Review:
*Originally written September 12th, 2018*
I've tried, I've really tried. I want to love The Dark Knight Rises so much, I've given it so many chances, but it never improves, the flaws become more apparent and it seems to get worse with every watch. That said, this isn't the worst watch of it I've ever had, possible due to a 4K bump. As gorgeous as the 4K disc is, that means nothing for a film that is a complete write off on nearly every front.
I'm probably going to pick out a lot of things that have been brought up over the years with this. I'll get the good out the way first. It looks gorgeous, this is still a cinematic and beautiful film with one of Hans Zimmer's strongest scores. Nolan's flair for set-pieces and action is nearly unmatched. I nearly thought I was on board with this watch after the thrilling plane sequence, but it quickly falls apart.
Where DKR falls apart 90% of the time is in its screenplay. Nothing makes sense. Rather than feeling like a compelling and powerful ending to the Dark Knight Trilogy, what we have is an overlong mess of a film. I used to find this at the very least entertaining to watch, but in all honesty, it's just really boring and irritating.
Nolan has had scripting issues in his films before, but they're usually during smaller or background scenes that don't really matter and can be overlooked. Here, it's front and display through the entire run-time. It is insane how this first draft feeling screenplay managed to get greenlit. Characters you've seen grow through two films are completely wasted and go against everything you'd seen from them so far. Alfred leaving Bruce because he feels Bane is unlike anything he's come up against is just so strange and makes no sense.
The film makes a big deal about Tom Hardy's Bane being removed from The League of Shadows because his methods were "Too extreme", in this we're given no real indication of what that could be. Instead it's just a boring nuke the city and the good guys have to disarm it at the 11th hour. It's a very uninspired bad guy plan that could have least had some emotional weight to it, but just failed to make me care. They nearly manage to squeeze an emotional moment out from you, but due to extremely manipulative and lazy editing, that potentially meaningful moment is pulled from under us for a lame, eye rolling reveal at the end.
We're also introduced to a whole new series of characters that are all so under-baked and wasted. All the performances are fine, it's just the script that screws them over. Joseph Gordon-Levitt's Blake is just the worst, a muddled character with a confusing arc. He finds out who Batman is due his smile when Bruce Wayne visited his orphanage as a kid, it made no sense. Then we have him shoot two criminals, in a blatant exercise of self-defence, throws his gun away in disgust (Obviously to mirror Batman's no guns policy), but then just picks up a gun anyway... It made no sense. And for some reason his superiors constantly refer to him as "Hot head" for no other reason than doing the basics of his job.
Tom Hardy's Bane should have been a hulking force of nature, and he has his moments. The scene where he "Breaks the Bat" is genuinely brutal and exciting, displaying how powerful he is. It's a problem that has been mocked and made fun of for years, but it's true, His voice is a completely misguided idea. It really helps to watch DKR with subtitles, because a lot of the time, it's near impossible to understand what he says. It's also a shame where they go with his character by the end, reducing him to some lovesick henchman and giving him a completely unsatisfying and rushed death scene.
Since Bane is reduced to a henchman for Marion Cottilard's Talia al Ghul, things get even messier. Cottilard is a fine actress, so it's so strange and bizarre that she's completely wasted and given one of the most mocked and atrocious death scenes ever committed to film. Her role is so blatantly telegraphed through the film, making her villain reveal utterly meaningless and ineffective.
Anne Hathaway's Catwoman is a also meant to be a sorta minor villain who changes her ways to be with Bruce at the end. While all the other performances range from fine to good, Hathaway sticks out like a sore thumb, trying so desperately hard to come off as sexy and snarky, that it just feels utterly cringe. She's just another character who's arc makes no sense at all. She's a career thief who only cares about herself, but changes her mind towards the end for no real reason. Oh, and there's a whole subplot about her after a device that wipes someones entire criminal record and every trace of them off the internet.
I haven't even got to Bruce Wayne or Batman yet. 8 years after The Dark Knight, he's a reclusive cripple who hasn't been Batman since killing Harvey Dent and is still suffering from the injury he sustained from that. He's walks with a cane due to the fact he has no cartilage in his knee, then he gets some robot leg thing that completely fixes that. Oh, okay. He's called back into action due to Bane's exploits and constantly talks about how he hasn't given everything for Gotham yet. So it would have made sense for him to die. He goes through Hell in this film. His back is broken and he's taken to a prison in the middle of nowhere where his back is fixed after a couple of months and a punch in the back. Then he's able to be Batman again. No, really. That happens. It's such a muddled mess.
There was just so much potential here that's utterly wasted, it has the feel and scale of a Christopher Nolan film, but it just crushed and the immense weight of its truly awful screenplay. I continue to be confused at the people who 5 star this complete mess. Did they see a different film? Or am I just wrong? I've tried for years to like this film, and while I wish I could even enjoy this on a surface level, I can't even do that, I just feel disappointed and the insane potential that could have made a satisfying end to the trilogy. Still my biggest disappointment of all time.
4/10 Dans
The Dark Knight Rises is out now on 4K UHD, Blu-ray and DVD in the UK
Watch the trailer below:
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Letterboxd: Dan
