The Dark Knight Rises - a review.

So. The Dark Knight Rises. Better than Batman Begins, not as good as The Dark Knight. Possibly my third favourite Batman film of all time (for those of you wondering, my second favourite is Batman: Year One - an animated film from 2011 starring Eliza Dushku). However, none of this really matters. We could spend time discussing a clunky formulaic plot (a race against time while a bomb ticks down to zero? Really?), almost inaudible dialogue, and an unbelievable bad guy who was actually quite a decent chap who then inexplicably started killing people. We could also talk about another fantastic performance from Gary Oldman, a career-high for Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and a criminally short turn from Cillian Murphy. However, all of that would take focus away from the most important discussion point of all - the ending.

By the way - spoilers coming up....

Let's make one thing clear, the ending was amazing - lots of twists, fantastic acting all round, and a genuinely emotional scene with Gary Oldman. But, there's two key things that just didn't sit right with me.

Firstly - Robin. This one really pissed me off. I mentioned this above, but Joseph Gordon-Levitt was excellent throughout the film - truly engaging, and a perfect balance to the hyperbole and action taking place with Batman and Bane. However, he is playing Detective John Blake, who reveals towards the end that his middle name is Robin (before paragliding into a waterfall like some sort of Oxbridge student in a gap year...). So, Christopher Nolan is setting him up to be a new Robin within the Batman universe? Fair enough, but at least tie it back to the canon that already exists. All fans of Batman and DC know that Robin is Dick Grayson (or Jason Todd, Tim Drake, Stephanie 'Spoiler' Brown or Damian Wayne). Why then suddenly throw John Blake into the mix? Would it have been too difficult to have Detective Blake say to the solicitor "I should use my given name - Jason Todd" ?? The whole Robin thing seemed shoe-horned in for no reason at all. If rumours are to be believed, Christopher Nolan is not returning to the franchise after this film, so all he's done is make it really difficult for the next director to pick things up from where we left off. No matter - with the way Hollywood is going these days, we'll get a reboot in a couple of years anyway, and have to watch a young Bruce Wayne see his parents murdered yet again....

Secondly - the scene in Florence. At first glance, this was a lovely little scene that made people cry a bit. Loyal butler Alfred got his wish, and Bruce Wayne ended up all happy and content. Bollocks. Once you start looking at it a bit deeper, it's not a big leap of the imagination to start challenging all aspects of that whole scene. Let's take it step by step. Batman is dead. Yes, he enabled the auto-pilot (that Lucius Fox was 'too busy' to do), and yes, he's quite agile, but a nuclear bomb exploded on top of him. No escape, no handy ejection seat, nothing. Also, we saw this whole device in Nolan's greatly over-estimated film Inception (it's like Stephen Fry - it was stupid people's idea of what 'clever' is meant to be....), where people were living out dreams as if they were real. Alfred saw what he wanted to see - I could go on for ages about symbolism & staging, but the most obvious device was Selina Kyle dressed in a light-coloured outfit, when throughout the whole film she's only ever seen in black.

Overall, it was enjoyable, and made the trilogy a solid piece of work. It didn't blow me away though, and was nowhere near as good as Avengers earlier in the year. I see that the Sunday Times gave it a 2 star review this morning - bit harsh, but I see where they are coming from.