There are series of movies that involve scope and vision. Jackson's "Lord of the Rings", Lucas' "Star Wars" films, and Coppola's "Godfather" films all come to mind. With each of these series, fans debate which entry was strongest, which entry was the weak link, but ultimately, the series in question works well because of the ability of the filmmaker to have a grand vision. Jackson's "Lord of the Rings" is actually one movie broken into three pieces, and that was the reason I thought it worked so well. Since all of the principals were together non stop for the making of all three pieces, there was a remarkable consistency to the parts. That makes what Christopher Nolan did with his "Batman" trilogy all the more remarkable. To have to assemble and reassemble the pieces three times seems like an impossible task. But with the release of "Dark Knight Rises" we see that the franchise was in good hands, as we expected after the first two entries.
The film takes place in Gotham City 8 years after the events in "The Dark Knight". The city has enjoyed a era of peace and prosperity. However, a storm is brewing that is being led by a menacing villain named Bane (Tom Hardy). Bane represents an extreme vigilante spirit which seeks to punish the wealthy city of Gotham for its excesses. Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) grapples with whether or not to dust off the Batman suit and fight this new criminal element. The uprising of the underworld is also represented by Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway), a cat burglar who is more than meets the eye. Batman is joined by Commissioner Gordon (Gray Oldman) and Detective Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) as the city is forced to deal with apocalyptic threats of evil.
The plot is actually fairly standard comic book material. Yet somehow, Nolan and company make the material seem like more than that. The climactic scene of the movie made me feel more like I was watching a war movie than a comic book movie. Nolan infuses such reality into this comic book world that it feels as though the world before us is real. As I watched the film on opening night, perhaps I felt a greater measure of poignancy due to the troubling murders at the opening in Colorado. In any case, the film's climax provoked almost overwhelming emotions in me. I knew I was watching a movie, but it felt like more than that.
The performances are all great. Christian Bale has inhabited this role better than anyone else. He is the right balance of strength and vulnerability. Anne Hathaway is wonderful in her role as Catwoman. Again, Nolan takes a comic book character and infuses it with an air of humanity and reality. Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman are their usual selves here, bringing believability to their roles. Gary Oldman proves to be the unsung hero of the trilogy. His performance as Jim Gordon in all three movies has been an essential element in this trilogy's success. I was also very impressed with Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Police Detective Blake. He gives us a supporting character with a troubled background, and his haunted upbringing brings another piece of humanity to this film. He, along with Marion Cottiard's Miranda Tate, bring unexpected twists to this remarkable story.
To top it all off, the film also fits into the comic book genre. There are no out of place endings or anything of the sort. Instead, we see a reasonable closure to this epic saga. While I first was disappointed when I found out that New York and not Chicago would be featured in this film (Chicago was the place that the previous two films of this trilogy were made), I thought that the film being shot in New York proved to be amazingly provocative. To see some of these scenes of terror played out on the familiar streets of downtown New York seemed eerily appropriate. It proved that Gotham city is a sort of place that represents any big city, and that different elements of different cities have roles to play in our imagination of city life. For the first two films, the bowels of Chicago were a perfect setting for the criminal underworld of Gotham. But in this film, could any other American city stand in for New York when it comes to the mixture of greed and decadence, as well as an enduring symbol of not only what is wrong with America, but what can also be right with America? There was one shot in the middle of the film of a tattered Star Spangled Banner flying near the Stock Exchange. It was a gorgeous and haunting shot which captured a certain desperate tone in our country right now. This movie reflects how we feel as a country. We are divided, and since we have such diverse opinions and lifestyles, we never will be united. The film captures the ambiguity I feel toward my home country very well. Selina Kyle hates the decadence of the rich, but when Bane's judgment on the inequities visits Gotham, she doesn't feel comfortable with that either. It is a remarkable depiction of the relationship we have with wealth in our nation. We know we are wealthy. We enjoy our wealth. Some of us also recognize the inequity and evils that come from our wealth. What is the answer to that? No one really knows, and the struggle that Selina Kyle has reflects our national struggle.
The admiration I have for the vision of Nolan would be difficult to overstate. As to its faithfulness to the comic books, I have no comment. I have never read any comic book, let alone a Batman one. I suppose this frees me up to enjoy this simply as a movie, while others may be disappointed in certain liberties that Nolan may take. With that in mind, this trilogy is a unique thing in cinematic history. It is rare to make one classic movie, let alone three classic movies. This movie, like the two movies before it, stays firm within a genre but pushes the limits of the genre in which it is. As I mentioned before, there were scenes in this movie that reminded me more of a deep human drama film than a comic book film. To be able to work within genre and also supersede a genre is something special. The jazz great Duke Ellington thought that the best complement a work of art could get was that it defied categorization. I can't speak for Mr. Ellington, but I can borrow his phrase for this movie.
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