While movie trilogies are fairly common its rare that all three movies are epic hits. In fact some might argue that there have only been 2 epic trilogies – the original Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings. More common is when either the first or the first two movies are epic and the third falls flat. In my life there have been three movie trilogies that I was really excited to see the end to. And when I say “excited” I mean stand in line for hours, pre-buy tickets excited.
- The Matrix Revolutions (2003)
- The Lord of the Rings Return of the King (2003)
- The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
I absolutely hated the Matrix Revolutions and was severely disappointed – mainly because I wasn’t smart enough to get the trilogy while Return of the King exceeded my expectations and is the gold standard when it comes to ending out a trilogy in my opinon.
As of now I feel like The Dark Knight Rises falls somewhere in the middle. All said I did really like the movie and it was very entertaining but it doesn’t come close to being better than its predecessor The Dark Knight.
This could change as I’ve only seen it once and these are only my initial thoughts but here are five things that I think The Dark Knight Rises swung and missed on.
1. The pacing in the first act was glacial.
We’re treated to a Bond like sequence out of the gate that blows away any action sequence in the previous two Batman movies but are left after that to suffer through was seemed like five or six Michael Caine monologues (and I really like Michael Caine monologues – it was one of the best moments in The Dark Knight).
2. I never connected emotionally with the city under siege.
We weren’t really invested in the plight of the cops and we’re never really shown how terrible the conditions must have been for ordinary folks. The resistance can for the most part walk around the street and observe the bomb truck unmolested. Really the only horror of the siege that was show was when the rich dude (who probably deserved to die anyway) was exiled onto the ice. And even that wasn’t built up very much. And come on did nobody tell these guys how you walk on thin ice? You crawl and spread out your weight…
I guess if you really think about how much of a effect it would have on the world in general to have a city the size of New York under a nuclear siege – to try and convey exactly what that would mean is almost too big an undertaking. I thought this area of the plot fell flat.
3. I didn’t understand why the regular people of the city were so fed up with the elite.
This is never explained and we were never able to emotionally invest in the plight (if there was one) of the common person being held under the boot of the elite. Selina Kyle has this great line that says “you’re all gonna wonder how you ever thought you could live so large and leave so little for the rest of us.” When did this happen?
4. The death of Bane was cliched and really weak.
What do you do when your hero is about to die, you’ve already had an epic fight scene and you need a reason to get Catwomen back into the city? You have her come bursting in at the last movement guns a blazing and save the day by killing Bane just as he’s about to kill our hero.
I really liked Bane as a bad guy. Tom Hardy brought so much presence even without seeing his mouth that he was believable as a terrorist. I even came around on his voice by the end of the movie. But a great villain deserves a great death and being shot by a gun by Selina Kyle just doesn’t cut it.
5. The fake death of Batman.
If Batman dies my opinion of this movie skyrockets and moves this trilogy very close to the Lord of Rings. If Batman dies I don’t write a mostly negative review. If Batman dies I don’t care about nitpicks one through four. But he doesn’t.
For all of Christopher Nolans talk about doing things different, and making this a darker grittier version of the Batman genre, and closing out the trilogy I really expected Batman to die.
One of the greatest lines in the movie is when Batman exclaims in his funny gruff voice that he hasn’t given Gotham everything yet… implying his life. At the very least I wish Nolan would have let the movie goer decide and debate about whether or not he was dead.
You could have left in the part about the auto-pilot being fixed and you could have even had Alfred lifting up his head after he takes a drink in that little cafe but roll the credits there. Don’t show Bruce Wayne’s face. Let us debate. Keep it dark.
It also would have seemed to fit better with Christian Bale’s portrayal of Bruce Wayne throughout the movie. He was tortured and upset that Batman had to take the fall for Two-Face and he seemed like he had so little to live for anyway. His redemption was the giving of his life – the ultimate sacrifice that would be remembered. It seemed cheap and too easy to give us a “happy” ending.
All that said I still really liked the movie. It was very entertaining, had great action, some really good lines, a good villain and for the most part a good story. Could it have been better? Yes. Will I buy it? No.
I give it four out of five stars.
I give it 3/5 for all the same reasons. Add the fact that “super-villain” uses a stolen nuke that won’t explode for 3 months and you take the most cliche tv bad guy jerk move and make it almost non-threatening. The whole urgency in the end of the movie was really for a lack of planning on Batman’s part. Why was there only 11 minutes left on the bomb? Because Batman was too busy burning his logo onto a bridge like jr high boy with a can of Raid and a lighter.
Ha! I had the same thought about the logo…where did he find time to do that?
It must have been pretty important… Like “Hey everyone.. I’m back!! Nevermind.” Haha, it was still a good movie, just a let down in a lot of ways. I totally agree with the Alfred cafe thing too, pull an Inception and leave everyone wondering. We liked it there, we’ll like it with Batman too!
Totally agree with everything!! What I couldn’t stand was, how did he avoid a bomb with a 6mile radius and 45 seconds to detonate…? He’s batman, not superman.
And another thing, robin. “You should use your real name, Robin” Really!!?? That’s not robins real name. Thats like saying Bruce Waynes REAL name is Batman, he should just use his real name, Batman Wayne.
That annoyed me. Other minor annoyances Baines voice sounded like a cartoon professor einstein or something.
I expected a bit more action and suspense. Still a good movie, but second one was way better.
Good question… He must have baled out before he left the city. Also, wouldn’t there be radiation? It appears that the bomb was still in the air when it went off. Gotham would still be a dead zone it would seem.
The Robin thing bothered me as well. It seemed a little cheesy and out of place. That’s something Schumacher would have done not Nolan.
With much respect to JB…5. The non-diegetic sound over the café scene indicates that Alfred’s sighting of Wayne may be reverie. It remains ambiguous whether Batman died or not.
(it could have been worse: the Bat could have flown out of the mushroom cloud).
3. You only need a few thugs to instigate a ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ (especially if your police force is unavailable). Like Vichy France, or Nazi Berlin: Some collaborate, some resist. Most do nothing.
2. Gotham’s siege reminded me of Leningrad’s in WWII. If the Soviets had time to premiere Shostakovich’s “Leningrad” symphony while Nazi bombs were falling (they did), then Batman can have time to throw his set up on the bridge. Both actions served to boost flagging morale – critical in wartime.
Also, the street battle between Bane’s army and the GPD was a shot out of the park: The dolly shot over the ragged, determined cops – they know that 1/3 of them will not survive. The raucous charge. (where’s Mel Gibson? “They may take our lives…”) Blink and you will miss: The police chief, fallen in battle, has a stigmata wound in his left palm.
Origin of Robin was believable (certainly more-so than a foot-to-head pan up a yellow-and-green spandex-clad Joseph Gordon-Levitt would have been). Of course it was obvious that he was Robin all along; they threw-in the name at the end for the viewers of more modest intellect.
I liked that “the child” turned out to be Miranda. I never trusted her, with that freaking tumor on her forehead. “Here’s two bits. Go downtown and have a rat chew that thing off.”
Four and three-quarter stars!
MSH