Summer Review #4 -- The Dark Knight Rises

A trilogy's final act should play out like the ending to a symphony, a boisterous triumph of the melody that had captured our imagination and kept us unable to tear away from the music. The Dark Knight Rises, Christopher Nolan's conclusion to his incredible Batman series, is such a film.

**THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS**

After an eight-year long exile, Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) is a broken man. Having accepted responsibility for Harvey Dent's crimes under the guise of Batman, he has been a recluse since, with his alter ego not far from turning into a reviled urban legend on Gotham City's streets. With his city's pulse revived and his life at a standstill, Wayne is lost, seeing no purpose to his existence anymore and unable to look beyond Batman to find his identity.

Then another brand of evil decides to rear its masked head. A sinewy, ruthless aggressor named Bane (Tom Hardy) has arrived to start a revolution among the already embittered Gotham denizens. Seeing no other way to defend his city, Wayne knows that he must go back to Batman. With the assistance of loyal butler Alfred (Michael Caine) and inventor Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman), Wayne transforms into the fiery vigilante again, all the while playing cat-and-mouse games with burglar Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway) and cooperating with old ally Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman). But Bane might be Batman's -- and Wayne's -- toughest opponent yet...

Nolan's trilogy feels like the cosmic life cycle of a superhero. If Batman Begins was the birth and The Dark Knight the chaos and demise, then The Dark Knight Rises is certainly the resurrection. The elements of film noir that Nolan has introduced to his opus are more evident here than in the two previous parts, particularly with the hero's predicament and the addition of new love interests. This time, the hero must prove himself again to the city he had once defended, but he is dealing with different jurisprudence challenges than the last time around, all of them creating the perfect storm for the new force rushing in. Nolan does not hold back on the blood, sweat and tears accompanying these transitions. Both literally and metaphorically, he freely keeps pounding and pummeling Batman and his allies, placing the violence in a definitive context. The film's barbarities are certainly delineated by its themes, which range from good versus evil to social justice, and which are too coincidental to be seen as such in the first place. Intentionally or not, the goings-on evoke the beginnings of the Occupy Wall Street movement and the issues brought forth by the 2008 recession, with the villain's machinations creating an atmosphere of utter desolation. In the end, The Dark Knight Rises is perhaps more political than it wants to be, which only makes its grittiness more palpable and its hero a more stalwart figure to root for -- a resurrection indeed.

The film does have its share of problems, though. The various fight scenes occasionally overwhelm the narrative, bringing bare action and not the screenplay to the forefront. Some of the characters, like Gordon and Fox, are not given much to do, particularly considering how crucial they were to Batman's birth. Depicted as rather intriguing, Catwoman is a nearly one-dimensional sketch, which is a shame. The resolution to the nuclear danger also leaves a lot to be desired -- was the bomb really detonated far enough for the city not to experience any consequences? I would not feel too safe if I was actually able to SEE an atomic explosion.

As in the two earlier films, the acting is in a league of its own. Bale was born to play Wayne, showing the character's duality as the one thing in the world that can either empower or destroy him at this point. Caine is fantastic as Alfred and I wish the new facets of the two characters' relationship had been examined further. There are other stellar supporting turns as well, including those from Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Marion Cotillard.

The best performances, however, come from two of the new additions to the cast, Hathaway and Hardy. At first I was not sure about the prospect of Hathaway playing the iconic femme fatale, but I am happy to say that my doubt was misplaced. The actor goes effortlessly from light to dark, from perky to ominous. She also projects vulnerability, a quality that eludes the usually campy incarnations of the infamous thief and one that gives a new aspect to the character. Her Catwoman is not only a lethal beauty, she is a flawed human being, a woman who has mastered the art of survival long ago and whose preservation instincts match Wayne's own. The character's potential makes me yearn for the part to have been expanded.

Hardy, on the other hand, radiates mayhem. His Bane is the dark prince of urban anarchy, a hulking threat waiting to strike at any and every opportunity, an extremist tactician that lets his combat skills speak on his behalf. The actor's physicality is essential to the part and he embraces it with relish, bringing unexpected nuances to the table. Rare is the actor that manages to provoke both hatred and empathy in the role of a fanatical villain and Hardy achieves this task, his acting tools constrained to his eyes and body, instruments he utilizes to full advantage. Some villains are sadists, some are psychotic and others are desperate cowards. Bane is neither of these things, serving instead as a human assault, a brute with a strategist's mind. His encounters with Batman are the epitome of violence, but he is armed with something more than mere strength and malevolence -- he has a cause that whips his belief into a frenzy, a purpose that makes him unstoppable.   

With The Dark Knight Rises, Christopher Nolan concludes a trilogy that has presented the Batman universe from a new and daring angle. Although some of the threequel's elements could have used fine-tuning, the film succeeds in raising the stakes for the principal characters and transporting them into our everyday vernacular. Through its exploration of subjects like family, freedom and enslavement, the film proves to be an effective view of Batman's ultimate quandary, an entertaining ride from start to finish and an ending worthy of the franchise's beginning.

9/10