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| The starting lineup in The Dark Knight Rises: Catwoman, Batman, and Bane. |
After finally getting around to
Batman Begins and
The Dark Knight, I now arrive at the monumental final chapter in that epic trilogy:
The Dark Knight Rises. In the wake of the massive phenomenon that was
The Dark Knight, the task of delivering not only a worthy follow-up but also a worthy conclusion to an unprecedented trilogy must have felt as impossible as traveling to the moon in a Zeppelin. Still, Chris Nolan and crew undertook the herculean challenge in order to bring Bruce's troubled heroic journey to a satisfying close. They had to have known that whatever they turned out would not be spared unfair comparisons to
The Dark Knight, a film that still casts a huge shadow on every comic book film that followed. In spite of the obstacles however, they turned out what I believe to be a truly satisfying conclusion to their Batman legend, one which stands firmly with the first two as the definitive take on The Dark Knight thus far committed to film.
The film takes place 8 years after the events of
Dark Knight, in which Joker's reign of terror and Harvey Dent's fall into darkness left Batman shattered, both emotionally and physically. In order to keep people from losing faith, Batman takes the blame for Harvey's short killing spree as well as his death and is forced into retirement. Besides Alfred, only Jim Gordon knows the truth, but reluctantly keeps the secret so Harvey's death won't have been in vain. Instead, his death gives lawmakers the means to aggressively fight organized crime and clean up the streets. When
Dark Knight Rises begins, Gotham City is virtually free of organized crime and everything, at least on the surface, seems peaceful. When we see Bruce, he's a frail shadow of his former self and has become a shut-in who rarely leaves Wayne Manor. Not only is he physically scarred, requiring a cane to walk, but he's emotionally scarred and unable to move on with his life. As a concerned Alfred points out, he hung up his cape and cowl but never went out to find a life; he's simply frozen in the past and waiting for things to go bad again, waiting to be needed again.
Lucky for him, things soon go bad when a merciless mercenary named Bane unleashes his plan to take control of Gotham. I was thrilled when I heard Bane would be the film's villain since he's a real badass in the comics (he did after all break Batman's back in Knightfall). I hoped Nolan's version would erase the sickening stain of the moronic, mono-syllabic Bane from
Batman and Robin. Finally we'd get a Bane who's not only physically dominating but also intellectually equal to Batman. This Bane, played by Tom Hardy, is a strategist who meticulously plans to hold Gotham City hostage with his army of loyal followers. Literally rising from Gotham's sewers like a flood, Bane and his army completely overwhelm a city that has been lulled into a false sense of security. Before he can do that though, Bane plans to take down the Batman, who ultimately succumbs to his Batman addiction when Bane and his men attack the Gotham stock exchange. No sooner is Batman back on the streets than he's being chased down by just about every cop in Gotham. Bane remains in the shadows (or in the sewer), studying Batman's skills and deducing his identity in order to lure Batman to him. Batman ultimately confronts the mysterious masked man in the sewers and receives an epic beat-down, culminating in Bane lifting him over his head and snapping his back on his knee, just as in Knightfall. What makes the fight so thrilling is the gritty rawness. There's no music, only the brutal sound of two bruisers duking it out. Rather than a stylized dance-like fight, we get a street brawl, which is more befitting Bane's brutal, ferocious combat style. Bane would've been a challenge for Batman in his prime, but being older and already battered up, he doesn't stand a chance. Also, it's clear that even though he's put the costume back on, Bruce is no longer in that Batman mind-set that gave him an edge years earlier. At this point, he's simply lost the will to live, a willpower which gave him the extra drive he needed back in the day.
Once Batman's out of the way, Bane detonates hidden explosives across the city that blow the island's bridges and trap Gotham's police force underground, allowing his army of mercenaries to hold the city hostage with an armed nuclear bomb they threaten to set off if anyone tries to leave. While Gotham adjusts to life under occupation, Bruce is left in a deep prison pit in an unspecified part of the world where he learns about Bane's origins. I've heard some people complain that Bane's origins were too heavily altered in the film, but I felt they remained faithful to the important aspects. The film indicates that Bane was born in the prison but unlike in the comics, he didn't escape. We learn that not only was Bane a member of the League of Shadows but was trained then excommunicated by Ra's Al Ghul. From what I know, Bane had an association with Ra's Al Ghul in the comics as well, once being considered as a suitable mate for Ra's daughter Talia, who I'll get to later. Undoubtedly, the biggest change for Bane was the loss of the Venom serum which gives him his Hulk like strength and the Mexican wrestling mask he wears. In line with Nolan's grounded vision, Bane doesn't use Venom to gain superhuman strength; he's simply faster and stronger than Batman because he worked harder. This makes him more believable as a threat and as more of a challenge because Batman can't just cut the tube that pumps Venom directly into Bane's body. In order to beat him, Bats must step up his game. The mouth apparatus Bane wears gives him a more menacing, animalistic look and seeing his eyes adds to the menacing quality. This apparatus pumps anesthetic gas into his system to relieve the constant pain he's in from a beating he endured years earlier in the prison.
While recovering in the pit, Bruce learns that years before, a child made the climb to freedom that no one else has been able to do. Bruce assumes this child was Bane and with the help of a vision of Ra's Al Ghul, comes to the conclusion that Bane must be Ra's' child. Upon hearing this, my friends and I were confused because in the comics, Ra's has a daughter named Talia, with whom Bats has a torrid relationship and even a child named Damian. Luckily though, Bruce learns that Bane is neither the child of Ghul nor the child who made the climb. Turns out that Miranda Tate, the woman Bruce trusts with his company and sleeps with is actually Talia, the child who escaped with the help of her protector Bane, who she's working with to fulfill her father's mission and destroy Gotham. Although I should've seen this coming, I didn't realize her treachery until 5 seconds before she turns on Bruce. People seem to think that Talia's the real mastermind and that Bane's just working for her, but I like to think they're working together for a shared goal. Bane's the one who had to execute the plan, Talia only revealed her duplicity at the end. So, after two failed attempts, Bruce finally makes the jump and climbs out of the prison, but only after he does so without a rope, as the child did. This brings back his primal fear of death which in turn gives him the extra push he needs to make the jump. Just as when he was a child and fell into the well full of Bats, Bruce must confront fear again in order to re-discover his will to live and fight. Once out of the pit, he manages to sneak back into Gotham undetected (he's Batman remember), finds Lucius Fox and Gordon and goes about reclaiming the city.
He also gets some help from a cat burglar he met earlier in the film named Selina Kyle. Selina Kyle is of course Catwoman, although she's never referred to as Catwoman in the film and she's played wonderfully by Anne Hathaway. In fact, Anne's performance is one of the highlights if you ask me. Rather than being resurrected into a frisky cat lady after being licked by alley cats, this Cat-woman is a street-smart thief who uses her wits and charm to take from those who have more than enough. In the film she acts as a catalyst to get Bruce back into the world when she steals his mother's pearl necklace, forcing him to dust off his detective skills to track her down. Although she initially leads Batman into Bane's trap, ultimately Selina helps Bruce reclaim the city and get ahold of the bomb. After Batman confronts Bane on the streets of Gotham and manages to get the upper hand, he's forced to use his flying Bat to carry the bomb out over the bay seconds before it detonates. We see the Bat flying out over the water and disappear in a mushroom cloud.
I went into the film partly prepared to see Batman die given the realistic nature of the films. Still, I hoped he could find a way to survive and sure enough, in typical Batman fashion, he found a sneaky way to do this. The ending was a hot topic of conversation for months after, with people debating whether or not Bruce survived the explosion. Clearly Nolan strove to keep people debating, but a second viewing makes it clear that Bruce did indeed fake his death in order to finally move on with his life. First off, though he led everyone to believe differently, Bruce fixed the pesky auto-pilot function on the Bat, allowing him to bail out quickly as it raced out over the bay. Just as the Bat-pod was built into the Batmobile, the Bat must've had a water craft built-in to allow for escape and as soon as Bruce hit the water, he hauled ass away from the blast. If anyone has the ability to disappear, it's Bruce Wayne. Just think, he managed to convince the world he was dead for the seven years he trained to be Batman.
Bruce then made arrangements to help those closest to him; whatever was left of his estate after auction he gave to Alfred and he had Wayne Manor converted into a home for orphans. He left the cave and presumably all his Bat stuff to an idealist young cop named Blake (Joseph Gordon Levitt), who helped him take back the city and whose birth name we find out, is Robin. Of course this sent a palpable jolt of excitement through the audience, but it was meant to be merely a wink to the audience rather than an indication that Blake would become Robin. First off, Robin's name is not Robin just as Batman's name is not Batman. If his legal name had been Dick Grayson, that'd be a different story. Given that Batman retired, it's more likely that Blake will take up Batman's mantle, thereby validating Bruce's claim that Batman can be anyone. Or perhaps Blake will take Bruce's equipment but create a new persona using an evocative image of his own...so if he likes Robins a lot then who knows. Bottom line is that the film's ending supports the concept that Batman isn't just one man; he's an incorruptible symbol that anyone can be a hero just by doing the simplest thing. In the end, we see Alfred enjoying some fancy cocktail at an Italian café and catching a glimpse of Master Bruce seated at a table with Selina Kyle. The two men subtly acknowledge each other before Alfred gets up and leaves. Debate also ensued over whether Bruce was really there or whether Alfred was just imagining Bruce being there, having finally found happiness. I think by now most people are convinced that it really was Bruce because why would Alfred imagine Bruce with Selina Kyle, a woman he never really got to know. It's safe to say that Bruce survived and finally found peace in a life so torn by darkness and chaos. I for one didn't think Batman would be rising again so soon in the upcoming Batman/Superman film, but I guess it goes to show that you can never keep Batman down for long; he'll always rise again.
