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Saturday, July 21, 2012

iREVIEW: The Dark Knight Rises

Starring Christian Bale, Anne Hathaway, Gary Oldman, Michael Caine, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Morgan Freeman, Marion Cotillard and Tom Hardy. Written by Jonathan Nolan, Christopher Nolan and David Goyer. Directed by Christopher Nolan. 


Now here's the thing about this finale of the highly acclaimed Batman series by Nolan.  Nolan, with his writing team, made sure the movie is bigger and scarier than its predecessors even if it meant shaving the character depth a little bit.  At one point, you do feel the supposedly trenchant dialogues spoken by Bane, Batman, Wayne, Gordon, the new kid John Blake and others is an attempt to simply add depth to their character when the film is all about taking the city to a brink of destruction and... well, watch for yourself.

Rises is Batman's ultimate test.  But it is also Bruce Wayne's finale as he tries to figure out how is he going to make a comeback against Bane, a criminal mastermind, after a recluse of eight years to fight for a city that has long perceived him as a murderer for their white knight, Harvey Dent.  And this inner struggle is what the film is all about. Or at least that's what Nolan wants us to think and move forward with.

I admire Nolan for his perception towards cinematic experience.  Films are to be enjoyed on a scene by scene basis and when an exceptional storyteller such as Nolan dons the director's hat, the film becomes a photo album with beautiful pictures (scenes, that is) we enjoy one at a time.  The overall story of the film is just an anchor to keep gigabytes of plot points from flying away.   After all, it's not the binding or the colorful packaging that makes a photo album beautiful, it's each and every picture in it.

From the very onset, with Bane's introduction, we are fully made aware of the scale of the film.  The entire city is soon under siege and Batman, the man with a frail body and soul, has to prevent the annihilation of twelve million Gotham inhabitants.  Of course, there's no way Wayne can pull this off on his own.  Thus, Nolan takes the help of Selina Kyle and John Blake to stand vis-à-vis Bane.


As to the performances, Anne Hathaway probably gets the most interesting character.  She is perky, audacious and snobby making her absolutely delicious.  Usually a super hero film is smothered with testosterone and any female interjection isn't always welcomed (I am not anti-feminist but this is how it is!), but I couldn't wait for her to return and sorely missed her absence at points.  Christian Bale is as usual. I really think this film wasn't about Batman at all but the return of a messiah to save Gotham.  Bane is huge and with his deliciously theatrical voice (yes, many reviewers found his voice annoying), quite irresistible.  However, he doesn't penetrate the psyche as well as Joker did maybe because the canvas of the film was so big.  Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine didn't get the kind of roles they got in the previous two ventures but still they added the most to the emotional quotient of the film. As far as Marion is concerned, her face is charming enough to keep the scenes bright.

I can get into all kinds of details of the film as done by pros but I don't think this film is about that in any sense.  Nolan really want us to enjoy the systematic fall of a hero, a city under siege and the final showdown, one frame at a time.  Don't worry about stuff, just enjoy the vastness of Nolan's vision and massiveness of his canvas. Simply go and enjoy. 





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