‘Dark Knight Rises’–starring Christian Bale, Anne Hathaway, Tom Hardy, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard, Michael Caine
6 out of 10
By Chris Agnone ’18
THE ROUNDUP
“The Dark Knight Rises” attempted to continue the Batman legacy in 2012, but failed to fill character gaps as the plot progressed.
Bruce Wayne has stopped his crime fighting career after the destruction of the Joker. Gotham has been slowly falling into chaos again as Bruce refuses to put on the Batman suit again.
Through this chaos and hate, a new villain emerges to take advantage of the Batman-less Gotham, Bane.
This movie closed the book on the Dark Knight trilogy.
The first issue was the replacement of the Joker with Bane as the dominant antagonist in the series.
The film gave Tom Hardy an almost random, impromptu performance as Bane.
Bane had very little background explained in his performance, and his motivation to violence was unexplained.
Bane rises as a random character in Gotham by releasing thousands of criminals for the local prison. Where Bane got his funding and ability to do this is not shown, leaving a large gap of explanation in the beginning of the film.
Seemingly, his end goal is to destroy the top class in Gotham.
Christopher Nolan does allude to two of the nation’s main obsessions as the targets of Bane’s chaos.
Bane targets the Stock Exchange, showing the destruction of one of America’s obsessions, money.
He then goes on to blow up a football stadium, showing America’s obsession with professional sports.
These attacks are not explained in full light, as Bane seems to hide behind his mask for the entire film.
Bane also is able to entrap Bruce in a well in the Middle East. The film flashes back to Bane’s childhood and reveals that Bane was held there as an orphan.
This flashback is an attempt to show Bane’s motivations, but fails to shed light on anything else.
Bruce Wayne, played by Christian Bale, comes out of the Wayne Manor after eight years of living like a hermit. He had chosen to stop his vigilante activities, but decides to don the suit again when Bane attacks his beloved city.
Bale has a strong performance as the playboy billionaire who has lived in hiding after the Joker’s reign of terror in the previous film.
With the help of Lucius Fox, played by Morgan Freeman, Wayne begins the creation of new gadgets and gear, as well as making Wayne Enterprises broke with his explorations.
“The Dark Knight Rises” did do some things well.
Batman was still portrayed as an amazingly dark character that was there to protect the people, but sometimes let emotions get the best of him.
There were also a lot of awesome new gadgets that made the film that much sweeter. Watching Batman pull up in his new ship/helicopter was a mind blowing scene where it seemed like victory was inevitable.
The movie ends slightly corny, but a decent film all in all.
