The Dark Knight Rises

I'm at a disadvantage in my role as amateur film critic.  I do not get to attend private, pre-release screenings, and I don't do midnight shows on premiere day.  I pretty much only go to movies I intend to write about, which usually happens days or weeks after they hit the theater, as my day job allows.   I try my best to insulate myself from reviews or articles about a given movie so I can go in with a clean slate, giving an uninfluenced opinion.  Then I go back, read what the pros said just to see where I landed.  Needless to say this strategy became an impossibility with the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight Rises.  To be honest I wasn't even committed to seeing this movie until the tragedy in Colorado.  I knew I had to address it, and that I had to see the movie in order to make any valid statement.  But considering the events and the commentary plastered everywhere in its aftermath, could I see the movie objectively?

At first, no.  As the movie began I was in a bit of a state of paranoia, like the first time I flew after 9/11.  It was a midweek matinee IMAX screening, which was three quarters full (a testament to the movie's popularity) and I did find myself looking around before the film rolled to see if there were any sketchy characters darting about, or emergency doors left a jar.  The opening sequence, featuring a midair invasion of a plane, added to the sense of dread, as we are introduced to the villain Bane.  His origins in comic book land may go back to 1983, but there is no way you're going to convince me he wasn't chosen as the villain du jour because of his visual similarities to Hannibal Lecter.   Played by Tom Hardy he is almost as menacing; but for the PG-13 rating he might have been more so.  

As the movie rolled along I settled in, the anxiety subsided and I was back to being a regular movie goer again.  As a movie, it was entertaining, if a bit stop and go, as other critics have observed.  I'm not a Fanboy who follows these things, so I could be wrong, but my feeling is that the Joker was meant to be back for this one, and with the late, irreplaceable Heath Ledger no longer among the living, the decision was to go with a whole new set of bad guys.  This meant filling in back stories, which is usually unnecessary for the third installment of a trilogy.  They also bend the story back to link it up to the first movie, tying loose ends I'm not sure needed securing.  All this slowed the action down, and action is the entire reason anyone goes to see a Batman movie.  

When it moves, it really does move.  And Christian Bale, back as the Caped Crusader, is not alone in all the fun.  Anne Hathaway shines as Cat Woman, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who plays a young police officer, seems to have a future with the franchise, and the old standbys, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman and Gary Oldman bring a sense of gravitas to the proceedings. 

As I wrote before, this is a PG-13 movie, but for a few squibs or keeping some carnage onscreen instead of cutting away it could have been an R.  This is not the Marvel Comics universe of Spider Man, Iron Man and Thor, which is action packed for sure, but always with a sense of humor, never taking itself too seriously.  Here director Christopher Nolan is presenting Comic Book Action Hero as Hamlet or Heathcliff.   This is deadly serious, and the entire proceeding is covered with a palpable sense of dread.  Nolan and his team are experts at these types of multilayered action sequences, and while I appreciate the craft, I'm sceptical of the substance, much as I was with his vastly over rated Inception.

Believe it or not, I liked The Dark Knight Rises.  I can only say that because I took it for what it is;  a shoot 'em up, escapist adventure.  Unfortunately we have come to a juncture in our cultural history where too many people do take movies like this as the great art of our time.  It's there I can only hang my head in confusion. 

This was the review of the film; what of the tragedy in Colorado?  As horrible as that was, there is more to the story than just that one event.  The culture is eroding, even as technology is advancing, and with it a loss of what humanity is worth and capable of becoming.  More on this next time.