bane, especially with his severe limitations. The distortions on
his voice are by no means intimidating, which I really appreciated. I was
dreading hearing his voice because I thought they would make him sound like a
Transformer just because he’s supposed to be so huge and overpowering. I was
mega wrong, and I love everyone involved in that decision because it’s one of
the best things about the movie. On top of the voice, we don’t ever see his
facial expressions, so his performance essentially relies entirely on body
language, which must be incomprehensively difficult. Anne Hathaway as Catwoman
was nothing special. She did a good job, but there was nothing special about
her. That’s sort of the case with the entire cast, really. Except Bane.
There was also absolutely no reason for Catwoman to be in
this movie other than for fan-service. Were she to be taken out of it, it would
have made almost no different to the plot at all. She really only does two or
three things in the entire film, and none of them are character-specific in any
way. Batman also blindly trusts her for no reason at all. There was no point
where she proved herself to be anything other than a villain, yet Batman doesn’t
even seem to consider this.
One thing I admired about The Dark Knight is how little CG
it used. This is primarily the case here too, but there are a few noticeable
uses of it. And I mean NOTICEABLE. You’d think that with a $250000000 budget
they could get some good CG. Seriously.
I know that I’m dwelling on the negatives here, but none of
the positives are all that remarkable, to be quite honest. The movie was okay,
but it was plagued by countless problems that neither Batman Begins or The Dark
Knight suffered from. There were a few sections that feel like they were
changed at the last minute, and the whole package just didn’t feel nearly as
refined and perfected as The Dark Knight or Batman Begins.
Well, now that we have this generation’s Star Wars trilogy,
bring on the reboots!
Don't forget to catch me on my friend's podcast, of which I am a regular member, here!
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