Disclaimer: Sorry about the lack of spaces that may be present in this article. For some reason, the blogger program messes up sometimes and removes them when I post from my phone. Also, watch out for MAJOR SPOILERS below!!!
Batman. Who doesn’t love Batman? Well, I’m sure there’s somebody out there that just absolutely hates the Caped Crusader, but that ain’t me. Of all superheroes, Batman has always,by far,been my favorite.
On opening weekend,The Inner Dorkdom saw Christopher Nolan’s final installment of his Batman trilogy,The Dark Knight Rises… and we were,and I speak for all of us, pretty much blown away. Not sure how Todd feels on this,but it is probably mine and Nic’s favorite of the Nolan trilogy.
The first film in the trilogy,Batman Begins, did a lot for Batman as a character. For the first time on the big screen,we were finally treated to a version of Batman that was nearly perfection in comparison to his comic book counterpart. No more nips on the batsuit,no more tilted camera angles that attempted to mimic the old ‘60s Adam West show,no more ‘Ah-nold.’ Just Batman… well… mostly Bruce Wayne. And here lies the most identifiable difference between the comics and the Nolan films: Identity.
In the comics,there is no question that Batman is the true personality and Bruce Wayne is just a costume that Batman wears in public. Batman is a personality that is, even in adulthood,still haunted by the death of his parents,leading him to be a cold,calculating individual with a one-track mind for catching crooks. Sounds weird, huh? Well,in all honesty,Batman’s a weird guy,but I think that’s the magic behind what makes the character so intriguing. The Nolan films use a different take on this in that Bruce (Christian Bale) doesn’t exactly want to be Batman forever (hey,wasn’t that a movie?). Batman is never really played up as the true identity of the man. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing,it’s just different. It’s almost as though Bruce’s desire for vengeance is over by the end of Batman Begins. Other than wanting to maintain peace in Gotham City,that’s pretty much where it ends for him. Having the main personality being Bruce Wayne,and the way Nolan depicts it,is actually quite interesting.
With that being said,Batman Begins is actually MORE interesting when Bruce isn’t in the batsuit. All the stuff where Bruce is training with Ducard/Ras Al-Ghul (Liam Neeson),having flashbacks in which he is determined to take revenge for his parents directly by killing Joe Chill,or his many scenes with Alfred (Michael Caine) and Lucious Fox(Morgan Freeman) all make Bruce an extremely interesting character in contrast to the bat-crazy/insane (hehe) Batman of the comics. Not that I have anything against his comic portrayal,as I find both equally interesting.
The second film,The Dark Knight,is however,BATMAN’S film. Well,it’s also the Joker’s (Heath Ledger) film,but I think a lot of people lose sight of just how much is going on with Batman/Bruce Wayne. Bruce has his sights on Gotham’s new District Attorney,Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) because,quite frankly,he’s in love. No,not with Harvey Dent! In Begins,Bruce is given a love interest in the form of his childhood friend,Rachel Dawes (Katie Holmes),who at the end of the film tells Bruce that she can only be with him when he stops wearing the tights. At some point in the year between Begins and The Dark Knight,Rachel has plastic surgery which makes her look like Maggie Gyllenhaal and starts dating Harvey Dent. With an almost sense of single-mindedness,Bruce attempts to recruit Harvey to take his place. Not as Batman, but as Gotham’s law abiding,non-vigilante protector. This will give Bruce the opportunity to hang up the cape and cowl, start a relationship with Rachel and live happily ever after… That is,until the Joker shows up.
Like most people,it is my belief that Heath Ledger gave the absolute best portrayal of the Joker ever seen; not only in the films or television,but within the comics as well. The Joker in this film is not the typical clown/mastermind as seen in previous media; instead,he is a representation of anarchy itself. The Joker allies himself with the mob bosses and crime lords of Gotham City not because he wants to get rich,but simply because he enjoys causing havoc; particularly for Gotham’s protector.
I also love Aaron Eckhart’s Harvey Dent/Two-Face. The transition from potential hero to enraged villain is done exceptionally well. My only complaint is that **SPOILER** Nolan decided to kill him off at the end of the movie. This seems to be a trend in Nolan’s Bat-verse: The primary villain always dies. Well, except for the Joker. Here’s something to think about: What exactly DID happen to the Joker at the end of TDK? Last we see him,he’s strung up, laughing maniacally and waiting for the cops to come get him. Did he get away? Did he get thrown into Arkham Asylum? Did he fall to his death? We’ll never know,I suppose. One thing I’ve always thought is that there might have been more scenes toward the end of the film involving the Joker,but due to Heath Ledger’s death, they were either never filmed,or not completed. Who knows?
Unlike most people,I don’t think that The Dark Knight hung the moon. I think it’s a great film and it borrows elements from one of my favorite Batman graphic novels, The Long Halloween (Jeph Loeb & Tim Sale),but it’s not,in my opinion,the epitome of film greatness. The movie is,and I’m no film editor,cut very strangely. The Dark Knight tells a big story in 240 minutes,so in order to fit such a grand tale into a movie,quick cuts must be made. While this would seemingly quicken up the pace,it feels as though it slows it down. There are several points throughout the film that I felt would’ve been more impactful had the camera lingered just a bit longer than it actually did. Some of the scenes at the beginning of the film are a prime example of this. I remember sitting in the theater watching it for the first time and thinking,“This thing is gonna go on forever!” But after having watched it multiple times since it’s Blu-Ray/DVD release,the pacing seems to work much better. The same thing basically happened to me with Revenge Of The Sith. And now that just happens to be my favorite Star Wars film. (And on that note,a lot of people leave the site because they disagree so strongly with that statement.)
**SPOILER ALERT!!**
Now that all those people are gone because they think that ROTS is a terrible movie, let’s get into The Dark Knight Rises. Like I mentioned earlier,this is probably my favorite of the trilogy. Until some of the latter trailers,I really wasn’t interested in the plot elements that were being presented. Bane as the main villain? Catwoman? Both of these characters have never really interested me that much in the comics. I dug the whole Knightfall comic storyline back in the day,which introduced Bane,but he was portrayed more as just a really strong bad guy (when he took his drugs) that had enough fighting knowhow to take Batman down. Catwoman,just never appealed to me. I’m also not one to read spoilers on the internet,so I had no idea of the measures that were being taken with the plot of the movie.
Then Todd explained some of it to me.
After he told me that the movie takes place 8 years after TDK and Batman hasn’t been around since then,I was sold. The idea that Harvey Dent’s death,the loss of Rachel Dawes and the havoc of the Joker just ran Bruce down was extraordinary.
The Dark Knight Rises proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Nolan trilogy is about Bruce Wayne,not Batman. It’s about a man who does what he does because he has to rather than because he wants to. When he’s called upon,he answers,unlike the Batman of the comics that goes on nightly patrols,searching for crime to bust.
I think Nolan’s main point with TDKR (and the entire trilogy,for that matter) is the fact that one man can only do so much. In the comics,one of Batman’s major villains either escapes,or is released from Arkham on a month to month basis. While this makes for good reading,it’s not very realistic. Sure,crime is an ongoing problem in society,but Batman doesn’t exist to do the job of the police by handling domestic disturbances,ATM robbers and the like. He’s there to take down threats that are too large for the cops to handle. Threats like the Joker,Two-Face,Ras Al-Ghul/The League of Shadows and Bane/Talia/The League of Shadows. If those threats existed in the real world with that amount of frequency,there probably wouldn’t be a whole lot of people left living in Gotham!
**HERE ARE THE MAIN SPOILERS!! IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE DARK KNIGHT RISES YET,STOP READING!!********************* ****************************** ***************
The Dark Knight Rises sees Bruce/Batman face his largest threat yet: Gotham’s total annihilation. Basically,the gist of the movie is Catwoman/Selena Kyle (Anne Hathaway) shows up,Bane (Tom Hardy) shows up and threatens the city,a GCPD cop named John Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) convinces a retired Bruce to become Batman again, Bane breaks Batman’s back and puts him in a hole while he terrorizes the city with the threat of a nuclear bomb,Bruce has to let his back heal,Bane lets loose the criminals of Gotham and cuts off the entrances/exits to the city by blowing up all its bridges (except one),Bruce heals and climbs out of the hole,Bane is revealed to be an exiled member of The League of Shadows and is working for Ras Al-Ghul’s daughter Talia, Batman returns to the city and defeats Bane,takes the nuclear bomb out into the ocean to let it detonate (“Sometimes you just can’t get rid of a bomb!”),seemingly dies,and turns over the mantle of The Batman and the bat-cave to John Blake, who’s birth name turns out to be Robin. Whew!
Oh and Bruce lives,by the way. Don’t get scared.
I left out a lot of the details,but that’s the general idea of the film. All in all,it was a fitting and satisfying end to a great superhero trilogy that was,in my opinion, much more efficiently executed than The Dark Knight. Will there be a sequel featuring John Blake as the new Batman? I doubt it. It’s more likely that Warner Bros. will reboot the franchise using a different director’s take on the material. I think this is an extremely bad idea,but it’s,of course, not my call to make. I’d rather see this new version of Batman and what his character could bring to the table. Plus,I thought Gordon-Levitt’s character was one of the most interesting in the film. Seeing him as Batman could potentially take the series in a really cool,interesting new direction.
That about does it for this overview of Chris Nolan’s Batman films. I’ve seen and heard a lot of people criticizing the films (particularly the newest) for taking certain liberties with the comic source material, but this is not the comics. Comic Batman is not Nolan Batman. This is an entirely different take on the character,just like Frank Miller does his own take with his Batman within the comics he authors. Nolan has done an excellent job of bringing Batman to the big screen and grounding him in reality. Not only did this help the Batman franchise remain relevant, but it also increased the relevancy of movies such as The Avengers and comic book based movies in general.
I realize that I didn’t spend a ton of time on the newest film,but I’m not very good with straight up movie reviews. If you want the official Inner Dorkdom review,Todd has written a great one up that should be available a few posts below this. Also,a cousin and friend of Nic’s did a pretty great review which should be the post directly below this one.
Hope you enjoyed it!
-Josh
Batman. Who doesn’t love Batman? Well, I’m sure there’s somebody out there that just absolutely hates the Caped Crusader, but that ain’t me. Of all superheroes, Batman has always,by far,been my favorite.
On opening weekend,The Inner Dorkdom saw Christopher Nolan’s final installment of his Batman trilogy,The Dark Knight Rises… and we were,and I speak for all of us, pretty much blown away. Not sure how Todd feels on this,but it is probably mine and Nic’s favorite of the Nolan trilogy.
The first film in the trilogy,Batman Begins, did a lot for Batman as a character. For the first time on the big screen,we were finally treated to a version of Batman that was nearly perfection in comparison to his comic book counterpart. No more nips on the batsuit,no more tilted camera angles that attempted to mimic the old ‘60s Adam West show,no more ‘Ah-nold.’ Just Batman… well… mostly Bruce Wayne. And here lies the most identifiable difference between the comics and the Nolan films: Identity.
In the comics,there is no question that Batman is the true personality and Bruce Wayne is just a costume that Batman wears in public. Batman is a personality that is, even in adulthood,still haunted by the death of his parents,leading him to be a cold,calculating individual with a one-track mind for catching crooks. Sounds weird, huh? Well,in all honesty,Batman’s a weird guy,but I think that’s the magic behind what makes the character so intriguing. The Nolan films use a different take on this in that Bruce (Christian Bale) doesn’t exactly want to be Batman forever (hey,wasn’t that a movie?). Batman is never really played up as the true identity of the man. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing,it’s just different. It’s almost as though Bruce’s desire for vengeance is over by the end of Batman Begins. Other than wanting to maintain peace in Gotham City,that’s pretty much where it ends for him. Having the main personality being Bruce Wayne,and the way Nolan depicts it,is actually quite interesting.
With that being said,Batman Begins is actually MORE interesting when Bruce isn’t in the batsuit. All the stuff where Bruce is training with Ducard/Ras Al-Ghul (Liam Neeson),having flashbacks in which he is determined to take revenge for his parents directly by killing Joe Chill,or his many scenes with Alfred (Michael Caine) and Lucious Fox(Morgan Freeman) all make Bruce an extremely interesting character in contrast to the bat-crazy/insane (hehe) Batman of the comics. Not that I have anything against his comic portrayal,as I find both equally interesting.
The second film,The Dark Knight,is however,BATMAN’S film. Well,it’s also the Joker’s (Heath Ledger) film,but I think a lot of people lose sight of just how much is going on with Batman/Bruce Wayne. Bruce has his sights on Gotham’s new District Attorney,Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) because,quite frankly,he’s in love. No,not with Harvey Dent! In Begins,Bruce is given a love interest in the form of his childhood friend,Rachel Dawes (Katie Holmes),who at the end of the film tells Bruce that she can only be with him when he stops wearing the tights. At some point in the year between Begins and The Dark Knight,Rachel has plastic surgery which makes her look like Maggie Gyllenhaal and starts dating Harvey Dent. With an almost sense of single-mindedness,Bruce attempts to recruit Harvey to take his place. Not as Batman, but as Gotham’s law abiding,non-vigilante protector. This will give Bruce the opportunity to hang up the cape and cowl, start a relationship with Rachel and live happily ever after… That is,until the Joker shows up.
Like most people,it is my belief that Heath Ledger gave the absolute best portrayal of the Joker ever seen; not only in the films or television,but within the comics as well. The Joker in this film is not the typical clown/mastermind as seen in previous media; instead,he is a representation of anarchy itself. The Joker allies himself with the mob bosses and crime lords of Gotham City not because he wants to get rich,but simply because he enjoys causing havoc; particularly for Gotham’s protector.
I also love Aaron Eckhart’s Harvey Dent/Two-Face. The transition from potential hero to enraged villain is done exceptionally well. My only complaint is that **SPOILER** Nolan decided to kill him off at the end of the movie. This seems to be a trend in Nolan’s Bat-verse: The primary villain always dies. Well, except for the Joker. Here’s something to think about: What exactly DID happen to the Joker at the end of TDK? Last we see him,he’s strung up, laughing maniacally and waiting for the cops to come get him. Did he get away? Did he get thrown into Arkham Asylum? Did he fall to his death? We’ll never know,I suppose. One thing I’ve always thought is that there might have been more scenes toward the end of the film involving the Joker,but due to Heath Ledger’s death, they were either never filmed,or not completed. Who knows?
Unlike most people,I don’t think that The Dark Knight hung the moon. I think it’s a great film and it borrows elements from one of my favorite Batman graphic novels, The Long Halloween (Jeph Loeb & Tim Sale),but it’s not,in my opinion,the epitome of film greatness. The movie is,and I’m no film editor,cut very strangely. The Dark Knight tells a big story in 240 minutes,so in order to fit such a grand tale into a movie,quick cuts must be made. While this would seemingly quicken up the pace,it feels as though it slows it down. There are several points throughout the film that I felt would’ve been more impactful had the camera lingered just a bit longer than it actually did. Some of the scenes at the beginning of the film are a prime example of this. I remember sitting in the theater watching it for the first time and thinking,“This thing is gonna go on forever!” But after having watched it multiple times since it’s Blu-Ray/DVD release,the pacing seems to work much better. The same thing basically happened to me with Revenge Of The Sith. And now that just happens to be my favorite Star Wars film. (And on that note,a lot of people leave the site because they disagree so strongly with that statement.)
**SPOILER ALERT!!**
Now that all those people are gone because they think that ROTS is a terrible movie, let’s get into The Dark Knight Rises. Like I mentioned earlier,this is probably my favorite of the trilogy. Until some of the latter trailers,I really wasn’t interested in the plot elements that were being presented. Bane as the main villain? Catwoman? Both of these characters have never really interested me that much in the comics. I dug the whole Knightfall comic storyline back in the day,which introduced Bane,but he was portrayed more as just a really strong bad guy (when he took his drugs) that had enough fighting knowhow to take Batman down. Catwoman,just never appealed to me. I’m also not one to read spoilers on the internet,so I had no idea of the measures that were being taken with the plot of the movie.
Then Todd explained some of it to me.
After he told me that the movie takes place 8 years after TDK and Batman hasn’t been around since then,I was sold. The idea that Harvey Dent’s death,the loss of Rachel Dawes and the havoc of the Joker just ran Bruce down was extraordinary.
The Dark Knight Rises proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Nolan trilogy is about Bruce Wayne,not Batman. It’s about a man who does what he does because he has to rather than because he wants to. When he’s called upon,he answers,unlike the Batman of the comics that goes on nightly patrols,searching for crime to bust.
I think Nolan’s main point with TDKR (and the entire trilogy,for that matter) is the fact that one man can only do so much. In the comics,one of Batman’s major villains either escapes,or is released from Arkham on a month to month basis. While this makes for good reading,it’s not very realistic. Sure,crime is an ongoing problem in society,but Batman doesn’t exist to do the job of the police by handling domestic disturbances,ATM robbers and the like. He’s there to take down threats that are too large for the cops to handle. Threats like the Joker,Two-Face,Ras Al-Ghul/The League of Shadows and Bane/Talia/The League of Shadows. If those threats existed in the real world with that amount of frequency,there probably wouldn’t be a whole lot of people left living in Gotham!
**HERE ARE THE MAIN SPOILERS!! IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE DARK KNIGHT RISES YET,STOP READING!!********************* ****************************** ***************
The Dark Knight Rises sees Bruce/Batman face his largest threat yet: Gotham’s total annihilation. Basically,the gist of the movie is Catwoman/Selena Kyle (Anne Hathaway) shows up,Bane (Tom Hardy) shows up and threatens the city,a GCPD cop named John Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) convinces a retired Bruce to become Batman again, Bane breaks Batman’s back and puts him in a hole while he terrorizes the city with the threat of a nuclear bomb,Bruce has to let his back heal,Bane lets loose the criminals of Gotham and cuts off the entrances/exits to the city by blowing up all its bridges (except one),Bruce heals and climbs out of the hole,Bane is revealed to be an exiled member of The League of Shadows and is working for Ras Al-Ghul’s daughter Talia, Batman returns to the city and defeats Bane,takes the nuclear bomb out into the ocean to let it detonate (“Sometimes you just can’t get rid of a bomb!”),seemingly dies,and turns over the mantle of The Batman and the bat-cave to John Blake, who’s birth name turns out to be Robin. Whew!
Oh and Bruce lives,by the way. Don’t get scared.
I left out a lot of the details,but that’s the general idea of the film. All in all,it was a fitting and satisfying end to a great superhero trilogy that was,in my opinion, much more efficiently executed than The Dark Knight. Will there be a sequel featuring John Blake as the new Batman? I doubt it. It’s more likely that Warner Bros. will reboot the franchise using a different director’s take on the material. I think this is an extremely bad idea,but it’s,of course, not my call to make. I’d rather see this new version of Batman and what his character could bring to the table. Plus,I thought Gordon-Levitt’s character was one of the most interesting in the film. Seeing him as Batman could potentially take the series in a really cool,interesting new direction.
That about does it for this overview of Chris Nolan’s Batman films. I’ve seen and heard a lot of people criticizing the films (particularly the newest) for taking certain liberties with the comic source material, but this is not the comics. Comic Batman is not Nolan Batman. This is an entirely different take on the character,just like Frank Miller does his own take with his Batman within the comics he authors. Nolan has done an excellent job of bringing Batman to the big screen and grounding him in reality. Not only did this help the Batman franchise remain relevant, but it also increased the relevancy of movies such as The Avengers and comic book based movies in general.
I realize that I didn’t spend a ton of time on the newest film,but I’m not very good with straight up movie reviews. If you want the official Inner Dorkdom review,Todd has written a great one up that should be available a few posts below this. Also,a cousin and friend of Nic’s did a pretty great review which should be the post directly below this one.
Hope you enjoyed it!
-Josh
I just love how the entire trilogy fits together so well. It's really one giant story in this same universe that gets fleshed out over the three films. TDKR wasn't my favorite of the trilogy, but I still liked it quite a bit. Eventually, I'm going to sit down and watch all three back to back to back (or, more likely, one a night over three nights or something.) Until then, I think this video sums up how well it all flows together rather nicely:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1T__uN5xmC0