The Dark Knight Rises - A Review

I saw The Dark Knight Rises a little while ago, but it has taken me this long to get my thoughts straight about it. I’m in a minority, but not really flying in the face of adversity to say that it’s a fairly average action flick; good, but not great. But my next statement probably is going to be (flying in the face of adversity that is). Considering this as the final part of the “reinvented” Batman trilogy, as the culminating piece to Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises is awful! Absolutely, undeniably terrible!

Sure, there are some entertaining moments and, to reiterate; as a simple action flick it’s not bad. But seriously, what the hell were they thinking?

Ok, so here are the reasons why The Dark Knight Rises is so terrible. (Warning, if you are one of the few people in the world not to have seen it yet do expect spoilers)

Firstly, the main villain; Bane. In the DC comics Bane is the man who broke the bat. He was born in prison and rose to dominate the other inmates before being the experimental subject for Venom. The venom drug vastly increased his physical strength, but he needs to take it every 12 hours (via a system of tubes pumped directly into his brain; the reason for his mask) or he will suffer debilitating side-effects.

In the movie it is suggested that Bane was born in prison, but this turns out to be Talia al Ghul. Bane was an inmate of the prison and Bane protected Talia as a child. He suffered severe facial injuries when helping Talia to escape her tormentors and now wears a mask that prevents him suffering from these injuries now. Please tell me what kind of facial injuries would require an elaborate, ventilated mask to prevent on-going pain, because as far as I can tell that is just completely ludicrous.

In the Knightfall storyline (the DC comic), even though he’s pumped up with Venom, Bane busts the walls of Arkham Asylum to allow all the villians out into Gotham. Only when Batman is exhausted from re-capturing all of these villains (including the Joker, Two-Face, Mr. Freeze, the Riddler, the Scarecrow, the Mad Hatter, the Ventriloquist, Firefly, Poison Ivy, Cornelius Stirk, Film Freak and Victor Zsasz) does Bane confront him.

In the movie Bane beats the crap out of Batman with ease and there is no real explanation for this other than Batman being depicted as a bit of an old invalid who’s out of practice and Bane having been trained by The League of Shadows same as the Bat. There is no mention of Venom in the movie at all. At all! Venom is a major part of the Bane character!

Back to the comics. Bane eventually kicks his Venom habit and returns to the prison where he was born to begin searching for his father. While searching for his father, Bane encounters Talia al Ghul. Talia introduces Bane to her father Ra's al Ghul. Eventually Bane impresses Ra's so much that he chooses Bane as his heir (an "honor" he had previously imparted on Batman). Ra's al Ghul and Bane then launch a plague attack on Gotham in the Legacy storyline.

Ok, this gives the link with the League of Shadows used in the movie and, with Ra’s being killed off in Batman Begins, using Talia instead makes sense.

Oh and Bane’s father was a mercenary (King Snake) in the comics; making Ra’s al Ghul a mercenary and the changing his origin story as well as Talia’s and Bane’s to fit the “vision” of the movie are just annoying. These aspects come over exactly as they are; contrived.

I’m not trying to say that the movie shouldn’t deviate from the comics. What I’m trying to point out is that the movie completely fails to depict Bane in any meaningful way. He is shown simply as a strong and well trained guy who wears a stupid looking mask. Batman has no real need to get involved in taking down Bane, anyone could just get close and shoot him.

And that brings me onto my major beef with the movie. Catwoman rolls in and blows away Bane so the good guys win and Batman gets to keep his hands clean. Her off the cuff comment about Batman’s no killing rule was a laughable justification for what was simply lazy writing. Batman’s philosophy of doing whatever it takes to stop the bad-guys whilst refusing to cross the line of killing is a fundamental part of his story running through both Batman Begins and The Dark Knight! How can they think it’s ok to just dismiss that? And Catwoman and Batman end up as a couple at the end? Despite having completely differing philosophies and beliefs? Really?!

Then we come to Talia al Ghul. In the movie she is basically shown as a sneaky bitch who is slightly insane and is mainly just a device to give Bane his link to The League of Shadows. To be honest I can’t be bothered to go through the comparisons with the comic character of Talia (which must have been the view taken by the script writers). Suffice it to say that, as with Bane, The Dark Knight Rises simply fails to depict the character of Talia al Ghul in any meaningful way.

Lastly we come to Officer Blake. The character in the movie was great to watch and someone who was both entertaining and intriguing. But then they decided to make him into Robin and imply that he would be Batman’s successor. Let’s get this straight; all they did by giving the character the “secret” name Robin and having him walk into the Batcave at the end of the movie was pander to audience’s expectations of a happy ending (same as with having Batman end up with Catwoman at the end - it makes no sense people!). It was so people would look at each other and smile and say “hey look at that; he’s Robin! He’ll carry on the fight against the bad guys now that Batman has retired!”

No. Just no. Robin is Batman’s sidekick and he becomes his “successor” as Nightwing after years of training. Batman can’t just give a cop his gadgets and say “hey, go be me and fight crime in Gotham”. A cop is not a ninja trained by the League of Shadows who spent his life trying to understand crime and criminals with a genius level IQ and (almost) unlimited resources; he’s a fu*&ing cop! You know what happens to our new Robin after the credits roll? He gets killed trying to emulate Batman.

Ok, I don’t think I’ve covered everything that annoyed me about The Dark Knight Rises, but I don’t want to think about it anymore; it’s depressing and I think you get the idea.

The Dark Knight Rises has made over 600 million at the box office and most people seem to love it and I have to say that the cast did a brilliant job with what they were given, but seriously people; it’s just crap. The only way to enjoy it is to watch it as a simple action flick and pretend that the names and costumes of all the characters have nothing to do with either the DC universe or the previous films in the trilogy.

The writers should be as disappointed as I am that they ruined what could have been the greatest movie trilogy of all time (maybe).