Dark Knight Rises - Movie Review

In this final installment to the Christopher Nolan trilogy, Batman must "Rise" again after being MIA for 8 years to face a new enemy hellbent on bringing Gotham City to ashes.

But does Batman doesn't really RISE as high as everyone says?

Let's break it down a bit. With a movie like THIS...I'm gonna have to.

The Highlights:

1. Bane. Bane in this is rather intimidating as soon as he walks on screen. You just kinda get the creeps watching him on screen. 

2. Anne Hathaway/Catwoman. I love how she just flips back and forth from damsel in distress to ass kicker. That was fun to watch. For a while.
3. The action. As with most superhero movies, the action is always a plus. But even in campy out-dated movies like Spider-Man (2002) you still root for the hero, even though you know what's gonna happen since you've seen it before. But while I was enjoying the action, I was never really rooting for Batman like I was during Dark Knight or Batman Begins. But the action was still good.

The Average:

1. The music. Hans Zimmer has incredible prowess as a musician and has given us incredible scores to incredible movies. But with this one it's like they just put the Batman Begins and Dark Knight soundtrack on "shuffle and repeat". Now Zimmer is known to re-use a theme song and put it in sequels, such as with Dead Man's Chest, At World's End, and On Stranger Tides. But with those movies he mixed it up a little. Here? Not so much.
2. The cast. It's always fun to have a few cool characters in a movie. But if you add too much, you'll overflow the movie. Which is exactly what happened. There were too many characters, and because of that they didn't focus on Bruce/Batman. Lucius Fox was cool. For the 4-7 scenes he was in. Alfred just leaves 20 minutes into the film, Joseph Gordon-Levitt as John Blake seems to be just...there, and they took Commissioner Gordon out of commission pretty early into the movie. Not to mention you don't give a good God DAMN about the true bad guy. 
3. The final 30 minutes. The final half hour of the film gets as predictable as entire superhero movies of the past have been. While sitting in the theater I literally thought to myself "Batman's gonna save the day in 3...2...1" and not surprisingly, he would save the day. Or "This is gonna happen in 3....2...1" and it would happen. Not to mention, there's a scene where the bad guy "Talia Al Ghul" (aka the person you don't give two shits about) presses the detonator, and it doesn't work at first. I immediately thought of the scene in the internet movie "Kickassia" where the Nostalgia Critic or Nostalgia Bison presses the remote, and nothing happens. It was comedic, not dramatic. However, as predictable as it was, it was still entertaining to watch.

The Low-Points

1. The ending. So when everyone was commenting on YouTube that "Batman died" they were right. But only half right. The ending felt like a total cop out. Batman saves Gotham (BIG shocker) by flying the nuclear bomb over the city and to the bay. In the last shot we see Batman INSIDE the vehicle, but in another shot we see Bruce Wayne with Selena Kyle in Italy enjoying themselves. Then we learn that John's real name is Robin John Blake, and he inherits the Batcave. Yeah this is like how Disney or  DreamWorks doing Batman would end it. On a happy note. For God's sake EPISODES of Batman: the Animated Series (best batman cartoon ever, without a doubt, end of story), sometimes ended on a darker note. I wonder if anyone working on this movie watched "The Muppets" (2011) before writing the script for this. 
2. Psychological Aspects. What I LOVE about Nolan movies, is that they make you think. Batman Begins (the first half at least) dove deeply into the psychology that makes Batman Batman and Bruce Wayne Bruce. He also emphasizes heavily on character, but in this film the character aspect was a bit jumbled up. In fact I would go so far as to say it was REALLY jumbled up. The scene that gives the movie its title is way too short and I would've liked it to be a lot longer. Bruce is in this prison cave WITH NO GUARDS after being severely beaten by Bane. He has to learn how to be Batman again, and apparently SIX months go by as he does it. But the big moment when he does learn to "rise up" as Bane's theme states, is really short. It was like "yeah. He got out of the prison. How? He's Batman.". If that scene had been 30-45 min longer, it would've made a deeper impact. This movie never really made me think and feel for the characters like it's predecessors did. 
3. The plot holes. This is a bit of a nit pick, but I think I need to bring it up. People seem to be simply overlooking these things completely. Maybe it's because it's simply a Batman movie. But people can hate a Batman movie. Just mention Batman and Robin. People go nuts. And not in the good way. Like PLOT HOLE NUMBER 1: How does BATMAN of all people get into Gotham City, when it's being held captive? Never explained. PLOT HOLE NUMBER 2: How did John Blake just...COME to the conclusion that Bruce Wayne was Batman? Never addressed. Who knew simply looking at a guy would make one think "Yeah. THAT'S Batman. It has to be.". PLOT HOLE NUMBER 3: Bruce Wayne's limp. A lot can happen in eight years but other than the doctor telling us that Bruce had...something messing with his knee it's never really explained how. THEN Bruce makes this machine that gives his leg that was bugging him strength that would make SUPERMAN blush, and then throughout the movie he's STILL limping as Bruce Wayne. PLOT HOLE NUMBER 4: Selena Kyle gets sent to a male prison. Why? They give some BS reason but no one really cares. PLOT HOLE NUMBER 5: Bruce Wayne healing a SEVERELY INJURED BROKEN BACK in a PRISON in six months. OK this is definitely a nit pick, but really? In the real world you'd have to spend MONTHS maybe YEARS doing therapy, learning to walk, to stand upright, and all that. Bruce does that not only in a prison, but with no doctors around or medicinal help. What a shock. 

 Oh the flaw of every superhero movie....

4. Batman's voice. This is just another nit pick, but really, did Nolan learn NOTHING from all the parodies people put on YouTube imitating Batman's voice? The voice in this one got deeper, which just made it sillier. When Batman gets pissed, he yells. But when he yelled in Dark Knight, it was almost scary.

In this one, not only can you not understand a word he says, but it's just silly. They fixed Bane's voice, why couldn't they change Batman's voice? To me, the best Batman voice, is in Batman Begins. It's a little deep, but not silly deep, it heavily disguises the real Bruce Wayne, and it was a little on the intimidating side as well. Sometimes the original is the best. 

5. The plot. Yeah they should've just named this movie Batman Begins 2. The League of Shadows comes back (I shit you not) and Bane was just a TOOL (yeah. The big scary dude who was able to accomplish what the Joker tried to do to Batman was a tool) and the real bad guy is a chick they threw in at the last minute to TRY and give us a weird as hell plot twist. THIS is what it comes down to? 

Guess who the villain is. The...The actual bad guy. Pretty obvious wouldn't you say so?

OK she's an actual Batman comic book character, but she's the daughter of Ra's Al Ghul. And what does she want? TO FINISH HER FATHER'S WORK. Why? Gotham's a pretty nice city now. Well...They have to give the hero SOMETHING to do right? But  no, they want to show that the very SOUL of Bruce Wayne/Batman would break if they showed him what was happening to his city. They want to give power back to the citizens of Gotham. But nononono they want to ruin the lives of the rich, and let the average joes AND criminals of Gotham take over. 

Yeah this movie proves the Joker's point from the DK. "Upset the established order, introduced a little...Anarchy, and EVERYTHING becomes CHAOS." That was the theme of the SECOND movie. First movie = Fear. Second movie = Chaos. Third film = pain/chaos. With this kind of plot you can EASILY just take out the second movie. What was the point of the Joker? He already put Gotham into chaos. These League of Shadow people were a little late to the party. 

FINAL RATING: DVD Release

As a whole, this movie is very flawed. But it was still enjoyable. Despite the cop out ending, and nonsensical plot, it was a somewhat satisfying ending to the best CPR of a franchise. With too many characters, not enough psychological aspects, rehashed plots, for me, this movie was rather underwhelming. But overall, this was a GOOD final finale to our beloved Dark Knight.