The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

Film: The Dark Knight Rises
Stars: Christian Bale, Anne Hathaway, Tom Hardy, Marion Cotillard, Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Director: Christopher Nolan
Oscar History: In an absolute stunner, it didn't get a single Oscar nomination in the tech categories
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Typically when I write a review I know an approach that I want to start with, but here, I have so many thoughts racing through my head about the film it's hard to know where to begin.  My first thoughts, and I think most of our first thoughts, are on the senseless tragedy that took place in Aurora, CO.  It's hard to imagine, even years later, that we won't think of the movie and the incident as intertwined.  My second thought is on the Batman films that preceded it, and whether it's fair to compare and contrast the films.  And my final thought is on Nolan himself, the magician who has every fanboy in the country clamoring for his every cinematic thought and nuance.  I'm going to comment right now on the latter two.

The Dark Knight Rises, for those of you who have been living under a rock on Mars (and even if you are living there, you've probably still seen the movie and also skipped John Carter), is the third installment of Christopher Nolan's epic Batman trilogy, and indeed, epic is the optimal word here.  Spoilers are coming, so avert your eyes if you haven't yet caught the latest Caped Crusader flick.  It's been years since I've seen the first film in this trilogy, but I still remember a handsome, sturdy production with a charismatic and shadow-y villain in the Sandman (ably played by Cillian Murphy).  The film opens with a darker, more sinister Batman than even Tim Burton could have imagined.  Despite some silliness (Katie Holmes does not have the acting chops of Maggie Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway, and what is with the bad Clint Eastwood impression for Batman's voice?), it was a strong, if slightly vacant, superhero film.

The second film, on the other hand, I get the hype around.  While I'm not one of those blind Nolan fans who will praise his every decision (I thought the Two-Face arc was a bit forced and a bit too quick for my tastes), that doesn't stop me from enjoying a truly spectacular film.  Nolan knows how to make some truly stunning and awe-inspiring visuals, and the opening scene, with a descending camera zooming in on a bank robbery that's about to get a little...stranger-it's just deliriously good cinema.  It's easily the best scene in the entire series, possibly one of the best scenes of the past decade.  And Nolan went for the top of the heap with Heath Ledger's Joker, a carnal and live-wire performance by a gone-far-too-soon actor who still managed to give us two of the finest performances I've ever seen on film (for those who are confused, the other one is in Brokeback Mountain, not 10 Things I Hate About You).

All this is to say that I came into this with expectations that couldn't possibly be met, but I was aware they weren't going to be met, so I was expecting to be underwhelmed when I knew I would be overwhelmed (only Chris Nolan himself would be able to understand that sentence, so let's move on).  The opening plane-hijacking scene is strong, though it's a teensy bit been-there/done-that compared to the Bank Robbery in The Dark Knight, and it gives us the new "haunt-our-dreams" villain, Bane.  I'd start to compare him to the Joker, but I think if we spend this entire review comparing the previous films to this one, it's going to get dull, but let's just say that this was a promising choice of villain, even though I don't particularly agree with having the gorgeous Tom Hardy's mug covered the entire movie (yes, I'm aware that's what the character looks like, but the double standard comes in here-when was the last time a female super villain didn't look like she'd wandered out of Victoria's Secret catalog?).

I'm not going to detail every inch of the movie (that's what the entire rest of the internet is for, apparently), but I will highlight some of my best and worst moments in the movie.  I loved the first half of the film's Bane, a menacing, physical brute whose crusade against the 1% (I made it five paragraphs before mentioning Occupy Wall Street-I think that deserves a freaking medal) gives a shade of grey to his character that I found rather remarkable for a big-screen movie (since most summer action films deal so exclusively in strong levels of black-and-white never allowing for a complicated villain).  I also adored Catwoman, as Anne Hathaway plays her as a woman who doesn't know what she wants for her future, she just knows she doesn't want her past.  And while much has been said about JGL's "right place, right time" character coincidences, I think his strong, morally upright cop is a great counterweight to Batman's more fluid code-of-ethics (similar to Gary Oldman's outstanding work in The Dark Knight...dang it, I compared again).

However, I think that the latter half had some messiness.  While the snow-coated Gotham was a rather sharp and clear visual (many things can be said of Nolan, but a lack of vision is not one of them), the late twist of Talia al Ghul's secret identity was a slap in the face to the entire idea of Bane.  Instead of him being a man with a mission gone too far, he is simply a gun-for-hire at the mercy of a madwoman with daddy issues.  By throwing this in, the shades of grey are now gone, and Nolan has taken the most interesting aspect of his movie away.  And did we really need the entire cave sequence?  Come on-we all know that Batman's going to get out of that prison.  And how the hell did he survive a nuclear blast when he's five feet above the bomb-this isn't Superman we're dealing with?

And what about you-have you seen The Dark Knight Rises?  Where does it rank in your personal Batman list?  Did you like the choices of Bane, Talia, and Catwoman, or were you (like me) hoping more for a Riddler and Harley Quinn duo?  And what about Nolan-the next David Lean or simply the next Michael Bay?