For No One

The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

Rating: ★★★★★★

After 4 years, we get the followup to The Dark Knight, and this time around, the press seemed divided. After I declared the previous entry to be amongst the greatest movies of all time, how does the (alleged) conclusion to this trilogy stack up?

I like that the first act of the movie has a Dark Knight Returns kind of vibe. You see Batman old and out of shape, and wonder if he’ll put back on the cape and cowl. And his foe, Bane? I love Tom Hardy, and have yet to see him in a movie I didn’t like. But there is absolutely no way he could top Heath Ledger’s Joker performance. Those are clown-sized shoes to fill, so I could hardly fault him for that.

Bane presents a formidable opposition to Batman in this entry. He takes him all the way past the brink of ruin, and comes closer to success than any villain I remember seeing in a movie. Where The Joker was Batman’s intellectual peer, Bane matches Batman’s wits and exceeds his physical capabilities. Though Christopher Nolan deviated substantially from traditional portrayals of Bane (comics, cartoons, Batman Forever), he does so to good effect.

And then he gives us Catwoman, played capably by Anne Hathaway. She also gives Batman a run for his money, and continues Nolan’s grounded approach to the Batman mythology. We have all the hallmarks of Catwoman’s character (the felonious tendency, the love/hate attraction between her and Batman), without her becoming a cartoon (as in Batman Returns, and probably in Catwoman, not that I chose to see it).

Nolan made some interesting choices with this entry. We have, as always, a billionaire hero, but who forms his opposition in this entry? It’s practically the Occupy Wall Street movement. Bane, like so many politicians today, easily exploits class resentment to cause civil unrest and further his ends. Under his reign anyone with any money instantly becomes a target. Of course, the movie was probably already in post-production by the time that “movement” sprang up in September of last year, just as no one could have known the co-founder of a Bane homophone hedge fund would be running for president, so I don’t imply any causation there. But the correlation stands.

And oh boy, does Nolan bring the story home with the ending. Multiple reveals, executed flawlessly, fall into place and draw the whole (alleged) trilogy full circle. Nolan raised the bar so very high in The Dark Knight that it was unlikely any sequel could top it, and I would say that overall, it beats The Dark Knight Rises, owing largely to Heath Ledger. This movie rocks hard though, and comes very close to equalling its predecessor.

In the next section I want to discuss a topic which will spoil the ending if you haven’t seen the movie, so fair warning:

Spoiler Territory

I discussed in my thoughts on Batman Begins about how so far, the entry of Robin into a Batman series almost inevitably brings with him a fairly high level of camp. Nolan knocked me for a loop with the reveal that Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s character basically is Robin. And as with Catwoman and Bane, he grounds him by removing some of the typical lore.

Rather than the product of circus training, and not orphaned by the direct actions of a super villain, he’s just a plain orphan who’s had a hard life. He chooses Batman as a role model, and becomes a cop, choosing to work within the system. He becomes what Jim Gordon ceased to be: an idealist willing to stand up to corruption at any cost.

What happens next, after he strolls into the Batcave? I see one of two possibilities. Either he becomes the next Batman, replacing Bruce Wayne (because, as Wayne pointed out in Batman Begins, Batman is a symbol who can not be destroyed), or perhaps he takes his technology, adapts the costume, and becomes Nightwing (the persona Dick Grayson takes on once he grows up and no longer wishes to Batman’s permanent sidekick). I don’t see him wearing read and the eyes-only mask, and taking on the Robin persona. I may be wrong, but I don’t find that likely.

Links: IMDb | Blu-ray | DVD

The Dark Knight (2008)

Rating: ★★★★★★

Just when we thought it couldn’t get any better, Nolan came back and topped Batman Begins in every way. The Dark Knight came out amidst such overwhelming praise, I left the theater underwhelmed. No movie could have lived up to the hype surrounding The Dark Knight. Leaving the theater, I wasn’t sure what to think, as it seemed much of the hype sprung from Heath Ledger’s tragic death.

I certainly enjoyed the movie, but even watching the Blu-ray release months later, I still failed to understand how the movie had received such enormous praise. I let the movie completely vacate my mind. And then the hype for The Dark Knight Rises began to a similar tune as the last time. To prepare for its release, I rewatched Batman Begins and The Dark Knight again. And finally, I had gotten enough distance from it. I experienced the full impact of this movie, and came away surprised at how accurate those early reviews were.

If this summer’s The Avengers is Goodfellas of Superhero movies, a popular take on an existing genre with flawless structure that fires on all cylinders, The Dark Knight is certainly The Godfather: a masterpiece to be shown in film schools for decades to come. The Avengers, like so many other Marvel movies, like Iron Man or this summer’s Amazing Spider-Man, create a fun experience, with plenty of laughs and action. Batman Begins had a hint of that, but The Dark Knight eradicated it completely, replacing it with a dark, cynical humor The Joker brings to the table.

But in addition to bring back the cool factor Batman Begins, this entry knocks your socks off with drastically increased stakes, one of the best film performances of all time (seriously, Heath Ledger was that good as The Joker), tons of new gadgetry, nail-biting suspense, major tragedy and loss. As high as Batman Begins raised the bar, The Dark Knight vaulted over it with The Tumbler (which sadly served a greatly diminished role in this movie). I don’t have much to add. Just see this movie. Now. Go. Watch Batman Begins first, but do it. Seriously. You won’t regret it.

Links: IMDb | Blu-ray | DVD

Batman Begins (2005)

Rating: ★★★★★★

I find it difficult to begin this post. I have so many things on my mind about Batman as a character, his history, his films, and this Christopher Nolan-helmed series specifically, it’s tough to sort it all out. I’ll take the Siracusian route to my writeup, and begin with an abbreviated history of Batman on film.

It all started with the Batman serials. While they aspired to depict a gritty crime story, and it does succeed in parts, it can’t help but depict Batman and Robin as happy go-lucky chums. Robin entered the comics surprisingly early in Batman’s history (less than a year after Batman’s debut), so this isn’t surprising. But Robin ends up causing one of Batman’s conundrums: can Batman be presented in a serious manner with Robin tagging along?

More than 20 years after the serials, we got the Batman TV series and movie, featuring Adam West. A pop culture phenomenon which saved the Batman comics from the brink of financial ruin, it stayed pretty close to the tone of the comics of the time. In a word, they were “campy”. This successful adaptation didn’t attempt to create a “dark tone” in the least, and created the longest-running image of Batman’s character in the public consciousness.

Nearly 20 years after that series’s conclusion, Batman’s turn toward the darker version we know today began in the comics, thanks to brilliant writers and artists like Frank Miller and Alan Moore. These 80’s comics raised the stakes in Batman’s conflicts with his foes, and treated the character with the utmost seriousness. If you haven’t read Batman: Year One, The Dark Knight Returns, or The Killing Joke, go pick them up immediately. If you like Batman at all, you must read them.

Tim Burton updated the pop perception of Batman’s character to reflect the contemporary comics with 1989’s Batman, and turned it even darker with the sequel Batman Returns. Burton kicked off what is still the longest-running series of Batman features, but something happened after Burton’s first two entries. The movies turned goofy, and guess who showed up? Yes, Robin. With Batman Forever and Batman & Robin, the series went from dark and serious to goofy and campy. With the series brought to an unceremonious end as the iceman cometh, fans like myself wondered where they would take Batman.

Warner Brothers decided on a path which seems obvious now, but broke new ground back in 2005. They rebooted the series with Christopher Nolan in the director’s chair. What makes it a “reboot”? Certainly, Tim Burton’s take was even more different from the prior series. To me, it’s considered a reboot, because everyone at the time still considered the 90’s Batman movies to be current. Batman & Robin had come out only 8 years earlier. Prior reboots had been separated from the earlier series by at least 20 years. So to me, it’s a reboot, because it’s released during the time frame in which you would expect a sequel rather than a new story. This is common now, but broke new ground then.

Going into Batman Begins that summer, I didn’t know what to expect. Would it be the same Batman, would it still be good? As goofy as the 90’s movies got, those were the Batman movies I grew up watching and anticipating.

What we got in Batman Begins was a complete rethinking of Batman, incorporating a completely new vision of him. No longer campy, I would call this movie “grounded”. Everything about this movie attempts to depict what would “really happen”, so to speak. If Bruce Wayne were real, and decided to fight crime, how would he go about it? By bringing in characters from the comics who had never been seen in a movie (Scarecrow, Ra’as al Ghul, Lucius Fox, Carmine Falconi, and others), he created a well-rounded world for Batman to inhabit. Realistic motivations and character traits drive the story forward, and characters fall into serious peril with dire consequences.

Inspired by the same 80’s comics as Burton, Nolan ended up creating what was the best superhero movie to date. With top-notch acting, great action sequences, and more than anything else, and a high degree of the intangible “cool factor”, Batman Begins changed the game when it comes to superhero movies. Where could Nolan possibly go from there? A teaser in the last seconds of the movie tantalized audiences, who would have to wait 3 years for the next installment to arrive.

Links: IMDb | Blu-ray | DVD