The long awaited final chapter of the Chris Nolan Batman trilogy, The Dark Knight Rises has finally come out. How does the third and final movie in the Nolan franchise compare to the first two movies? What did you think? Watch me and David’s thoughts below.
- Dennis
I really liked it. Definitely not my favourite of the three. It falls short of both Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. But I was able to get invested in the story and the characters, the action was good. I loved the music. The Deshi Basara chant was interwoven really well. It was made to be threatening and later triumphant. The scale was there, this was HUGE. Nolan's tactic of making it as physical and practical as possible paid off. But FINALLY Gotham city felt like a character. It's taken three films but Gotham City finally has personality and feels like this grim and violent place that they keep making it out to be.
Anne Hathaway as Selina was great. She was snarky and bitchy and no matter how hard you tried you just couldn't hate her. I liked Joseph Gordon Levitt as John Blake. He was able to add something fresh. Gary Oldman was excellent but he rarely isn't these days.
Bane I thought was a good villain. Thematically I liked where he was going and the type of challenge he was presenting Bruce to begin with.
I hear so many people saying that they didn’t like that there wasn’t a lot of Bruce as Batman in this. I’m the opposite. I really liked that. Each appearance had purpose. The first time which I think was about an hour through the film. It feels like Batman has returned from a long absence.
That said, as much as I liked this it has so many problems. I'll never disagree or argue with people who didn't like this because chances are I'll know why they didn't.
And for me chief among them is that it is just far too weighed down with characters and plot it gets exhausting. Probably because this was the final chapter they probably wanted to give everyone something, everyone a purpose etc…
It does look like they made an attempt to streamline the content but why on earth was Alfred one of the casualties of the script editing process? I loved that speech in the trailer and his relationship with Bruce in Batman Begins is my favourite aspect of that film but he's sidelined here and it's sad that he was.
However the oversized nature of this film really shows with that twist at the end. I hated that, it's just not a good twist. At all. In a film already overflowing with stuff that was just gratuitous and damaging. And the big cost was that they undid the menace and ferocity of Bane. In the space of a few minutes he lost everything that was going for him.
They did drop the hint, scratch that. The warning light did switch on earlier but I was begging that the alarm wouldn't go off but it did and during the final moments too. It went one step further in the wrong direction and it just failed. It was unnecessary, had they done the reveal earlier I don't think it would have backfired as badly but even so it should have been left out. It was cheap and was such a shame that it was there.
Overall a really good film. Just one prominent problem that manifests itself in a number of ways.
I thought there was way way way toooo much Alfred in this movie. But I agree with you about Bane it really sucked to have such a great villain be castrated like that.
A solid movie and a fitting end to the trilogy.
Totally agree with both of you on the movie being too ambitious. The Dark Knight Rises deserves praise for being ambitious even as those very ambitions cause a distancing effect on the emotional beats that were being presented throughout the movie.
Anne Hathaway was THE delight of the movie. Hardy was good and gave a solid performance but I found Bane dull and his departure deficient. None of the set pieces thrilled like those from the previous two movies.
Movie felt like it could use another round of story polish – this one has more hand waving moments in it than the previous two combined – and editing bay – a lot of the emotional payoff moments felt clunky. Whole lot of monologuing in this one – a sign of those ambitions being too much for the movie to properly display.
The more I think about it the more I think the Bane mask design was a mistake. Eyes provide important visual cues and so does a person's mouth.
For me, Nolan's Inception remains his high mark in terms of writing and direction.
Batman Begins > The Dark Knight > The Dark Knight Rises
PS – also agree Hardy did a great job within the physical and story limitations placed upon the character but yeah the reveal that he was just muscle really diminished Bane as a malevolent character.
Ideally Bane and Talia should have appeared in the second movie and the Joker in the third with the plots of the last two movies reworked to fit the characters in appropriately.
Of course, that would mean no Ledger as The Joker even though I feel other actors could have done as equally a good a job – a thought that won't be that of popular consensus.
Finally, I thought the autopilot reveal was underwhelming and a bit of a cheat too.
Batman Begin has the theme of fear (and how Bruce conquers it and use it against his foes), and with the Joker, Dark Knight convey the strong theme of chaos.
This one I've read online (Nolan’s interview) that the theme is pain and consequences, and I think it works well with the choice of Bane and Talia.
< SPOLER ALERT >
On the surface both of them don’t seem to outshine the performance of Ledger’s Joker, but in fact Nolan showed a different kind of villains… If Joker just want to watch the world burns, these two only want vengeance. One is to break Batman physically and mentally, while the other quietly take time to take away whatever Bruce has left.
Second viewing knowing who Talia is made the movie much stronger, that now we can assume she has been plotting her revenge for many years (at least 8 and who’s to say if the Joker wasn’t a force of nature unleashed by her?), and you can see why Bane and co. seems to know every move commissioner Gordon and the resistances.
I do think this movie has its own issues, just like previous two. But the more I think about it, in my opinion this is a stronger movie than the Dark Knight.
Not only it delivered a fitting ending to the characters, but also giving us villains not just a force of “chaotic” nature, but a duo that successful exact their revenge to take away almost everything Bruce got.
And through that pain and suffering, Bruce Wayne finally can let go and move on with his life (if he somehow survived the blast…). That, is why I rated this one the best out of the 3.
Great review guys. I saw it last night and enjoyed it tremendously. Is it flawed? Definitely. But I was engaged throughout, and the ending was great. I think it did the multiple ending thing very well.
Thanks for the review guys! Unfortunate that TDKR cannot escape the "is it better than The Dark Knight" critique, which seems to be the standard with super hero review, but I thought it was a great end of the trilogy. The one point that I absolutely liked that you made was about the bringing together of themes from each of the movies. Nolan may have achieved closure for a comic book story-line.
It may not be better than the Dark Knight(of course) but it was a decent ending to an amazing series. Thank you Christopher Nolan.
Good review
I don't know about it being too ambitious i think it achieved what it was set out to achieve. I think this film stands as tall as the first movie but of course Dark Knight is just well it can't be touched it had the ultimate villain the joker. Bane had a interesting story line, i also would have liked him to have a more in depth plot for himself and not just being the muscle. I seen the twist coming because if your a Batman fan you already knew Bane was never Ras son. To me Joseph Gordon Levitt had a great story line in this i agree i didn't like him knowing who Batman was. I like that he is Robin or at least they built him up to be that. Catwoman made the movie for me I really think the ending left it open for a fourth film i just cant see this franchise going away.
Who do oyu think was the dark figure that was watching when comissioner Gordon was making a speech about Harvey Dent ??
I don't qite agree with your review.I think it was a great movie.Basically the best movie I ve seen after the Dark Knight.Bane was great as villain and the actor did a magnificent job despite the heavy weigh if the comparizon with Joker!!