The Dark Knight Rises

[Magus]

I got some mixed feelings on this one. Let's go over it:

1. Unlike the Dark Knight which seemed to focus on greater thematic elements or social commentary, this movie is pretty much just a Batman movie through-and-through. The trailers are basically lies--there's no real anti-capitalist or anti-socialist rhetoric in this movie, nothing really resembling a comment on Occupy Wall Street or the Recession or whatever. In fact the class warfare element is probably about the same or less prevalent than it even was in Batman Begins. All we really get here is some acknowledgement that there are some poor people in the city, and...that's about it. There's one or two other scenes that fit into this "theme", but it's so thin and basically absent that I think it was almost tacked on as an afterthought. It falls to the wayside pretty quickly. Sure, Bane makes a couple of speeches, sets up a kangaroo court, does his "breaking out of the Bastille" thing...but it basically has nothing to really do with an allegory. It's to torture Bruce. Bane says as much before even doing it, and the specter of the nuclear bomb basically puts the nail in the coffin of any real symbolism. I wish Bane HAD fulfilled the promise of the trailers in creating a real dystopia, but what actually happens is much more by-the-numbers and driven more by character-motivation. For instance, in my opinion, Bane breaking the prisoners out of jail is more about the fact that he was a prisoner, not really because of class warfare, whereas the commercials make it look like this is part of his "revolution". It's really just part of his plan to destroy Gotham and mentally torture Bruce.

2. Of course, failing to do another allegory might be for the best. Then we don't have to argue over it. Now, as a film about Batman, I think it excels. This movie is pretty deeply involved with the character. There is such an indepth exploration of his psyche that it's almost to the detriment of the film in its first half-hour (which mostly consists of exposition--it really picks up after Bane takes Batman down, when things really start to get rolling). I feel Nolan probably could have easily cut 15 minutes of this movie, mostly from that first segment. It's also probably the best live-action adaptation of Knightfall and No Man's Land we're going to get, for what that is worth. Sometimes it pays to just do a comic-book movie, and while I think it's not exactly what people were expecting with this movie given the second one, I think people who appreciated Batman Begins more than The Dark Knight will be pleased.

3. There are one or two major plot holes, leaps in logic, Deus Ex Machina. You will probably identify them pretty quickly.

4. On the other hand the second half of the movie was incredibly fun.

So. Eh. What do you think? I definitely don't think it's better than The Dark Knight but is it on par with Begins? Probably. With a little editing I could say it was better than Begins but at the moment I'd put them neck-and-neck.