Review with Spoilers: The Dark Knight Rises

Eugene

I want to start this off by saying that, if you want to avoid spoilers STOP READING.

With that out of the way, I want to make another distinction between the movie as a movie and as a Batman story. As a movie, it wasn't bad, had a great cast, some good stories, but also glaring errors in no backstory for the villian and nothing to tell you about the transition of time outside of a sentence spoken once or twice.

Now as a Batman story, I almost walked out so many times it isn't funny. I am still angry over what happened.

So we find that Bruce Wayne has not done anything for over 8 years as Batman, which is downright wrong. I want to say this form the beginning because this is a theme that Nolan has forgotten with Batman.

Batman, will NEVER give up Gotham.

So, when I find out that Batman has not been to Gotham for over 8 years, I could not believe it. This is the man who would rather be out on Christmas in the cold looking for crime rather than at home.

However, eventually we do find out that Batman has come back, huzzah! I knew he could do it, and after ONE NIGHT. ONE! We find out that Alfred has given up on Batman. That will never happen! Alfred is a loyal friend to Batman, and each would not give up on the other.

From there the story progresses in an interesting matter, but the problem is that there was less of a focus on Batman and more of a focus on Bane, and Gotham. Which can be done, but you need to show how the absence of Batman is hurting the people, and this was shown as the brutality of Banes regime.

Now, there are many references to the Knightfall storyline from the comics, but I felt that was more thrown in to appease the fans.

Now, the endings is the part that made me rage the most. Its a generic the hero is going to sacrifice themselves to live, but in the end we find out everything is fine. However, we see the character of Jospeh Gordon Hewitt take over the Batcave and Bruce Wayne goes off with Selina Kyle to Italy. A happy ending? Sure. The right ending for a batman story? NO!

Batman, would never give up Gotham by choice. It is his city. It makes no fucking sense,

Okay movie, bad Batman story. Not worth seeing, in my opinion.

Stealth · Posted: Tue Aug 07, 2012 7:47 pm Post subject:

Some very valid points, and I honestly didn't think about them.

However, in this universe, Batman is not in the realm of superhero; He's in reality. If Batman existed, I believe he would have these demons because unlike the comics, he's the only one that exists. If he's stabbed, he's weakened for life. If he fails, then the criminals win.

And when all the criminals were capture and Gotham was goin through a time of peace, there was no need for Batman.

I didn't agree with the choice of having Alfred abandon Bruce as he is his only ally and long term loyal friend. I think this was done to not include much of his involvement in the film as it was long.

I will admit, the ending was terrible. I would have prefered him to have sacrificed himself.
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Motherfucking Triangles! Being all three sided n' shit, who do they think they are?!

Eugene · Posted: Tue Aug 07, 2012 8:56 pm Post subject:

Stealth wrote:

I would have prefered him to have sacrificed himself.

I can honestly say that I hate you right now.

Vlad Piranha · Posted: Tue Aug 07, 2012 9:13 pm Post subject:

I actually loved it because of the mixture of elements.

The movie obviously was drawn from Knightfall, but there were other sources being used as inspiration that you need to bear in mind. The most obvious of these is The Dark Knight Returns. This is a story based entirely around the concept of Bruce Wayne retiring from his life as Batman after his crusade results in the death of a loved one. In the films, it was Rachel Dawes instead of Robin. In the movie, his abscence is reduced to eight years instead of the graphic novel's decade.

The overall tone is very much the same as well. In TDKR comic series (the same acronym, coincidence?) an older Batman struggles with the ravages of time and whether or not he can live up to his duty to protect the city once it has fallen into complete chaos. The comic also seems themed around despair and corruption and the need for someone like Batman to stand as a symbol of justice.

It's obvious that the films were meant to be as realistic as possible socially and psychologically to justify their events. While someone like Batman will never exist in the real world, the Dark Knight trilogy leads us to believe that it's at least possible. Remember that death is permanent in the films. Ra's al Ghul is dead. Harvey Dent is dead. Rachel Dawes is dead. Friends become enemies. Enemies die. The permanence of these tragedies mirrors real world logic unlike pivotal deaths in the comics, which is what gives them their weight. I imagine that years of cheating death every night would do terrible things to a person's psyche. Gotham City views Batman as being crazy with good intentions. Bruce Wayne's self imposed exile in The Dark Knight Rises makes a hell of alot of sense to me. Alfred's objections to Bruce destroying himself were well founded. If Alfred had any love for the man in a realistic scenario, I imagine he wouldn't want Bruce to lose himself to his madness.

In regards to the old and worn Bruce Wayne criticism, I have a tiny anecdote. As a young man, my uncle's brother (I have no relation to him) was once the second highest ranked Judo competitor in the entire US. The guy was practically carved from wood during his prime, as I understand it. He wasn't afraid of anyone because he knew what he was capable of. A couple decades later, every single joint in his body is worn and damaged to the point of putting him in constant discomfort when he moves around. I've seen what a life trained for elite levels of violence can do the human physique. I was shocked that The Dark Knight Rises acknowledged this. You can't fault a film for making sense.

As for Batman giving up on Gotham, it isn't like that at all. Batman's crusade was always to fight outside a broken system of justice to protect the populace. True justice was elusive, but he could still stand against the maniacs that preyed on the innocent. If madmen and sociopaths weren't so prevalent in his city, he wouldn't need to exist. If you'll recall the episode of Batman: The Animated Series entitled Trial, that point was made beautifully. Batman didn't inspire or create costumed supervillainy in Gotham City, he's the response to it, or as the show put it, "He didn't create you, you created him". I set this up to explain the ending to the film, which I thought was fantastic.

While I think that a noble death would have been really moving and impressive, it may have been a little too exploitative as well and I believe that the ending in the film was fine. I look at the ending as an examination of, and response to, everything that I said above. Bruce Wayne grew to hate crime and cruelty and dedicated his whole life to stopping it. In Batman Begins, Alfred mentioned how the Waynes' deaths shocked the wealthy and powerful into action. Ra's al Ghul points out that this was an unforeseen event and it was the only thing that kept the city limping on while the League of Shadows tried to dismantle it. This is why Batman needed to exist. He needed to shock people into action, to be a symbol of natural justice and incorruptability.

The Dark Knight was all about the first real challenge to this philosophy. The unspoken question that the Joker seemed to pose through his actions was whether or not pure good could defeat pure evil. He believed not. Good is naturally restrained by its own principles whereas true evil has no limits. In the end, we saw that good can overcome simply because it outnumbers evil. Someone just needs to be the first to stand up, lead the way, and make the necessary sacrifice to inspire others to do the same and villains like the Joker can be stopped.

The Dark Knight Rises is about the final challenge of Batman's beliefs and what he plans to do to leave behind a legacy that can inspire the best in others. I was certain that Wayne would be revealed to the world as Batman in the final act. I was shocked at how much more elegant and meaningful the ending actually turned out to be. By leaving Batman to supposedly die as an anonymous hero, he was sending the strongest message he possibly could. Just like Bruce told Alfred in the first film, it wasn't about his needs, he just did what he believed was right. Leaving Batman to die and taking no credit for any of the amazing things he did is the highest form of selflessness and it shows a detachment from petty pride. It may seem dishonest, but just as the white lies about Harvey Dent served a noble purpose, Batman would do the same from his demise.

The officer Blake as Robin thing was the only element that I felt was really unnecessary (it felt forced like the 90s films), but it did have a silver lining. He helped underscore Bruce's entire philosophy when everything was over. Bruce accepted the simple truth that he couldn't carry on forever and needed to do one last thing to leave something behind. Batman didn't quit for eight years because he'd given up on Gotham, but because he believed that people would be fine on their own without him, that his mission was done, that they were good people deep down who just needed a chance. He also knew that the city would always need Batman. In the end, the Batman's role changed. Instead of standing at the forefront as a symbol of justice in unjust times, he stepped back into the shadows, waiting as a sentinel, a protector of the peace that was the product of the honest people he always believed in.

As for the whole living in Europe thing, it reminded me of one of my favorite movie lines of all time. It's from The Brave One, a film about a woman who is also on a possibly suicidal quest for vigilante justice. The main character also had a friend who stitched her wounds and feared that her violent quest for closure was really just self destruction in disguise. Her advice to her:

"There's plenty of ways to die. But you need to figure out a way to live. Now that's hard."

Stealth · Posted: Wed Aug 08, 2012 6:19 pm Post subject:

I think I shed a man tear.
_________________
Motherfucking Triangles! Being all three sided n' shit, who do they think they are?!