I’m going to do something that I’d never have imagined
doing, and compare Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy to Francis Ford
Coppola’s Godfather Trilogy. Sure, it’s not an exact correlation, as The
Godfather and The Godfather, Part II are widely considered to be two of the
finest films ever made, and I don’t think that many would suggest that even the
finest of the most recent Batman films come anywhere close to equaling them.
What I do think, however, is that an examination of the overall arc of each
respective trilogy proves a bit more telling than you might think. If The
Godfather/Batman Begins serve as the origin story, then The
Godfather, Part II/The Dark Knight illustrates what
happens when the established order of things comes crashing down and must be
re-structured. With the first two Godfather films and Nolan’s first two Batman
films, there’s a strong sense of time and place that come together beautifully.
They just feel right. They belong
together.
It’s not exactly a fair comparison, and I acknowledge that.
Even at their best, Nolan’s Batman films are still about a guy who dresses up like
a bat to go swinging from rooftop to rooftop, fighting crime with the aid of a
motley crew of supporters, and, as such, there’s a fair level of far-fetched
content that comes with the territory. Additionally, there’s a substantial backstory that’s got to be
done justice here, with even minor characters needing to be handled just so.
Unfortunately, that also means that The Dark Knight Rises is
this trilogy’s The Godfather, Part III.
This is one of the more disappointing films in recent memory,
and it’s truly unfortunate, particularly after the goods that came before. Even
though I have my issues with both of the series’ previous entries, I can’t deny
that The
Dark Knight is easily one of the finest superhero films of all, with a
final 90 minutes that moves like freight train to a thoroughly unexpected and
almost entirely satisfying conclusion. That said, The Dark Knight Rises has
a simplistic script that relies on a fairly generous level of convenience and a
lot of old-fashioned youvetakenthisasteptoofar-ism.
It’s ironic, because certain things that I didn’t think
would play all that well ended up playing far better than I’d anticipated, and
other things that I thought would be handled masterfully came across like lead balloons.
First, the good. I was very surprised to find that Anne
Hathaway is a really solid Catwoman! Who knew? I’ve been in the “it should have
been Angelina” camp since they started accepting members, but I was really
pleased at how well Hathaway fills the ears and high heels. The character
manages to maintain a fair sense of ambiguity with relation to her motives, and
has some twists and turns that are really surprising. Just when you think you
have her pegged, you realize that you really don’t. I’m also very happy that
she’s never verbally referred to as "Catwoman." There was no need to take it in
that direction, and the brothers Nolan didn’t. Her interplay with Batman
provides for some of the most entertaining bits in the film.
Michael Caine’s turn as Alfred is his finest of the series. With
the arrival of 2005’s Batman Begins, it took me a while to
get used to him in the role, particularly after Michael Gough’s fine work in
the Burton/Schumacher series. Wow. Caine’s work in The Dark Knight Rises is
something else. While there’s still a bit of him filling one of Nolan’s pet
parts as the character who rattles off long bits of exposition to fill the
audience in on stuff, he’s wonderfully emotional at key points and serves as
the film’s heart. He cares so much more about the young man that he’s loved
since birth than he does the fate of a city, and it’s wonderfully moving. I wouldn’t be entirely surprised to see Michael
Caine end up with an Academy Award nomination. It might be a long shot, but I’d
really like this to happen.
Also, with the entire narrative revolving around Batman’s
fall and eventual rise (a few times over!), there are some genuinely spine-tingling
moments when he gets back in the saddle again and comes around to save the day.
Now for the troubling bits . . .
There’s just far too much here that doesn’t really work. The
idea of the series finishing off with Batman/Bane faceoff was one that filled
me with an endless amount of excitement. He’s one of the single best villains
in the Batman universe, but he’s just not that scary here, and his grand plot
to reduce Gotham City to anarchy before it ends up in ashes works a lot better
conceptually than it does on the silver screen. I think that the large shadow
of the Joker is a bit of the problem here. The unstoppable combination of Heath
Ledger’s masterful performance and a wonderfully written character provided for
one of modern cinema’s finest villains in The Dark Knight. He had no limits,
no fear, and no rules, and that made him ridiculously scary. From moment to
moment, the viewer has no idea what he’ll do, and, what’s more, Batman has no
way of controlling someone who’s not afraid of him. He’s the true anarchist of
this trilogy. Bane, sadly, just doesn’t live up. He’s a “terrorist” who has an
interesting connection to the League of Shadows, which provides for an endless
amount of possibilities that just don’t really do that much. Additionally, the
film has a way of giving you things and then jerking them right back. I’d say
more (and will later), but cannot go into much detail here at the risk of
spoiling things.
Furthermore, there are other things that JUST DON’T WORK.
For example, did you know that now Batman sees visions? I didn’t either. It’s a
foolish idea. If what he’d seen had been real, it’d have easily been one of the
best moments in the film. Instead, its inclusion in the film makes no logical
sense at all, aside from being a narrative device/old Nolan standby to give
Batman (and subsequently the viewer) more information. What else? Bruce Wayne
apparently suffered a severe leg injury that leaves him walking around with a
cane throughout the early going, but is that explained? No, it’s not. The
majority of the Dark Knight Trilogy takes place in the evening/twilight/night
because that’s where Batman works best, right? Well, not here. Once the nuclear
bomb subplot takes precedent, we end up in a whole lotta daylight, and that’s a
strange thing from a visual standpoint, because Batman WORKS AT NIGHT. Take,
for example, the mid-film sequence where Batman makes his first appearance in
Gotham in 8 years. It’s a fantastic nighttime bit on the Batpod with Batman swooping
in to clean up after the Gotham PD (again) that ends up with every police car
in the city on his trail. It makes full use of the palate of nighttime colors,
particularly those lovely flashing police lights, to put the Batman back where
he belongs. Conversely, the final battle in the film takes place in broad
daylight, and it’s just tougher to buy into the whole thing when you’ve got a
dude running around dressed up like a bat at 2:00 in the afternoon.
Also, what’s the single greatest thing that Batman has going
for him? His anonymity. Well, the number of people who seem to know who he is
in The
Dark Knight Rises is unprecedented. What’s more, even when a key
character clearly HAS to know that it’s Bruce Wayne underneath the cowl, that
person still seems shocked to finally learn the news for the “first” time.
The single biggest problem that I have with The
Dark Knight Rises is the ending, which is surprising. Going in, I was
most excited to see what would happen at the film’s conclusion, because I
really felt that all bets were off insomuch as to where the character might end up
and what he might have to do to fulfill his destiny. Unfortunately, all it
amounts to is one big cheat. Certain things are asked (and given willingly) by
the viewer only to have them tossed back in the lap in a way that seems cloying
and shallow. I would think that Nolan would be a smart enough guy to know that
once you give someone a slice of chocolate cake, they’re going to be a bit
angry to find out that it’s tofu about three bites in. Unfortunately, I guess
he doesn’t, but I suppose that I ought to have been prepared for that, given Inception’s
lackluster limp across the finish line.
Ultimately, I end up back at The Godfather, Part III.
On its own, it’s not bad. It’s in the comparison with what came before that it
suffers so badly. It’s a decent film, but a terrible Godfather film.
By the same token, The Dark Knight Rises isn’t a bad
movie, but when you compare it to the previous films in the trilogy, it just
doesn’t hold water.
Oh, what might have been. . .
2 ½ stars (out of 5)
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