Hal_Incandenza wrote:I loved The Dark Knight Rises.

Yes, it's hugely flawed; cluttered, jumbled, messy, over-ambitious. But that's what I loved about it - the sheer scale of Nolan's ambition. He aims so high (I dare anyone to think of a movie that can beat TDKR in literally defining the word epic) that even though objectively the film fails to come together perfectly, it doesn't really matter. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that it would be quite literally impossible to succeed with this sort of scale - to keep all the dozens of balls in the air and create the perfect film with the material. But Nolan comes damn close, and the beauty of having so many interweaving story threads and characters is that for every one that fails (for me that's Bane, Miranda Tate, the ticking bomb, etc.) there are many others that succeed wonderfully (Selina Kyle, John Blake, Bruce himself, the revolution, etc).

So no, it's not perfect, and it packs too much in. But I kinda like that. It makes it different from anything else I've ever seen at the cinema, and it makes it a unique viewing experience. And so no, it's not better than TDK. But then, what could be? To replicate the lightning in a bottle success of that film just seems unrealistic, and what Nolan's done is to do something completely different -TDK feels tiny in scale compared to TDKR.

Most importantly of all, for me, is that it got a physical reaction from me, sitting in my seat; by the end I was numb, grinning, and ever so slightly shaking. And I really can't wait to see it again.

FierceDeity28 wrote:Hey everyone. I almost never post, but I've been browsing these forums almost every day for a little over a year now.

Anyway, here's my review. Sorry it's so long; I had a lot on my mind. I hope you'll read it all. :goNF:


Don’t get me wrong. The Dark Knight Rises is a good Batman movie, and it’s a good film, in general. But being merely “good” doesn’t cut it any more. Being merely “good” hasn’t cut it in a long time. The bar has been raised. I’ve been taught to expect more from a film. My teacher—my film mentor and idol—has been none other than the director of this merely “good” movie, Christopher Nolan, himself.

Christopher Nolan has always been my favorite director. (I am, without a doubt, a rabid Nolan fan boy. My three favorite movies are The Dark Knight, The Prestige, and Inception, in that order. Each of which I saw in the theaters during their respective original runs. The Dark Knight midnight showing is easily my greatest, most cherished movie-going experience.) Through his career as a visionary filmmaker, Nolan has consistently and reliably raised the stakes, raised the bar, and put almost all other directors to shame with each new entry in his excellent filmography. By my count, Nolan has directed (and, amazingly, written the screenplays for) no fewer than four singularly brilliant films, each a masterpiece in its own right. Memento shatters the storytelling mold with its uniquely unconventional reverse-narrative, its masterful editing, and its thoughtful musings on perception, memory, and the human condition. The Prestige raises the stakes with its mind-bending plot twists, its flashback-heavy, non-linear narrative structure, and its intricately woven and thematically deep screenplay, which offered an allegorical look at the nature of storytelling and filmmaking. Nolan took his leftover thoughts on the nature of storytelling and filmmaking and went a step further, blowing the minds of audiences everywhere with Inception, a thoughtful blockbuster—that doesn’t skimp on the spectacle—with a carefully constructed balancing-act narrative and a heartfelt message about the nature of reality and the importance of faith. The Dark Knight is flawless as a taut, sinister, neo-noir crime thriller that succeeds not only in providing a worthy adversary for the Caped Crusader, but also in capturing the cultural moment—the feel of a post 9/11 world, threatened by terrorists who cannot be reasoned with, because some men just want to watch the world burn.

In light of these past successes, I sat in the theater at the midnight showing for The Dark Knight Rises expecting nothing less than yet another flawless masterpiece to add to Christopher Nolan’s filmography, another shining trophy to add to his trophy case, further validating him in my mind as the boldest, smartest auteur working in the film industry today. I expected The Dark Knight Rises to take its rightful place on the list of my favorite movies, possibly at the top. Unfortunately, I left the theater, about three hours later, underwhelmed, disappointed, and disillusioned.

A couple days before the midnight showing, I skimmed a review of the movie, written by a film critic (Matt Goldberg) and published on a well-known film web site (Collider.com). This review baffled me because in his opening paragraph, the author praised the terrific performances by the actors, the intensity and grand scope of the story, the exhilarating action, and the thoughtful ideas of the script, and then at the end of the review, the author gave the film a “C” grade. I remember thinking how contradictory this was, and—without reading the review in its entirety (because I was afraid of spoilers)—I assumed that the critic was simply being pretentious and contrarian. I assumed this critic must have gone into the theater expecting to hate what he saw, and so he did, despite all evidence of a great movie on the screen in front of him. After seeing the film myself, I went back and read the entire review. Now, I completely understand and agree with that judgment. All this is to say; the movie does indeed have terrific acting, exhilarating action, thoughtful ideas, and a grand scope. So, how can it deserve a grade as low as a “C”? Where exactly are its flaws? Because it does have numerous flaws, some practically unforgiveable from such a celebrated and acclaimed director and writer.

SPOILERS FOLLOW: DO NOT READ ON UNLESS YOU HAVE SEEN THE FILM

First, though, I want to praise the film for what it does right. Hans Zimmer’s score, as always, is marvelous. Many of the major set pieces, most notably the football stadium scene, are effective. In fact, that entire stretch of the film, from the football scene until Wayne returns to Gotham, is probably the strongest sequence. All of the actors and actresses involved deliver top-notch performances. The chemistry between Bale as Bruce Wayne and Hathaway as Selina Kyle is (for the most part) believable. Bane’s mid-film revolutionary speeches are written well and delivered wonderfully; they are simultaneously rousing and dread-inducing. The visuals, cinematography, and set design are all outstanding; Nolan and Pfister have created yet another beautiful film to look at in a long line of beautiful films to look at. The CGI in the sequences with The Bat is practically unnoticeable. The ending is ambitious, and theoretically appropriate (if not perfect in its execution).

Now, on to the film’s flaws. Almost all of its flaws, as I see them, can be pinpointed in either the script or the editing. Nolan has again and again proven himself to be a masterful screenwriter capable of not only crafting a brilliant story on the page, but also completing the successful transfer of that story from page to screen. However, something went wrong with this film. Many have called the film’s flaws minor or small, and while some of them are easily overlooked, others are what I would consider major flaws, especially when considering the level of excellence I’ve come to expect from my favorite director.

The story is all over the place and due to several instances of ineffective editing, the movie is not appropriately paced, feeling both cluttered and rushed. Despite an extremely long runtime of two hours and forty-five minutes, most of the important scenes (and many of the not-so important scenes) feel as if they aren’t allowed adequate time to be relished. These scenes aren’t given enough time to reach their full emotional and mental impact; instead, they are cut short to save several precious seconds in order to move the next scene into place, and advance the plot to the next important checkpoint. Without sacrificing any story elements, the film could have been extended to an even three hours and paced more appropriately.

In this vein, the story attempts to introduce too many new characters and plot points. Too many moving pieces are on display in the narrative, yet not many of them are truly given adequate screen or story space. The first hour or so of the film is filled with lazy writing and editing. Several characters deliver clunky expository dialogue; not to mention these are characters that I never knew or cared about in a satisfactory way (Foley, the councilman, Daggett, Bane’s henchman to whom Kyle sells Wayne’s fingerprints and whose name I never caught, etc.), because these characters are too busy delivering this clunky expository dialogue or serving as plot devices, instead of receiving characterization and meaningful, emotional story arcs. These characters talk to each other in odd conversations that seem to have no purpose in the story other than to bring the audience up to speed, as if the characters are actors delivering lines, rather than people having conversations. For instance, Blake’s line about overdue library books is odd: telling Gordon how well he cleaned up the streets is unnecessary because Gordon obviously knows how well he cleaned up the streets, but I apparently needed to know. Similarly, the conversation between Foley and the councilman about Gordon is out of place, specifically the line about Gordon’s wife taking the kids to Cleveland. I didn’t know that Gordon’s wife had left him, but the story can’t find a better way to tell me than have the councilman essentially say, without any lead-in or provocation, “Oh yeah, something about wives now, because the audience needs to learn about his wife leaving him,” and then Foley essentially responds, “Right, right, good point. So yeah, his wife left him and took the kids to Cleveland.”

While I’m on the subject of Foley, as a character, he is criminally underused. Foley could have had a major impact on the story, but he is relegated to calling Blake a hot-head, being generally inept, and dying in what is clearly supposed to be an emotional scene, but I didn’t have enough time to care about Foley before his death, so I felt little to nothing. Foley could have been handled better in one of two ways: either he should have been given more scenes, more screen time, and more characterization, or he should have been cut completely, as he contributes little to the plot advancement.

Foley’s death scene isn’t the only scene that failed to invoke in me the appropriate emotion. None of the film’s dramatic moments feel earned, or properly built-up to. Gordon’s hospitalization happens so fast, and the scene where Wayne visits him happens even faster, so I had no time to feel anything for him. There is something off about the scene in which Alfred leaves (maybe in the sound mixing, but I’m leaning toward the editing and pacing, yet again) that drains it of the emotion I knew I was supposed to feel—the emotion I so badly wanted to feel. In addition, this scene is immediately followed by an odd moment (Wayne waking up and calling out for Alfred, which feels out of place considering how seriously Wayne took Alfred’s threat the day before) and a humorous moment (when Wayne is forced to answer the door himself and Fox comments), and then all is forgotten as the plot accelerates forward briskly without a second glance back at the severe lack of such an important presence as Michael Caine’s Alfred. The mayor dies so quickly that I know several people who blinked and missed it.

Perhaps it’s unfair to compare this film to its predecessor, The Dark Knight, but in this instance I feel it is appropriate. The Dark Knight utilizes the idea of killing off characters I had come to love (or, at the very least, the characters that the major characters in the story had come to love) to impressive dramatic effect. First, I believed that the Joker had killed Gordon, which broke my heart and made me hate the Joker so much more. Then, I found out Gordon was alive, and my spirits soared and I cheered inwardly. Finally, the Joker actually killed Rachel, stomping giddily on my already fragile heart, crushing it before spitting on it viciously. No dramatic moment in The Dark Knight Rises plays with my emotions like those moments in its predecessor did. I think this is partially due to the fact that the film refuses to kill any of the major good guys (unless you count Foley, and I don’t). I thought merciless Bane, in his quest to break Batman’s spirit, might kill Alfred, or Gordon, or even Selina. But nobody dies. As has already been discussed, Alfred leaves much too early, only to return in the final sequence. Gordon’s hospitalization (teased at by trailers) happens even earlier, and then he is fine for the rest of the film. Selina never comes close to dying (which I’m fine with; she was a delight to watch).

However, I think the lack of dramatic, heart-wrenching moments can also be partially attributed to the predictability of the plot. I think many fans on the Internet guessed most of the major plot points long before the film’s release, and even though I avoided reading those articles and forums because I wanted to go in somewhat fresh, I was never shocked by the plot, because nothing really surprising ever happens. Bane has an elaborate plan to get the nuke, the details of which are incidental and not extremely important, he takes the city hostage after severely injuring Batman, Batman builds up his strength while the resistance mounts, Batman returns, Miranda “I’m Not Talia” Tate turns out to be Talia (Holy Plot Twist, Batman, whoever saw that coming? Oh yeah, the entire Internet, and even if you didn’t know she was Talia al Ghul, it’s painfully obvious that she will betray him, considering how inane her characterization is, how contrived her relationship with Bruce is, and how close Bane keeps her in the second and third acts). Then, both villains die in extremely anti-climactic ways (Talia is apparently killed by the slow dramatic closing of her own eyes; unfortunately, she only has enough time to give a short villain-y monologue with her dying several-breaths, but she doesn’t have enough time to laugh maniacally), and Batman flies the nuke far enough out to sea to not only be six miles away from the city, but also six miles away from wherever he is, because we soon find out he isn’t with it when it explodes (some days, you just can’t get rid of a bomb). Plus, it’s one of those nukes that has zero fallout, so nobody in Gotham will get radiation poisoning or cancer or whatever. Or maybe they do; the film doesn’t go into it. Sucks for all those orphans on that school bus, I guess. Kick ‘em while they’re down.

To be clear, I don’t really view the specifics of the nuke as a gravely serious flaw (although it is somewhat silly that the nuke’s unstable decay rate is calculated by every single character in the film, down to the second, whether or not they’ve recently glanced at the handy timer on the outside of the fusion core). Similarly, I don’t view the specifics of Wayne’s back injury and his recovery as a gravely serious flaw (it’s nice to know you can recover from a broken spine and a protruding vertebrate in a few short months by getting punched in the spine and then doing rigorous push-ups and sit-ups in a prison, and then you’ll be in tip-top shape to beat the crap out of presumably the strongest, most dangerous hand-to-hand fighter in the known world). Finally, I also don’t mind the specifics of how quickly Wayne returns to Gotham from the other side of the world, with no money, resources, or allies. However, when discussing with people who do view these specifics as flaws, “He’s Batman” and “It’s a comic book movie” are not valid arguments. The fact that he’s Batman is at best only the first sentence in a longer explanation. How exactly does him being Batman explain it? And it may be a movie adapted from a comic book, but it’s not a comic book movie. Nolan has made sure of that, by grounding the entire trilogy in hyperrealism and avoiding much of the mysticism of the comic books (for instance, R’as al Ghul’s actual, supernatural immortality in the comics becomes parlor tricks, dual identities, and pain-induced hallucinations in the movies).

Speaking of the comics, I want to focus on the ending of the film. This goes back to the predictability of the film, too. Much of the ending feels like extremely lame fan-service, in that several scenes and even major plot points feel almost like an overly giddy fan could have written them (and quite possibly did, in the months/years leading up to the film’s release). “And then Miranda Tate turns out to be Talia! And Bane is in love with her and that’s why he’s been doing all this for her! But then Catwoman comes back and boom! She blows Bane up and he’s dead!” Followed by a chase scene that could have been edited more effectively, or even written more effectively. It feels like The Bat spends at least five full minutes just flying around trying to outrun those missiles, while Selina has no problem blowing up most of the Tumblers. “And then Talia crashes her truck! Then Batman has to sacrifice himself by flying the bomb out to sea, so Catwoman kisses him! And then… kablooie! He’s dead and everyone cries! But wait, just kidding, he’s alive! And he and Catwoman are together and live happily ever after! Oh yeah, and Blake was Robin the whole time, and he discovers the Batcave! THE END!”

Now, on a more serious note, some of the ending works and some of it doesn’t. I had the biggest problems with Bane’s death—because he deserves more than a quick explosion and a Selina one-liner—the kiss—because it does not feel in the least bit earned—and the Robin scene—because it’s completely unnecessary. Bane’s death, along with the earlier reveal that Talia is the real villain and he loves her, feels cheap. As if, now that the real villain is Talia, the plot has no more room for Bane, so he has to be dealt with quickly while the plot leaves to focus on more important things. The kiss feels unearned because, although I stated earlier that Bale and Hathaway have good chemistry, we don’t get enough Selina character growth to justify her actions in that moment. The first kiss is perfect, because she uses it to steal his valet ticket. This second kiss feels a tiny bit shoehorned in. Finally, the Robin scene made me cringe. I liked almost everything about the way that John Blake’s character was handled (if anything, he may have too much screen time; he could have sacrificed a little of it in favor of Bane, Selina, Talia, Foley… really anyone else who got shortchanged), and his arc completes perfectly with the discovery of the Batcave, but the Robin scene is not only completely unnecessary, but it also feels like a weird unsubtle wink to the audience, in a bad way. Where the Joker card at the end of Batman Begins is the right way to wink at the audience, Blake’s real name being Robin is the wrong way to wink at the audience. Besides, it doesn’t even make sense. He’s not going to become Robin; he’s most likely going to take up the cape and cowl and continue to be the symbol that Wayne created—Batman. Anyway, cut that scene out, and nothing changes. It’s a throwaway scene.

To be fair to Nolan, regarding Bruce Wayne’s ending, it was a lose-lose situation. Kill him, and you’re only doing it to be dark and controversial, to shock the audience, to do something nobody thought you’d have the guts to do (but ironically, by the time the movie was on approach, everyone thought you’d have the guts to do). Let him live, and you’re only doing it to appease the audience and the studios, to have the heart-warming happy ending, to boost the worldwide box office. I think, in light of this, Nolan handles Wayne’s story arc and conclusion as well as he could have. I couldn’t help interpreting it cynically the first time I saw it, but I fully acknowledge that as my own fault.

Although I had mixed feelings about the ending, I had pretty unanimously negative feelings about the beginning—the “Prologue.” I never saw this scene when it was released in IMAX with Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, but I was expecting a lot because I had read a lot of rave reviews of this scene. Unfortunately, it did not work for me, at all (neither as a standalone scene, nor as an introduction to what I hoped would be the greatest movie of all time). The scene feels so short—in terms of overall length, in terms of the editing of individual shots, and in terms of plot significance. I believe the durations are comparable, but it somehow feels so much shorter than the bank heist prologue from The Dark Knight. The concept of a mid-air plane-to-plane hijacking is so cool that I felt robbed by how abrupt this scene feels. I wanted to revel in it longer, feel the suspense of the hijacking, and the menace of Bane’s introduction. However, Bane is not menacing but goofy; his voice in this scene—the accent, the inflections, the volume, and the resonance—is horrendous, and several lines are cringe-worthy (I’ve read that it used to be better before the outcry of people not understanding his lines, and whatever audio changes were made resulted in the final version). Another thing that baffles me about this scene is how many mannequin-characters there are. It’s pretty much a two-character scene (Bane and the lead CIA agent). Dr. Pavel has a line or two, but they don’t really matter, and the sacrificial henchman has a line or two, but they also don’t really matter, and then a ton of other characters stand around in the background and do nothing (except for dying, when the time is appropriate). In comparison, The Dark Knight prologue is miraculous in that, despite being nameless, faceless, and not having more than a couple of minutes of screen time, each individual clown on the heist feels like a fully realized character, with a unique personality. To top it all off, Aidan Gillen’s performance as the lead CIA agent is surprisingly wooden and annoyingly out of place (disclaimer: I love him in both The Wire and Game of Thrones, so I’m not quite sure what happened here…)

Lastly, I want to talk about the villains. Briefly (because she isn’t really a villain), I’ll say that Selina could have used more screen time, or at least more effectively utilized screen time, specifically in the second and third acts. Less wasted minutes of her fighting thugs and doing badass things and more dialogue-driven, character growth scenes (or at least, give her more lines in the few short dialogue-driven, character growth scenes she does have, or make them longer, etc.)

For the most part (prologue notwithstanding), I liked Bane as a villain (although I think he speaks just a little bit too much… cut a line here or there and his presence would be much more subtle and interesting), but I feel like the inclusion of Talia and the League of Shadows completely undermines anything awesome that Bane does. I know that Nolan was trying his best to bring the movie full circle, with R’as al Ghul’s daughter and the League of Shadows continuing in their attempts to destroy Gotham, but I have this feeling that the movie would have been so much better without Talia, and without the nuke, with Bane working on his own (possibly as a rogue League of Shadows agent, without their help or approval), revealing the truth about Harvey Dent, causing a revolution, and terrorizing the citizens of Gotham in his own way, without a ticking time bomb rendering most of the revolutionary speeches and terrorizing moot. Or, the story could have just as effectively gone the other way, with more influence and screen time for Talia. This would mean an earlier reveal that it actually is Talia (which wouldn’t hurt), because any Miranda Tate characterization is basically useless, since she’s playing a part. As the film stands, Talia barely gets any time to do anything interesting. She delivers her long “I’m Talia” speech, then for some reason it’s supposed to be so cold-blooded when she doesn’t bat an eye while ordering her henchman to shoot all of the cops (She’s eleven minutes away from murdering everyone in Gotham city, including all of the cops, remember? She doesn’t care; this isn’t a revelation). Then she crashes her truck and dies. Great villain. Sure, she presumably organizes everything evil that happens in the film prior to her reveal, but we don’t get to see any of that because it’s supposed to be such a big plot twist. I doubt I could write the movie in such a way that utilizes the villains more effectively, but I’m not Christopher Nolan, am I? All I know is, as the film is written, the villains both have some unrealized potential, and they’re competing for our attention.

SPOILERS OVER

I am writing this because I have to. I have to get my thoughts down on paper or I’ll brood about it for weeks. After seeing The Dark Knight Rises for the first time, I felt crushed. Sure, I had huge expectations. But Christopher Nolan has met and exceeded my huge expectations in the past. I felt let down and disappointed, as if Nolan had flaked on a promise he’d made to me. Because, without a doubt, this movie had so much promise. And that makes it worse. This movie is so daring and so ambitious. All the elements of a masterpiece are there. Unfortunately, the execution is flawed. Nolan is not a god among men, like I want to believe, but he is human, and he makes mistakes like the rest of us. A couple days after seeing it for the first time, I went and saw it a second time. I had to give it a second chance. Leaving the theater that second time, I told myself that it was growing on me, slowly. But now I realize that’s not true. I’m just slowly coming to terms with my disappointment. I’m beginning to accept The Dark Knight Rises for what it is. A missed opportunity. A sprawling, ambitious gambit that doesn’t quite pay off. The weakest entry in an otherwise phenomenally exceptional filmography.

I still love and respect you, Christopher Nolan, and I'll forgive you someday soon.

theshaggyfox wrote:

FierceDeity28 wrote:Hey everyone. I almost never post, but I've been browsing these forums almost every day for a little over a year now.

Anyway, here's my review. Sorry it's so long; I had a lot on my mind. I hope you'll read it all. :goNF:


Don’t get me wrong. The Dark Knight Rises is a good Batman movie, and it’s a good film, in general. But being merely “good” doesn’t cut it any more. Being merely “good” hasn’t cut it in a long time. The bar has been raised. I’ve been taught to expect more from a film. My teacher—my film mentor and idol—has been none other than the director of this merely “good” movie, Christopher Nolan, himself.

Christopher Nolan has always been my favorite director. (I am, without a doubt, a rabid Nolan fan boy. My three favorite movies are The Dark Knight, The Prestige, and Inception, in that order. Each of which I saw in the theaters during their respective original runs. The Dark Knight midnight showing is easily my greatest, most cherished movie-going experience.) Through his career as a visionary filmmaker, Nolan has consistently and reliably raised the stakes, raised the bar, and put almost all other directors to shame with each new entry in his excellent filmography. By my count, Nolan has directed (and, amazingly, written the screenplays for) no fewer than four singularly brilliant films, each a masterpiece in its own right. Memento shatters the storytelling mold with its uniquely unconventional reverse-narrative, its masterful editing, and its thoughtful musings on perception, memory, and the human condition. The Prestige raises the stakes with its mind-bending plot twists, its flashback-heavy, non-linear narrative structure, and its intricately woven and thematically deep screenplay, which offered an allegorical look at the nature of storytelling and filmmaking. Nolan took his leftover thoughts on the nature of storytelling and filmmaking and went a step further, blowing the minds of audiences everywhere with Inception, a thoughtful blockbuster—that doesn’t skimp on the spectacle—with a carefully constructed balancing-act narrative and a heartfelt message about the nature of reality and the importance of faith. The Dark Knight is flawless as a taut, sinister, neo-noir crime thriller that succeeds not only in providing a worthy adversary for the Caped Crusader, but also in capturing the cultural moment—the feel of a post 9/11 world, threatened by terrorists who cannot be reasoned with, because some men just want to watch the world burn.

In light of these past successes, I sat in the theater at the midnight showing for The Dark Knight Rises expecting nothing less than yet another flawless masterpiece to add to Christopher Nolan’s filmography, another shining trophy to add to his trophy case, further validating him in my mind as the boldest, smartest auteur working in the film industry today. I expected The Dark Knight Rises to take its rightful place on the list of my favorite movies, possibly at the top. Unfortunately, I left the theater, about three hours later, underwhelmed, disappointed, and disillusioned.

A couple days before the midnight showing, I skimmed a review of the movie, written by a film critic (Matt Goldberg) and published on a well-known film web site (Collider.com). This review baffled me because in his opening paragraph, the author praised the terrific performances by the actors, the intensity and grand scope of the story, the exhilarating action, and the thoughtful ideas of the script, and then at the end of the review, the author gave the film a “C” grade. I remember thinking how contradictory this was, and—without reading the review in its entirety (because I was afraid of spoilers)—I assumed that the critic was simply being pretentious and contrarian. I assumed this critic must have gone into the theater expecting to hate what he saw, and so he did, despite all evidence of a great movie on the screen in front of him. After seeing the film myself, I went back and read the entire review. Now, I completely understand and agree with that judgment. All this is to say; the movie does indeed have terrific acting, exhilarating action, thoughtful ideas, and a grand scope. So, how can it deserve a grade as low as a “C”? Where exactly are its flaws? Because it does have numerous flaws, some practically unforgiveable from such a celebrated and acclaimed director and writer.

SPOILERS FOLLOW: DO NOT READ ON UNLESS YOU HAVE SEEN THE FILM

First, though, I want to praise the film for what it does right. Hans Zimmer’s score, as always, is marvelous. Many of the major set pieces, most notably the football stadium scene, are effective. In fact, that entire stretch of the film, from the football scene until Wayne returns to Gotham, is probably the strongest sequence. All of the actors and actresses involved deliver top-notch performances. The chemistry between Bale as Bruce Wayne and Hathaway as Selina Kyle is (for the most part) believable. Bane’s mid-film revolutionary speeches are written well and delivered wonderfully; they are simultaneously rousing and dread-inducing. The visuals, cinematography, and set design are all outstanding; Nolan and Pfister have created yet another beautiful film to look at in a long line of beautiful films to look at. The CGI in the sequences with The Bat is practically unnoticeable. The ending is ambitious, and theoretically appropriate (if not perfect in its execution).

Now, on to the film’s flaws. Almost all of its flaws, as I see them, can be pinpointed in either the script or the editing. Nolan has again and again proven himself to be a masterful screenwriter capable of not only crafting a brilliant story on the page, but also completing the successful transfer of that story from page to screen. However, something went wrong with this film. Many have called the film’s flaws minor or small, and while some of them are easily overlooked, others are what I would consider major flaws, especially when considering the level of excellence I’ve come to expect from my favorite director.

The story is all over the place and due to several instances of ineffective editing, the movie is not appropriately paced, feeling both cluttered and rushed. Despite an extremely long runtime of two hours and forty-five minutes, most of the important scenes (and many of the not-so important scenes) feel as if they aren’t allowed adequate time to be relished. These scenes aren’t given enough time to reach their full emotional and mental impact; instead, they are cut short to save several precious seconds in order to move the next scene into place, and advance the plot to the next important checkpoint. Without sacrificing any story elements, the film could have been extended to an even three hours and paced more appropriately.

In this vein, the story attempts to introduce too many new characters and plot points. Too many moving pieces are on display in the narrative, yet not many of them are truly given adequate screen or story space. The first hour or so of the film is filled with lazy writing and editing. Several characters deliver clunky expository dialogue; not to mention these are characters that I never knew or cared about in a satisfactory way (Foley, the councilman, Daggett, Bane’s henchman to whom Kyle sells Wayne’s fingerprints and whose name I never caught, etc.), because these characters are too busy delivering this clunky expository dialogue or serving as plot devices, instead of receiving characterization and meaningful, emotional story arcs. These characters talk to each other in odd conversations that seem to have no purpose in the story other than to bring the audience up to speed, as if the characters are actors delivering lines, rather than people having conversations. For instance, Blake’s line about overdue library books is odd: telling Gordon how well he cleaned up the streets is unnecessary because Gordon obviously knows how well he cleaned up the streets, but I apparently needed to know. Similarly, the conversation between Foley and the councilman about Gordon is out of place, specifically the line about Gordon’s wife taking the kids to Cleveland. I didn’t know that Gordon’s wife had left him, but the story can’t find a better way to tell me than have the councilman essentially say, without any lead-in or provocation, “Oh yeah, something about wives now, because the audience needs to learn about his wife leaving him,” and then Foley essentially responds, “Right, right, good point. So yeah, his wife left him and took the kids to Cleveland.”

While I’m on the subject of Foley, as a character, he is criminally underused. Foley could have had a major impact on the story, but he is relegated to calling Blake a hot-head, being generally inept, and dying in what is clearly supposed to be an emotional scene, but I didn’t have enough time to care about Foley before his death, so I felt little to nothing. Foley could have been handled better in one of two ways: either he should have been given more scenes, more screen time, and more characterization, or he should have been cut completely, as he contributes little to the plot advancement.

Foley’s death scene isn’t the only scene that failed to invoke in me the appropriate emotion. None of the film’s dramatic moments feel earned, or properly built-up to. Gordon’s hospitalization happens so fast, and the scene where Wayne visits him happens even faster, so I had no time to feel anything for him. There is something off about the scene in which Alfred leaves (maybe in the sound mixing, but I’m leaning toward the editing and pacing, yet again) that drains it of the emotion I knew I was supposed to feel—the emotion I so badly wanted to feel. In addition, this scene is immediately followed by an odd moment (Wayne waking up and calling out for Alfred, which feels out of place considering how seriously Wayne took Alfred’s threat the day before) and a humorous moment (when Wayne is forced to answer the door himself and Fox comments), and then all is forgotten as the plot accelerates forward briskly without a second glance back at the severe lack of such an important presence as Michael Caine’s Alfred. The mayor dies so quickly that I know several people who blinked and missed it.

Perhaps it’s unfair to compare this film to its predecessor, The Dark Knight, but in this instance I feel it is appropriate. The Dark Knight utilizes the idea of killing off characters I had come to love (or, at the very least, the characters that the major characters in the story had come to love) to impressive dramatic effect. First, I believed that the Joker had killed Gordon, which broke my heart and made me hate the Joker so much more. Then, I found out Gordon was alive, and my spirits soared and I cheered inwardly. Finally, the Joker actually killed Rachel, stomping giddily on my already fragile heart, crushing it before spitting on it viciously. No dramatic moment in The Dark Knight Rises plays with my emotions like those moments in its predecessor did. I think this is partially due to the fact that the film refuses to kill any of the major good guys (unless you count Foley, and I don’t). I thought merciless Bane, in his quest to break Batman’s spirit, might kill Alfred, or Gordon, or even Selina. But nobody dies. As has already been discussed, Alfred leaves much too early, only to return in the final sequence. Gordon’s hospitalization (teased at by trailers) happens even earlier, and then he is fine for the rest of the film. Selina never comes close to dying (which I’m fine with; she was a delight to watch).

However, I think the lack of dramatic, heart-wrenching moments can also be partially attributed to the predictability of the plot. I think many fans on the Internet guessed most of the major plot points long before the film’s release, and even though I avoided reading those articles and forums because I wanted to go in somewhat fresh, I was never shocked by the plot, because nothing really surprising ever happens. Bane has an elaborate plan to get the nuke, the details of which are incidental and not extremely important, he takes the city hostage after severely injuring Batman, Batman builds up his strength while the resistance mounts, Batman returns, Miranda “I’m Not Talia” Tate turns out to be Talia (Holy Plot Twist, Batman, whoever saw that coming? Oh yeah, the entire Internet, and even if you didn’t know she was Talia al Ghul, it’s painfully obvious that she will betray him, considering how inane her characterization is, how contrived her relationship with Bruce is, and how close Bane keeps her in the second and third acts). Then, both villains die in extremely anti-climactic ways (Talia is apparently killed by the slow dramatic closing of her own eyes; unfortunately, she only has enough time to give a short villain-y monologue with her dying several-breaths, but she doesn’t have enough time to laugh maniacally), and Batman flies the nuke far enough out to sea to not only be six miles away from the city, but also six miles away from wherever he is, because we soon find out he isn’t with it when it explodes (some days, you just can’t get rid of a bomb). Plus, it’s one of those nukes that has zero fallout, so nobody in Gotham will get radiation poisoning or cancer or whatever. Or maybe they do; the film doesn’t go into it. Sucks for all those orphans on that school bus, I guess. Kick ‘em while they’re down.

To be clear, I don’t really view the specifics of the nuke as a gravely serious flaw (although it is somewhat silly that the nuke’s unstable decay rate is calculated by every single character in the film, down to the second, whether or not they’ve recently glanced at the handy timer on the outside of the fusion core). Similarly, I don’t view the specifics of Wayne’s back injury and his recovery as a gravely serious flaw (it’s nice to know you can recover from a broken spine and a protruding vertebrate in a few short months by getting punched in the spine and then doing rigorous push-ups and sit-ups in a prison, and then you’ll be in tip-top shape to beat the crap out of presumably the strongest, most dangerous hand-to-hand fighter in the known world). Finally, I also don’t mind the specifics of how quickly Wayne returns to Gotham from the other side of the world, with no money, resources, or allies. However, when discussing with people who do view these specifics as flaws, “He’s Batman” and “It’s a comic book movie” are not valid arguments. The fact that he’s Batman is at best only the first sentence in a longer explanation. How exactly does him being Batman explain it? And it may be a movie adapted from a comic book, but it’s not a comic book movie. Nolan has made sure of that, by grounding the entire trilogy in hyperrealism and avoiding much of the mysticism of the comic books (for instance, R’as al Ghul’s actual, supernatural immortality in the comics becomes parlor tricks, dual identities, and pain-induced hallucinations in the movies).

Speaking of the comics, I want to focus on the ending of the film. This goes back to the predictability of the film, too. Much of the ending feels like extremely lame fan-service, in that several scenes and even major plot points feel almost like an overly giddy fan could have written them (and quite possibly did, in the months/years leading up to the film’s release). “And then Miranda Tate turns out to be Talia! And Bane is in love with her and that’s why he’s been doing all this for her! But then Catwoman comes back and boom! She blows Bane up and he’s dead!” Followed by a chase scene that could have been edited more effectively, or even written more effectively. It feels like The Bat spends at least five full minutes just flying around trying to outrun those missiles, while Selina has no problem blowing up most of the Tumblers. “And then Talia crashes her truck! Then Batman has to sacrifice himself by flying the bomb out to sea, so Catwoman kisses him! And then… kablooie! He’s dead and everyone cries! But wait, just kidding, he’s alive! And he and Catwoman are together and live happily ever after! Oh yeah, and Blake was Robin the whole time, and he discovers the Batcave! THE END!”

Now, on a more serious note, some of the ending works and some of it doesn’t. I had the biggest problems with Bane’s death—because he deserves more than a quick explosion and a Selina one-liner—the kiss—because it does not feel in the least bit earned—and the Robin scene—because it’s completely unnecessary. Bane’s death, along with the earlier reveal that Talia is the real villain and he loves her, feels cheap. As if, now that the real villain is Talia, the plot has no more room for Bane, so he has to be dealt with quickly while the plot leaves to focus on more important things. The kiss feels unearned because, although I stated earlier that Bale and Hathaway have good chemistry, we don’t get enough Selina character growth to justify her actions in that moment. The first kiss is perfect, because she uses it to steal his valet ticket. This second kiss feels a tiny bit shoehorned in. Finally, the Robin scene made me cringe. I liked almost everything about the way that John Blake’s character was handled (if anything, he may have too much screen time; he could have sacrificed a little of it in favor of Bane, Selina, Talia, Foley… really anyone else who got shortchanged), and his arc completes perfectly with the discovery of the Batcave, but the Robin scene is not only completely unnecessary, but it also feels like a weird unsubtle wink to the audience, in a bad way. Where the Joker card at the end of Batman Begins is the right way to wink at the audience, Blake’s real name being Robin is the wrong way to wink at the audience. Besides, it doesn’t even make sense. He’s not going to become Robin; he’s most likely going to take up the cape and cowl and continue to be the symbol that Wayne created—Batman. Anyway, cut that scene out, and nothing changes. It’s a throwaway scene.

To be fair to Nolan, regarding Bruce Wayne’s ending, it was a lose-lose situation. Kill him, and you’re only doing it to be dark and controversial, to shock the audience, to do something nobody thought you’d have the guts to do (but ironically, by the time the movie was on approach, everyone thought you’d have the guts to do). Let him live, and you’re only doing it to appease the audience and the studios, to have the heart-warming happy ending, to boost the worldwide box office. I think, in light of this, Nolan handles Wayne’s story arc and conclusion as well as he could have. I couldn’t help interpreting it cynically the first time I saw it, but I fully acknowledge that as my own fault.

Although I had mixed feelings about the ending, I had pretty unanimously negative feelings about the beginning—the “Prologue.” I never saw this scene when it was released in IMAX with Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, but I was expecting a lot because I had read a lot of rave reviews of this scene. Unfortunately, it did not work for me, at all (neither as a standalone scene, nor as an introduction to what I hoped would be the greatest movie of all time). The scene feels so short—in terms of overall length, in terms of the editing of individual shots, and in terms of plot significance. I believe the durations are comparable, but it somehow feels so much shorter than the bank heist prologue from The Dark Knight. The concept of a mid-air plane-to-plane hijacking is so cool that I felt robbed by how abrupt this scene feels. I wanted to revel in it longer, feel the suspense of the hijacking, and the menace of Bane’s introduction. However, Bane is not menacing but goofy; his voice in this scene—the accent, the inflections, the volume, and the resonance—is horrendous, and several lines are cringe-worthy (I’ve read that it used to be better before the outcry of people not understanding his lines, and whatever audio changes were made resulted in the final version). Another thing that baffles me about this scene is how many mannequin-characters there are. It’s pretty much a two-character scene (Bane and the lead CIA agent). Dr. Pavel has a line or two, but they don’t really matter, and the sacrificial henchman has a line or two, but they also don’t really matter, and then a ton of other characters stand around in the background and do nothing (except for dying, when the time is appropriate). In comparison, The Dark Knight prologue is miraculous in that, despite being nameless, faceless, and not having more than a couple of minutes of screen time, each individual clown on the heist feels like a fully realized character, with a unique personality. To top it all off, Aidan Gillen’s performance as the lead CIA agent is surprisingly wooden and annoyingly out of place (disclaimer: I love him in both The Wire and Game of Thrones, so I’m not quite sure what happened here…)

Lastly, I want to talk about the villains. Briefly (because she isn’t really a villain), I’ll say that Selina could have used more screen time, or at least more effectively utilized screen time, specifically in the second and third acts. Less wasted minutes of her fighting thugs and doing badass things and more dialogue-driven, character growth scenes (or at least, give her more lines in the few short dialogue-driven, character growth scenes she does have, or make them longer, etc.)

For the most part (prologue notwithstanding), I liked Bane as a villain (although I think he speaks just a little bit too much… cut a line here or there and his presence would be much more subtle and interesting), but I feel like the inclusion of Talia and the League of Shadows completely undermines anything awesome that Bane does. I know that Nolan was trying his best to bring the movie full circle, with R’as al Ghul’s daughter and the League of Shadows continuing in their attempts to destroy Gotham, but I have this feeling that the movie would have been so much better without Talia, and without the nuke, with Bane working on his own (possibly as a rogue League of Shadows agent, without their help or approval), revealing the truth about Harvey Dent, causing a revolution, and terrorizing the citizens of Gotham in his own way, without a ticking time bomb rendering most of the revolutionary speeches and terrorizing moot. Or, the story could have just as effectively gone the other way, with more influence and screen time for Talia. This would mean an earlier reveal that it actually is Talia (which wouldn’t hurt), because any Miranda Tate characterization is basically useless, since she’s playing a part. As the film stands, Talia barely gets any time to do anything interesting. She delivers her long “I’m Talia” speech, then for some reason it’s supposed to be so cold-blooded when she doesn’t bat an eye while ordering her henchman to shoot all of the cops (She’s eleven minutes away from murdering everyone in Gotham city, including all of the cops, remember? She doesn’t care; this isn’t a revelation). Then she crashes her truck and dies. Great villain. Sure, she presumably organizes everything evil that happens in the film prior to her reveal, but we don’t get to see any of that because it’s supposed to be such a big plot twist. I doubt I could write the movie in such a way that utilizes the villains more effectively, but I’m not Christopher Nolan, am I? All I know is, as the film is written, the villains both have some unrealized potential, and they’re competing for our attention.

SPOILERS OVER

I am writing this because I have to. I have to get my thoughts down on paper or I’ll brood about it for weeks. After seeing The Dark Knight Rises for the first time, I felt crushed. Sure, I had huge expectations. But Christopher Nolan has met and exceeded my huge expectations in the past. I felt let down and disappointed, as if Nolan had flaked on a promise he’d made to me. Because, without a doubt, this movie had so much promise. And that makes it worse. This movie is so daring and so ambitious. All the elements of a masterpiece are there. Unfortunately, the execution is flawed. Nolan is not a god among men, like I want to believe, but he is human, and he makes mistakes like the rest of us. A couple days after seeing it for the first time, I went and saw it a second time. I had to give it a second chance. Leaving the theater that second time, I told myself that it was growing on me, slowly. But now I realize that’s not true. I’m just slowly coming to terms with my disappointment. I’m beginning to accept The Dark Knight Rises for what it is. A missed opportunity. A sprawling, ambitious gambit that doesn’t quite pay off. The weakest entry in an otherwise phenomenally exceptional filmography.

I still love and respect you, Christopher Nolan, and I'll forgive you someday soon.

No worries man, I agree with you. But somehow I still really really like this film. I think a majority of the problems with this movie are editing issues.

Mr. Caine wrote:

theshaggyfox wrote: No worries man, I agree with you. But somehow I still really really like this film. I think a majority of the problems with this movie are editing issues.

WOW.This post thoughtfully with no exaggeration puts every little thing that stopped this film from being brilliant IMO

• Rises
  The Dark Knight
  Batman Begins

Avatar Korra wrote: