Review of The Dark Knight Rises (2012) by Miroslav G — 25 Jan 2015

From what I've heard of what other people have to say about this film, it seems that its a mixed bag among audiences and I can certainly see why. The Dark Knight Rises is a pretty flawed film in terms of plot logic/consistency, and its problems seem like they could've easily been fixed if the filmmakers really wanted to do so (I'm not going to go into detail about what its problems are because they're quite numerous and it would just be a waste of time to do so because anyone who's seen the film should be capable of easily pointing them out).

On the other hand, I'm not surprised the film is so flawed because of the fact that it was more of an obligatory finale for director Christopher Nolan than it was a creative endeavor. However, and this is probably just the Nolan fan in me talking, but I still quite enjoy this film despite its faults and I think it serves as a great trilogy capper more than anything else (I like to think of it as the Return of the Jedi of The Dark Knight Trilogy).

And while The Dark Knight is the darkest and most brooding film of the trilogy, The Dark Knight Rises is the most fun and action-packed, being quite an enjoyable movie experience if not anything else.

The highlight of The Dark Knight may have been Heath Ledger's Joker, but here its Tom Hardy's portrayal of Bane and he surely does deliver. While his portrayal never quite reaches the heights of Ledger's (because such an act is nearly impossible), he does however give us a powerful and realistic interpretation of one of Batman's greatest foes.

Plus, it was great to finally see a villain in the films that could go toe to toe against Batman, and ultimately beat him even. The returning cast (Christian Bale, Gary Oldman, Michael Caine, and Morgan Freeman) are all great yet again too.

Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle/Catwoman, is the first good female lead I've seen in these films, being able to hold her own against Bale's Batman and gives us more of a comic book accurate portrayal of the character than Michelle Pfeiffer did twenty years prior in Batman Returns.

Joseph Gordon Levitt's character of John Blake was, in my opinion, rather dull and completely unnecessary, only being put into the film so that he could become Batman at the end. Another thing that bothered me was Bane's fate towards the end; the big twist leaves the great and powerful Bane as nothing more than a glorified bodyguard.

On top of that, Bane's death was so miniscule and insignificant that it left me in utter disappointment; I wanted to see a fitting death for the character, an epic death for an epic villain. So while The Dark Knight Rises is certainly not without its faults and is the weakest of The Dark Knight Trilogy, it ultimately lives up to its predecessors and ends the epic trilogy on a great and memorable note (and that's enough for me).