The Dark Knight Rises

If there’s one franchise that has been truly reinvigorated and reinvented in the last decade, it is the Batman trilogy. Under the directorship of Christopher Nolan, this franchise has shown that smart, interesting and intelligent films can come from a comic book.

I’m only going to outline the basics of the plot as I would hate to reveal any spoilers.

The film is set eight years after the The Dark Knight, Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) is a recluse in his home, refusing to see anyone other than loyal butler Alfred (Michael Caine). His financial wealth has disintegrated due to an investment in a machine which produces clean energy. Unfortunately as the machine can also be used an a nuclear weapon in the wrong hands, Wayne decides to mothball the project, despite the objections of Wayne Enterprises board member, Miranda Tate (Marion Cotillard).

The City of Gotham, however is experiencing a relatively peaceful era, with a number of organised crime participants having been locked away thanks to the Dent Act which was created in honour of Harvey Dent.

However Police Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) is finding it more and more difficult to cover up the crimes of Dent, but decides to go along with it.

In the meantime, Bane (Tom Hardy) who is hell-bent on destroying Gotham, begins his reign of terror and control, starting with crash of Gotham’s Stock Market and culminating with Gotham effectively being under military rule.

Another strand to the story involves Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway) a cat burglar who entices Wayne out of his self-imposed exile and leads him to Bane.

One of the major flaws of this film (and cinema chains have to bear some responsibility as well) is how incredibly difficult it is to work out what Bane, in particular, is saying. This character has a mask which completely covers the whole of his mouth and the voice is very over-synthesised making it near-impossible for a deaf or hard-of-hearing to be able to follow. Alongside this, you have persistent drumming which is great in terms of building up an atmosphere, but also happens to be at the same tone and sound level as Bale’s speaking pattern when he is Batman.

My fault with cinema chains is that there were too few screenings of a subtitled version of this film. In London, from 9.30 pm on Monday 30th of July to Sunday 5th of August, at one cinema chain, there will be 511 screenings of this film. Of these 511 screenings, only 4 will be subtitled, which is a total of 0.8% of screenings available. There are 9 million deaf or hard of hearing people in the UK, which is approximately 15% of the general population. I am not a deaf/HOH person with a chip on my shoulder, but this does seem to be incredibly disproportionate. I have asked the four main cinema chains to tell me why this is so, unfortunately none of them could come up with a satisfactory answer.

Anyway, off my soapbox and time to review this film.

As you would expect from Nolan, the film flows well and holds your attention for its entire length (a whopping 2hrs 40mins). It is action-packed with some great fighting scenes and the usual slick mechanical inventions, although I thought 'The Bat' was the ugliest fighting machine I’ve seen.

Hardy was great as Bane (despite the issues understanding what he was saying), and for someone who had half of his face covered up, he was incredibly expressive with both his face and his body. All of the other characters were excellently played and although there wasn’t the time to delve deeply into the characters background, they were shown to be fully rounded with backgrounds, fears and hopes.

The story goes off on various tangents which aren’t explained, but it does all tie up nicely at the end. Although, I would argue that the ending was a tad predictable.

Lots of people have asked me whether this is the best of the trilogy and I would have to say that The Dark Knight is the better of the three and it is for a very simple reason. Although you have Bane who is a fantastic physical presence in the film, the disappointment when you realise that he is more brawn than brain is quite immense. I felt that The Joker in The Dark Knight was a much better character, a more interesting role and a more intelligent adversary for the Batman. Obviously that film was totally eclipsed by the performance of Heath Ledger, and despite The Dark Knight Rises being a really excellent ensemble piece, it doesn’t have the standout performance that The Dark Knight has in The Joker.

Verdict: Nolan once again provides an intelligent action film which has excellent performances from all involved. However, issues with understanding Bane and the lacking of a standout bad guy, means that while this is a highly enjoyable film, it’s not quite as good as The Dark Knight. Will be very interesting where this franchise now goes.