The Dark Knight Rises (Christopher Nolan, 2012)

(May contain mild spoilers)

Finally it is there, the movie everyone has been looking forward to after The Dark Knight, considered by many as The Godfather of the superhero movies. And it deserves this status. It had great action, suspense and one of the best villains ever in the Joker. Quite a challenge for Christopher Nolan to live up to the standard he created. I was curious and full of expectations, especially since I could really appreciate his Inception, but this film fails to impress on many levels and I am afraid this is the first weak film of the British director. I’ll try to explain.

Of course Nolan is smart enough to know that he could never replace the Joker, and after the tragic death of Heath Ledger he had to create a different villain. He succeeded by creating Bane (Tom Hardy), a force of nature, pure muscle, evil and just like his predecessor not someone to bargain with. Unfortunately the director puts himself in trouble by creating someone who seems undefeatable. Halfway the film (in a great scene) we see how Bane kicks Batman’s ass and almost literally breaks him. Bruce Wayne goes to a prison-well from which only one person ever managed to escape and our hero has to overcome his own demons to deliver a happy end. With this knowledge I expected an intelligent non-physical solution to defeat the brute villain, who gave the ‘power to the people’ in Gotham city, but as it turns out a lame plot twist and ‘discovery’ about Bane give Nolan the easy way out. I expected much more from a filmmaker who usually comes up with inventive and intelligent scripts.

Hereby I haven’t mentioned the voice of Bane that made me laugh on a number of occasions and I am sure I was not supposed to laugh (his sound approaches the alien-villain from the first Men In Black picture, if you recall)

Apparently Nolan chose to find a role for most members of the Inception cast because there are a lot of new characters in The Dark Knight Rises. Some of them are completely redundant (think of the two businessmen trying to take over Wayne enterprises) and with characters like Catwoman (Anne Hathaway), Miranda Tate (the beautiful Marion Cotillard) and some new policemen (one of them the talented Joseph Gordon Levitt) the movie is full, too full. Its length (164 minutes) feels too short for good character building and emotional involvement and feels too long regarding some of the plot developments.

At first it feels like Nolan is trying to give us a message (like Bane is) with a revolution and an ‘approaching storm’ (financial crisis).Wayne enterprises invested in Green Energy, but soon the tool for nuclear fusion becomes a weapon and there are too many subplots and situations to give these themes the attention the director may have intended. The whole movie feels like Nolan had to cut a lot of material. This becomes clear in the last half hour, with some chaotically edited action and again some unoriginal and simple solutions, instead of balanced and clever developments as we are used from the director.

So am I just negative about this film? No. Most of the time The Dark Knight Rises was enjoyable but this is mainly because of the same reason the third Godfather film is for instance. As a viewer you are still on a high from the previous films. There are some memorable scenes between Batman and Alfred (the great Michael Caine), one almost perfect action sequence (I refer to the first appearance of Batman after the Wall Street heist, with the police force chasing him as they see him as the killer of Harvey Dent) and some powerful scenes where Batman/Bruce is struggling in prison.

But overall the movie is disappointing. It doesn’t have the unpredictability of the Joker, emotional involvement (like the death of Rachel in The Dark Knight or the ending with Jim Gordon and his son) and stunning action sequences. The ending of the saga contains cheaper action (not literally I am afraid), a weaker script with various plot holes and unoriginal solutions. Let’s hope this is an incidental ‘flaw’ from a director who usually delivers and deserves credit for both Batman Begins and The Dark Knight.

5.5/10