The Dark Knight Rises

The Dark Knight Rises (Christopher Nolan, 2012)

Eight years on, a new terrorist leader, Bane, overwhelms Gotham's finest, and the Dark Knight resurfaces to protect a city that has branded him an enemy.

With The Avengers, the last chapter of the Dark Knight trilogy was one of the most expected blockbusters of 2012. Having wowed thousands of movie enthusiasts and comic fans with the previous Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, writer/director Christopher Nolan is sometimes rank amongst the deities of the Seventh Art along John Ford, Fritz Lang, Alfred Hitchcock, and Stanley Kubrick. Sure Nolan has some kind of spectacular vibe around him and he captured the true dark essence of his central character. However, the filmmaker has proven to be more of a great technician at grand spectacle than a spectacular storyteller, much like Quentin Tarantino can claim to be on his side. Even this critic can actually agrees with some of the greatest qualities of The Dark Knight. However, the masterpiece that some Nolan enthusiasts were claiming in Inception isn’t really a thing I would agree on. Same thing when it comes to The Dark Knight Rises; it is not the masterpiece or even as great as its predecessor in the Dark Knight trilogy I could have had hoped for.

Sometime after the last chapter, eight years to be precise, a masked terrorist named Bane (Tom Hardy) has been ruling the underground of New York City, I mean Gotham City. With the death of Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) falsely on Batman, the Dark Knight is hiding so does Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale). Trying to keep the law and order Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) gets hurt and the whole city rapidly gets into the hands of the villains. With one of the sexiest Catwoman (Anne Hathaway), another Wayne love interest (Marion Cotillard), and returning Alfred (Michael Caine) Fox (Morgan Freeman), and newcomer Inspector Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), we’re in for another two hours and forty five minutes of battle between good and evil. A fight between those who have had to suffer to earn what they have and those who had to stole to get what they have. Just when The Dark Knight was on the right note, its follow up seems to be forced and unfocused. Many events and links are silly and lack in logic. A logic that was one of Nolan’s strengths in his making of Memento and The Dark Knight for example. The different stories have problems getting to the final denouement and it is difficult to buy its end. In my viewing I wished many times that it would have been better to actually cut some useless characters and keep the pace tighter and keep our interest higher.

Overall, this is not a bad movie at all and I would be lying if I was to say it is near mediocre, but the quality and the treatment is too heavy handed and taken too seriously a superhero movie is always just a superhero flick. Now send me all your hate mail and comments but I won’t move on my position but to say that I am quite tired of the genre and that it needs to take a break before it bores the entire public. Or on another hand, we need a rejuvenation of the whole genre and a fresh breath. It is not against Nolan or The Dark Knight Rises, even if their ok jobs don’t really deserve the praise it earned, but the whole thing is just losing my interest right now.