Thoughts on Batman, Rising and Risen

Do you guys remember my SPATULA?  Well, first off, that died.  I didn't get the grant, so if I do end up doing that project it will be unfunded.  But the point of bringing it up is to use it as an example of how much I love the movie The Dark Knight.  That movie is, in my opinion, as pretty near perfect as a film can be.  I will go into why I feel that way a little later on, but you can imagine how excited I've been for The Dark Knight Rises with that sort of parentage, can't you?

I'm not the only one.  In fact, my excitement has been relatively tame compared to some I know.  I actively tried to avoid trailers and other promotional materials because in this case I didn't want to go into the movie already feeling like I knew what was going to happen.  And because I had this suspicion.  I was worried that this was going to be one of those movies where the hero gets pummeled beyond my idea of human endurance and I wouldn't want to watch it anymore.  And I didn't want to have to worry about that, so I just avoided watching the trailers.  Fun fact: it was not one of those movies.  In case you were worried like me.  

But anyway, I was super excited.  However, just as I was walking in to the theatre at 6:59 pm on Thursday evening I realized something.  There was no possible way that this movie was going to live up to my expectations!  That is, the chances were virtually zero.  I mean, Christopher Nolan is the guy who gave us Inception and The Dark Knight.  The expectations I had for him as a master storyteller were practically inhuman.  So, while it was possible that this film would be as good as I was hoping, I took a moment to prepare myself for it not to be.  Turns out this was a good thing.  

Now this is not to say that I didn't love The Dark Knight Rises.  First and foremost, please remember that, when I say that this movie did not live up to the one before it, that is comparing to an insanely high standard, and falling short of that standard still leaves the movie at a higher level than most others.  So please remember that, for the rest of this post.  Though I was disappointed (how could I not have been?) I still really liked the movie.  I would say it was as good as Inception...

I will put the rest of this post under a cut, so that you can avoid it if you've not yet seen the movie...

So let me try to briefly tell you why I rank The Dark Knight as one of the greatest films I've ever seen.  I have long felt that there are two levels of success when it comes to art.  The first is Good Art--I'll focus on literature, cause that's my thing.  A Good Book is a book that really nails something.  It has phenomenal characters.  The plot is air tight.  The ideas are fascinating and thoroughly developed.  The writing is gorgeous.  But then there is Great Art.  This would be a book that isn't simply great in one or two aspects, but in all of them.  Much as I love Orson Scott Card, he has yet to write a Great Book.  He has great ideas, but to this day I think he's only been able to write, at best, two distinct characters: stupid ones and smart ones.  On the other hand, you may know of my fanatical devotion to Victor Hugo's Les Miserables.  Every single element of that book is brilliant.  It is a Great Book.  The Dark Knight was a Great Film.  This movie is a masterpiece of storytelling, philosophizing, entertaining, craftsmanship, and acting.  It nails every single element in the craft of movie making.  Which is impressive because there are so many more people involved in the making of a movie, all of whom must be working at the top of their game, to turn it into a Great Film, as opposed to one single author creating a Great Book.  

The Dark Knight Rises, on the other hand, was a Good Movie.  One of the things that I love about TDK is the way every single thing that happens furthers either the plot, the character development, or the themes of the movie.  If the Joker is shown brutalizing someone, it serves to further demonstrate how deranged and psychopathic he is.  If Batman is fighting drug dealers, you are seeing more evidence of his refusal to kill, and his approach to problem solving.  Even the requisite Batman Brooding on Buildings scenes are made utilitarian as you realize that he's using the receivers behind him to track the Joker.  There is not a single moment of wasted screen time.  TDKR, on the other hand, contained several scenes that pulled me out of the story and made me think "did he not know how to fill the time?  Surely not, as this film is nearly 3 hours long..."  For example, in any standard summer action flick you would practically expect a hero with a cool new jeticopter to have a scene where he has to fly through the city to outrun some missiles.  But the thing is, a scene like that serves no purpose besides building manufactured tension--tension that is lacking from the actual story itself (or, in some cases...flying to outrun the missiles IS the story...*sigh*).  That is why it felt so out of place in this film.  Nolan, of all people, shouldn't feel the need after two hours of story-telling to create manufactured tension through a missile chase!  It should already be there!  It was scenes like that, scenes that simply felt like "filler", that were the biggest disappointment to me.  Nolan's storytelling was not up to par here, and, unfortunately, in contrast to TDK, it was sharply evident.  

Even more than I love the tight storytelling of TDK, however, I love idea of the movie.  The biggest complaint that I have heard about that movie, since it was released, was that it was "just too dark".  I have never been able to understand that complaint!  Do you all not understand the primary message of that film?  Here is one solitary film, in a sea of post-modern cynicism, pessimism, absurdism, and despair, that actually argues for the innate Goodness of Mankind!  How can you condemn such a movie as too dark?  Opposition and contrast are the very makers of experience--without intense darkness how could one possibly perceive intense light?  Though I don't generally include religious elements in my blog posts, in this case I feel that if you reject the film because of religious beliefs it might be beneficial for you to review those ideas of opposition.  And if you are telling a story, and you wish to emphasize the fundamentally good nature of people, how can you do so without pitting it against real depravity; anyone can be "good" when their life is problem-free, it is when that life has gone horribly wrong that choices actually hold significance.  

The Dark Knight Rises, on the other hand, had a much less developed philosophical core.  Many people have complained that Nolan was getting political and trying to press some sort of agenda.  I disagree, and not simply because I hate torturing pop culture entertainment into the deforming corset of politics.  My good friend Anneke has done a very good job of deconstructing the "political" messages of the film here.  But the fact is, where The Dark Knight focused on fascinating issues of good versus bad, heroic versus narcissistic, right versus wrong, The Dark Knight Rises addresses ideas of cooperation, honesty, strength, and equality.  These ideas, while definitely interesting, are much more broad in scope. That is, I felt like Nolan had definitely found good ideas, but he had not done an adequate job of focusing his attention to create a cohesive thematic statement.  In layman's terms, there was no solid central conflict for the audience to connect to, like in the previous two films.  Batman Begins dealt with Bruce's identity, and his choice of how to deal with the trauma of his personal history.  The Dark Knight broadened the scope a little more and asked the question "What is a Hero in general?  How much of his identity is his own and how much is created by those her serves?"  TDKR attempted to further broaden these themes, but ended up apparently getting away from Nolan to fizzle out undeveloped.  The example that comes to mind here was the seeming development of Bruce beyond Batman, which I initially thought was going to be the main conflict of the film.  Against the Joker Batman's strength was counterproductive because the more aggressive he became the closer he aligned himself with his nemesis.  In Bane his strength was negated by simple domination.  Bane was bigger and stronger and apparently was going to force Bruce to find a new way to solve problems besides punching them really hard and yelling at them.....until that is all erased in a final fight where, until he gets stabbed in the back, Batman dominates through--wait for it--greater strength.  Wait...what was supposed to be happening again?  There were good things happening, but there were too many left too underdeveloped.  

But let's talk about those good things.  Because, remember, I actually really liked this movie.  Thusfar I have drawn unflattering comparisons between The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises.  But if you can manage to divorce you evaluation of this film from a comparison to the other, there are definitely many strengths here.  Like Bane.  I have heard a lot of people complaining that they thought he was a "boring" character.  This review makes the inevitable comparison to Heath Ledger's Joker.  But the fact is, the Joker was one type of villain, Bane was another.  Trying to compare the two is plain stupid.  Instead, contrast them and think of Bane as a counterpoint to the Joker.  The Joker was brilliant and I could write an entire blog post about his character.  He was caustic and flamboyant, completely insane and utterly devious.  He knew he could never compete with Batman physically, and he didn't try; instead he depended on manipulation.  Bane, on the other hand, was the exact opposite: someone who could outmatch the Batman in a straight up fistfight and had his own set of rules just as rigid as Bruce's.  He was, certainly as compared to the Joker, straightforward--he told Batman exactly what he planned to do, and then he did it.  I thought he was a great foil after the twisted insanity of the Joker.  Especially when, at the end, you find out that Bane is a believer...just not necessarily in the League of Shadows .  He is a believer in Talia Al Gul.  I absolutely loved that reversal.  Here was a villain who was acting out of his devotion to another person, rather than his own love of violence or crime.  Brilliant!  And his calm self-assuredness was a wonderful counterpoint to Batman's stoic persona.  One of my favorite moments in the film was when Daggett finally realizes that he's in over his head with Bane.  He starts huffing about how he's in charge and Bane just rests his hand on Daggett's shoulder.  Not even in a threatening way, simply places it there and asks "Do you feel like you are in charge?"  I absolutely loved the naked power implied there.  Bane doesn't even need to threaten this man, it is so blatantly obvious that he has absolutely no control over him.  Which Bane makes even more clear when he responds to Daggett's protest that he paid him a small fortune with a simple "Do you think that that gives you power over me?" and then almost tenderly brushes the man's cheek.  Possibly my favorite moment in the movie.  

I also really loved that this movie showed us the consequences of the end of The Dark Knight.  And they weren't nearly what we were expecting.  In terms of the story, the ending to The Dark Knight is perfect and poignant and fascinating...but if you step out of the framework of that movie and look at it in terms of real life consequences, it raises a lot of very serious questions.  The Dark Knight Rises dove into those questions head first.  It addressed Reaction and Hysteria politics (the Dent Act, which, from what I could tell, essentially suspended due process in criminal hearings) and end-justifying-the-means policy.  Even down to Gordon's festering resentment and fury at praising the man who threatened to kill his boy.  We saw the consequences to Bruce's body of his constant abuse of it.  Even Wayne Enterprises was no longer the bastion of bottomless wealth it had previously been.  So often comic book films completely ignore the consequences: the Avengers tear up New York, the X-Men deface the Statue of Liberty, etc etc...and no one ever seems to care.  I liked having a film that dealt with consequences of all sorts.  

And I suppose, given my relatively known dislike of Ann Hathaway, I should address Catwoman.  All I'll say about her is that, considering how badly her character had the potential of going, I was impressed.  She certainly wasn't my favorite character ever, but I didn't hate her, and that is saying a lot.  I also feel like the only reason the Bat-Cycle made a return was so that we could have endless shots of her pleather-clad derriere perched up on it.  But that's sort of what Catwoman is all about...

This post has gone on far too long.  There is much more I could say, but I think I'll leave it at that.  If you disagree with anything I've said, feel free to leave your opinion in the comments, provided you do so in an intelligent and respectful manner.  I have no patience with jerks and trolls.  :)  But I am very interested in opening up intelligent discussion and hearing what y'all might have to say...