Review: The Dark Knight Rises (TDKR Review and Trilogy Analysis)

Review (no spoilers) :

It’s great! On the surface its big, bold, certainly the most “comic book-y” of Nolan’s films and raises the stakes. For those who want to know, The Dark Knight is still the best, but as I’ll go into detail below, the trilogy does work best as one full story, but that is because of the bookends Batman Begins and The Dark Knight Rises. Anne Hathaway is PERFECT as Selina Kyle, ripped from the pages of the comic books. Bane was good, but if you’re a fan of him from “Knightfall” you may be a little disappointed as he doesn’t have quite the same presence.

Christopher Nolan has said that he wanted Bane to have a presence like Darth Vader, an ominous feeling of dread whenever he was on screen. This is a nice sentiment, but he and Heath Ledger already achieved this in The Dark Knight. While many have said that it felt like Ledger/Joker was missing in this film they’re not wrong. But I don’t think this has to do with Ledger specifically. This has to do with the lack of ONE strong villain. Bane would have been great had he the time and presence to shine, but he’s not the story’s dominating force so he’s not allowed the strong ominous leader role he has in the “Knightfall” storyline.

The action is spectacular, however. It’s large scale and the cinematography is fantastic. When Gotham City is put to ruins there is that feeling of dread as the city is broken to its knees, but again, without a tie to such a strong villain it feels a little emptier. People give a lot of credit to Ledger, which is due, but Jonathan and Christopher Nolan in writing The Dark Knight were equally responsible for that character, and upon further reflection The Dark Knight Rises is a conclusion of Bruce Wayne’s story, and that has always been Nolan’s concern. Joker was a great villain, but Rises is not a showcase for villains, it’s a showcase for an epic story. Without the assumption that Bane would be anything like Joker or anything like his “Knightfall” incarnation, the film will play better as part of the trilogy and a city-scale disaster epic. See it with that in mind and the film will be brought full circle instead of a run of the mill sequel.

Now, to the recent news:

I was almost ready to write my review for The Dark Knight Rises after seeing the full marathon last night at my local theatre. Really! I was getting all my thoughts together and mulling over what I’d seen on screen. But I caught the news later than most. I woke up to the news that a shooting had taken place at a Colorado theatre screening of The Dark Knight Rises, leaving several dead and wounded. Knowing this, at the time I can’t seem to write a review on the film as I saw it. Why?

This is the interesting point. My thoughts on the film have been affected by these events. Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, and The Dark Knight Rises are influenced by the way our world breeds and reacts to terrorism. To have a screening of The Dark Knight Rises, the finale and a summation of Nolan’s treatise on heroes and villainous terrorists, be clouded by an actual act of terrorism changes the way I think about the film. I’m not accusing the film, filmmakers or the studio for influencing the acts nor will I callously tie the film to these acts of violence. What I’m saying here is the events put the film’s narrative into a clearer perspective and give me a better understanding of the film and it’s goals, and to work through those thoughts I will have to spoil quite a lot, but not everything.

(Warning: spoilers following) 

This shooting brings things a bit closer to home. In his trilogy Nolan shows us how “terrorism” is bred and the rhetoric that often surrounds it. From Batman Begins to The Dark Knight Rises the dangerous world shattering rhetoric of Ra’s Al Ghul comes full circle. The League of Shadows is the self-appointed “check” against corruption. When Batman takes the training but abandons the philosophy of the League he sets his sights on saving Gotham City, but Wayne doesn’t count on the persistence of the League of Shadows. Using several puppets, including organized criminals, professionals and public officials, they unleash fear on Gotham in Batman Begins. Batman is able to stop Ra’s and the League, but by the end of Begins Batman learns that he has bred a new breed of criminal: The Joker.

The Joker is chaos and anarchy. Alfred, in an attempt to explain unclear motives to Bruce, says that “some men aren’t looking for anything logical…some men just want to watch the world burn.” The difference between the Joker and The League of Shadows is that the Joker has no endgame. He wants for nothing except to see the world turn to fire. He has no grand vision for changing Gotham as long as he leaves it corrupted, and Harvey Dent is that ultimate corruption. Forcing Batman to take the fall for Harvey’s crime was not part of Joker’s plan, but an agent of chaos is also an agent of convenience and opportunity, and this opportunity offers so much more than Joker could have wanted for.

Dejected, Batman becomes viewed as the very terrorist that he had been fighting. At the conclusion of The Dark Knight he has been abandoned. But he still never learns to “mind his surroundings.” At the beginning of Rises, eight years after Dark Knight Bruce is a shut in, obviously not minding his surroundings. And what are his surroundings? Bane and the League have been operating underneath Gotham city for a very, very long time right under everyone’s nose. Operating with considerable patience, calculated attacks and rarely surfacing they slowly bring Gotham to its knees. They tear down the rich, remove their funds (including Wayne’s) and bury the police force underground, leaving the citizens of Gotham to Bane.

Ra’s was right when he tells Batman that “your compassion is a weakness your enemies will not share.” And while Wayne claims that reason was “why it’s so important,” perhaps he may be wrong? His compassion breeds pain. In The Dark Knight Rises Bruce is constantly hit by reminders of his past pain and suffering: the loss of his parents, the death of Rachel Dawes, the sacrifice of Harvey Dent, and when Bruce won’t abandon Batman as a persona, Alfred has no choice but to abandon the monster Bruce has created and leave. Alfred recognizes that through all the loss and suffering, Bruce has not moved on and has this has let Gotham be taken right from underneath Batman, the police and even its citizens.

Bane understands this far too well and seems to have expected this reaction. Bane is the League of Shadows. Bruce, by abandoning his connection and agency with Gotham City, has allowed the League of Shadows to return. Ra’s made it clear in Batman Begins that the League is strong, resilient, persistent, even immortal. Of course the League would return with a new instrument to buckle the city. Just because Bruce would not lead the League of Shadows into Gotham, and just because Batman stopped Ra’s in Begins, it doesn’t mean someone else couldn’t lead the League.

Bruce’s compassion shut him off from the world and bred a selfishness that was shared with the other Gotham elites. As the wall-street types were shut off from the citizens they shared the streets with they grew ignorant to any concerns but their own. Early on, when Bruce asks why funding has stopped for a certain charitable organization, Alfred says this is due to Bruce Wayne abandoning his obligations to his company, which funds the charity through its profits. This has been a common argument against Batman as a character: if Wayne funnelled the money he used for Batman for the city, wouldn’t Gotham be better off? Alfred says yes. But when Bruce turns to Batman instead he’s forced into a position of unwilling support until he just can’t take his Master’s death wish any longer.

What drives Bruce to change his mind and rally a city to action? What drives Bane? It’s the same thing: social action and social responsibility. If the citizens of Gotham took up their social responsibility and stopped the economists–revealed in Batman Begins to be a weapon introduced by the League of Shadows to cripple Gotham–Bane and the League wouldn’t feel the need to step in, nor would Batman. Because of the citizen’s inaction, Gotham requires “dramatic examples to shake them out of apathy” (Bruce in Batman Begins), symbols and figures to stand in for their struggle. But Batman, The League of Shadows, the Joker, Bane, Ra’s and Talia Al Ghul are merely stand-ins for social positions. They take the city so easily from its political figures and citizens and manipulate it to make an example of them.

Bane easily takes over the city in a well crafted mid-film takeover, calling them to “take back [their] city” in one breath, then instituting martial law in the next. His lie is indicative of his own terrorism. The misguided ideals of terrorists and politicians alike: promising liberation, then taking over for themselves and instituting their own law.

Terrorism is driven by confused ideals, sometimes on purpose, sometimes not. The question that Nolan’s film raises is “how do we counter terrorism?” Do we let our elected officials counter it? Can ordinary citizens counter it? What lies will be put forth by “ordinary citizens” like Miranda Tate/Talia Al Ghul to deceive us. Upon reflection, The Dark Knight Trilogy raises some important questions about agency within our own civilization and our social responsibilities to it.

Batman Overview: Knightfall

This is the one. The introduction of Bane. The man who broke the bat. When Christopher Nolan announced that Bane would be the villain in The Dark Knight Rises fans had some ideas about what would happen. Given that Nolan has really taken adaptation and storytelling to a different level in The Dark Knight ensuring that Harvey Dent and Rachel Dawes won’t be returning, he took us for a ride and exceeded expectations, subverting what we had come to know as superhero storytelling. In The Dark Knight, the hero is turned villain in the eyes of the public, he loses the girl, and the villain wins. Nolan has also given plenty of indication that The Dark Knight Rises brings the story full circle, and who better than the seminal man who broke the bat to feature in his grand finale: Bane.

A master of body and mind, Bane’s plan is simple. He knows his enemy the Batman well. He’s grown older, tired. Bane is young, idealistic, a perfect machine with a brain and mind to destroy the Bat. He releases all the maximum security inmates of Arkham Asylum; the rogues gallery is unleashed upon Gotham. The Joker, Two-Face, even one-note villains like The Film Freak get special attention from Batman. It’s Batman’s obligation to keep these criminals behind bars that pushes him to his limits. Robin (Tim Drake at this point) sees the strains that Bruce is undergoing at this time, but Bruce doesn’t heed any advice and continues to pursue while Bane watches, perched like a hawk until the moment arises. When Batman is at his most broken, and Bane his keenest, he meets Bruce at his home and forces him into a challenge. Bane doesn’t want to prove his strength to Batman, he simply wants to break him…and he does. While Bruce is broken–not dead, of course–Bane’s released inmates wreak havoc on Gotham and Bane, satisfied with a job well done, goes back to live in luxury.

“Knightfall” is the first part of an epic that refocuses Bruce Wayne as Batman. Bane wasn’t counting on the types of allies Bruce had, and one of those allies, Jean-Paul Valley/Azrael, dons the cape and cowl as Batman in Bruce’s stead. Valley is powerful, trained in the same tactics that made Bruce as well as trained by The Order of St. Dumas, and he is an easy match for Bane. And while violent battles ensue Tim Drake notices something about Valley; he lacks restraint. He is all violent energy, and once he’s taken the mantle of the Bat from Bruce he develops it into his own mechanical hybrid of Bat and Azrael. Valley defeats Bane through his immense violence over time but he bends rules that Bruce would never touch–Bruce even ordered Valley no to seek out Bane to begin with. Drake becomes less a partner and more observer to the mayhem caused by Azrael as he becomes singleminded and driven by violence due in large part to the training from The Order of St. Dumas. In the end, Bruce must overcome what Bane had done to him and retake the mantle of the Bat, forcing Valley to remain in Gotham as Azrael.

There is a lot more in “Knightfall” that makes it one of the better stories in DC’s Batman canon, and I’m only touching on the bare plot points here because any fan of Batman should read it. It’s a great intro to the character of Bane, a great representation of how Batman works with his allies–contrary to Nolan’s films, eventually Batman comes to work with a vast number of allies all over Gotham–and it’s great to see some high and low profile villains come out and play.

The most important take-away is how powerful Bane is as a villain, and how perfect an adversary he is for Batman. He is highly intelligent, he takes physical and mental care of himself, he is humble, modest, and worst of all for Batman, patient. He allows criminals to drive Batman to a breaking point and is never eager to rip Batman apart with his own hands. His patience is the mark of a man who enjoys watching his unknowing puppets on the stage. Gotham became his and not one person, not even Batman, had any clue. It’s the bizarre quirks of his henchmen–a hawk used to spy on Batman and Robin–that caught Robin’s attention at first, but Batman was too focused on putting the inmates back in Arkham that he missed his city becoming a puppet. Bane’s clarity is something that Batman lacked.

In stories past “Knightfall” Bane has developed into a villain with tragic personality traits, and his reliance on “Venom,” a chemical that enhances his strength, is his one weakness. That weakness takes the form of an addiction and drastically alters his motivations. Batman’s encounter with Bane in the video game Arkham City, for instance, has Batman and Bane scouring the city for barrels of Titan–a stand-in for “Venom”–but after they’ve all been destroyed Batman discovers that Bane has secretly hoarded a stash for himself. The temporary truce is abandoned and Batman locks Bane up so he can’t abuse the formula. It’s an interesting weakness for Bane, but it makes sense of his strength and Bane can be seen as a machine like any other, it needs oil to function properly.

Overall, if you find Bane interesting in The Dark Knight Rises, or if you want to see what all the Batman fans are talking about you’ll want to check out “Knightfall.” It isn’t perfect, depending on which collections you get, or if you find all the single issues, some of the third act storytelling with Valley once Bane is defeated is choppy at best, but it is definitely worth the read.

Bits and Bats

• In later stories Bane also has ties to The League of Assassins led by Talia Al Ghul. Will Bane have ties with Nolan’s stand in, The League of Shadows, in The Dark Knight Rises? Rumours abound!
• More rumours!  Nolan initially stated “Knightfall” strongly influenced Rises so there were rumours that Batman/Bruce Wayne will die/Be Broken and in his stead, like Jean-Paul Valley, someone would take up the mantle of the Bat. We’ll find out this weekend how true these may be, but given that Rises looks to be influenced as much by “Knightfall” as it does “Dark Knight Returns” and “No Man’s Land” it’s hard to say. I will say, however, that I’m very fond of how Nolan can blend comic book narratives into their own story, drawing from sources but adapting his own.
• To me, this describes how epic Bane is. A sub-plot in the middle of the “Knightfall” series has Joker and Scarecrow lighting Gotham City on fire. The whole city. Two of Batman’s established villains burn the city and it’s a sub-plot, because without Bane releasing them, they wouldn’t have had the opportunity, and Joker and Scarecrow don’t even know to thank him.

That’s it for my Batman coverage. There is certainly much more that I could cover, but before The Dark Knight Rises I invite you to look over these and reflect on the great characters and stories we’ve been given from many authours over the years. We are privileged to be given the works of Christopher Nolan and I have no doubts that Rises will deliver.

Batman Overview: Batman and Robin

Joel Shumacher has on two occasions apologized to fans for Batman and Robin. Listen closely, though, and you’ll hear an apology that the film wasn’t what the fans wanted. On the DVD commentary and in the special features interviews for the film Schumacher makes a point that he went along with the direction the producers at WB had decided upon, and Schumacher admits that among the producers he heard the word “toyetteque” tossed around a few times. Batman and Robin was a film designed to sell toys to kids and it shows, but Schumacher makes no apologies for the quality of the film and the direction he took, and why should he?

Fans and critics were in an uproar over the paper thin plot, one dimensional heroes and villains the the drawn out action sequences. Like Batman Forever, the new and final instalment in the franchise was all style and no substance, but though this was clearly not the direction that Batman fans wanted the film to go, it was in no way inconsistent with the way the character had been represented in the past. Batman and Robin was a modernized update of the 1960s series with Adam West and Burt Ward, and if the “Holy Rusted Metal, Batman” line from Batman Forever didn’t clue you in to Schumacher’s fondness for incorporating kitsch and camp into his films then you were simply blind.

As a narrative film, for what it is Batman and Robin has a decently thought out story. Freeze and Ivy team up together but their goals are ultimately at odds. Ivy wants to bring forth a new era for Mother Nature while Freeze wants to save his wife, Nora, from an as of yet incurable disease. Ivy convinces Freeze to turn Gotham to ice so that life can cease to exist, allowing her plants to reign supreme, but unbeknownst to Freeze she kills Nora in the process, giving him further motive against Batman and the citizens of Gotham. Taken on its own, many other parts of the narrative work, while some clearly don’t; it’s too much of a coincidence that Alfred and Nora suffer the same extremely rare condition, but it’s certainly convenient for our narrative.

If Batman and Robin wasn’t so intent on that garish style the narrative wouldn’t have been so comedic, but with its roots clearly showing in 60s camp and 50s noir (Uma Thurman relishes the chance to be a femme fatale) the film isn’t concerned with anything except being a shiny excuse to sell toys, and Schumacher was in on it. Batman as an enterprise at the time wasn’t ready for the kind of film Christopher Nolan eventually gave us. As I’ve looked back on the previous films in the franchise it’s clear that the style and tone of the comics took front and centre, the stories from the comics rarely translated from page to screen. Was this a condition of Warners or a condition of the time?

The film was certainly lighthearted. It’s villains plain and Commissioner Gordon at his worst as a supporting character. His opening line reads like a plot description: “There’s a new villain in town, Mr. Freeze. He’s frozen Gotham Museum.” It’s beyond wooden, Gordon’s function is to simply advance the plot and give us brief details. As much as we like to admire Burton’s films, they’re no different and there is little character depth in his films.

All in all, I can’t blame Schumacher for the way Batman and Robin turned out because Burton and the producers at Warner Brothers had set the frame for the film to adhere to. Burton’s films weren’t as thin and vapid as Batman and Robin, but they certainly had elements that allowed it to happen. Spoiled fanboys were upset that someone else had a campy interpretation of their favourite Dark Knight, but the 60s had also set the precedent for that interpretation. Fanboys were angry, but Batman is a larger institution that extends beyond them and Batman and Robin is a constant reminder of that.

Bits and Bats

• We get to see Bane on screen. The character initially was created in 1993 by Graham Nolan in the “Knightfall” saga. Shumacher’s Bane? Not the same thing. It was great to sell toys, but to this day I have no idea why they reduced Bane to a barely intelligent brute. The Dark Knight Rises looks to set this right.
• Rumour has it that if you run into Clooney and have an original ticket for Batman and Robin, he’s been known to give you your money back.
• Clooney aside, Batman and Robin killed the careers of its stars. Think about it, how much Chris O’Donnell, Alicia Silverstone, Uma Thurman or Arnold (on screen) have we seen since?
• The origin and narrative of Victor Freeze borrows heavily from the animated series, which is surprising from a film that goes its own way with other characters. Unfortunately it still reduces Freeze to a catchphrase spouting maniacal villain instead of the tortured, desperate character he could have been.
• A certain exchange seems like it’s from The Naked Gun: Robin: “I need a sign.”/Ivy: “Slippery when wet!” Akiva Goldsman you are a genius!
• Even Warner’s took a dig at B&R later on (notice the type of shop shown at the top of the frame):

Next: I promised the comics of Loeb and Sale, and that’s what’s up next.

Batman Overview: Batman Returns

Yes, Pee Wee Herman is the Penguin’s father in Tim Burton’s sequel, Batman Returns. It is among the many things Burton gets wrong about Batman. Given free reign after the success of Batman three years earlier, Returns is first and foremost a Tim Burton movie with Batman in it. Are we spoiled today with Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of the character? Yes.

Tim Burton’s Batman was grounded in a more realistic Gotham City, but in Returns Burton turns to the underground monsters of the city and picks from the vile underbelly all sorts of the grotesque. Danny Devito’s Penguin is literally a monster in Burton’s eyes. The comics made him a gangster named Oswald Cobblepot, and even Arkham City gave him some credit as a threat and a believable history as a tough as nails British gangster–one of the best parts of that game–while Burton reduces him to a bottom feeder. Burton even mimics the birth of Moses as Cobblepot is delivered to penguins…living underneath Gotham City…who adopt him…. Burton took so much literally with this adaptation and it shows.

Burton introduces two more villains with varying degrees of verisimilitude. Michelle Pfieffer’s Selina Kyle/Catwoman as a mousey secretary turned cat-burglar through a mystical transformation (death), and Christopher Walken’s Max Schreck, a shrewd businessman whose money driven ways are the cause of Kyle’s death. This narrative line is in ways more believable than the Penguin, but Schreck is the real villain here, becoming puppet master over the Penguin while Batman and Catwoman team up against him–we’ll see something similar in the upcoming Dark Knight Rises.

But then there is Batman. Michael Keaton is back, but is Batman? There is common criticism of Batman’s actions in the Batman Returns and how much they refer to the source. To Burton, to have Batman strap dynamite to a criminal and push him away, allowing him to die–and thus killing him–is okay. In what other interpretation is this okay? In the comics Batman refuses to even kill the most heinous of villains, the Joker, and in Batman Begins he prefaces the death (?) of Ra’s Al Ghul with ‘I won’t kill you, but I don’t have to save you.’ Returns is comical in retrospect, but not in a good way. It’s as much an example of style over substance as Batman and Robin, but saved by a rollicking score and some very well constructed scenes, almost none involving Batman.

Very little of the narrative has anything to do with the source material. Burton’s writers are careful to actually get Catwoman as a character right: whose side is she on? This is purposely left unclear but her seductive nature is hidden and clearly a response to her own self imposed limitations from earlier in the film. As a Cat-burglar she’s allowed to set herself free from her own shackles but without that outlet she’s cynical and self-defeating.

Gordon, again, is incompetent as a character. He casually says “Thanks for saving the day, Batman.” Contrast this more jovial soul with the Gordon from Batman: Year One, and you’ll wonder how any of the producers get away with this.

But the surefire sign that Burton is phoning this in as a Batman movie is the long serpentine shot which crawls over the Carnival which sits atop Penguin’s underground lair. This is the result of the creative freedom that Burton had earned and later coupled with some of the more surreal elements of the film–like Penguin ‘hypnotizing’ Schreck–, Elfman’s score and the transformative villains it all takes on an element of the grotesque.

Burton is clearly a visual filmmaker and a basic storyteller. His concepts are small scale so he can create massive worlds of his own unique brand and Batman Returns expresses this.

Batman Returns is an entertaining film, but it’s made by movie producers interested in creating a brand, so plot threads are thin and non-existent. It was successful enough to green-light two sequels, but the direction Burton led to was cartoonish and comical, and pushing it away from the serious tone and examinations that the comics were offering at the time. Partly a result of Hollywood Blockbuster filmmaking and marketing executives, Batman Returns is extremely flawed as a Batman film, but as a film it’s a good example of filmmaking at the time. It’s got some great moments–when Schreck pushes Kyle out the window and she is reborn as Catwoman is a great scene almost out of a horror film–but it’s all so uneven, and Batman rarely features in it so in the end it’s such an odd piece of work to watch.

Bits and Bats

• One of the more violent Batman films, parents groups were concerned about children watching the film. Penguin’s ‘bite’ is notably gruesome, so much so that McDonalds had to halt their line of Batman Returns Happy Meal Toys.
• Take another look at Christopher Walken’s hair and ask yourself if that’s someone you want to do business with.
• Double Entendres galore: The Penguin sees a woman sitting on a desk, and responds to Max’s statement (about filling the mayor’s office), “I’d like to fill her void” and “Teach her my French flipper trick!” while suggestively waggling his fin. He then further fantasizes what women would say to him such as, “I need you, Oswald. I need you now.” Max finally tells the Penguin what he thinks is the ultimate benefit of being mayor: “Unlimited poontang.” (From IMDB)
• The Catwoman sighting ends the film, but Catwoman is never seen again. I feel her inclusion in Forever or Batman and Robin would have helped with the world building, but it wouldn’t have been the first time Batman Forever screwed that up with Two-Face.

Next up: Batman Forever in a double header!