Dark Knight Rises review

Dam. Chris Nolan has really outdone himself. This was the best of the “Dark Knight Rises” movies. For those who don’t know about “Batman”, this movie is the epic conclusion of the “Dark Knight Rises” trilogy. (Dark Knight Rises Begins, Dark Knight Rises: The Dark Knight, and this movie, Dark Knight Rises: Dark Knight Rises) There is so much to say about this movie. I don’t know where to begin. First, the performances.

A lot of people were not expecting Anne Hathaway to do a great job as Catwoman, but I think she really gave an “amazing performance”. Her portrayal of Catwoman really combined the best of all the previous incarnations of the character; from Eartha Kitt, to Halle Berry to Michelle Feiffer. Not just Michelle Feiffer in Batman Returns but also Michelle Feiffer in Gangsta’s Paradise, both the movie Gangsta’s Paradise and her portrayal of the same character in the music video for Coolio’s Gangsta’s Paradise. All of that was in Anne Hathaway’s performance. Sometimes she would just take out a chair and sit on it backwards with a serious look on her face as she tried to turn Gotham’s street urchins away from crime.


Tom Hardy was great as Bane. I thought it was a bold decision to make Bane a British man in a sex mask instead of a South American Lucha Libre. Originally the character was going to be portrayed by Rey Mysterio Junior before Nolan’s last minute script changes. A lot of people don’t know this. I am “in the know”. They gave him a lot of great comedic moments too. I did not think he was going to take his mask off at all in the movie but was surprised that he consistently removed it, put towards someone’s face and said “does this smell funny?” In fact I think “Does this smell funny?” is going to be the most memorable catchphrase of this movie, like “Why So Serious?” in the last movie. I think that the “Does this smell funny?” movie posters we have been seeing have been great marketing.

I thought that the plot was really groundbreaking. Basically, Bane is an escaped convict who wants test Batman and push him to his limits, but also he wants to take over Gotham and bomb it back to medieval times. He wants to replace Gotham city hall with a medieval times restaurant, because when he was a child his father took him to a medieval times restaurant, but they left early, and Bane is really bitter about this. There is a lot of occupy wall street imagery. Actually Bane’s origin is that he was a young protestor at Occupy Wall Street who was evicted from a drum circle. There are other references to timely events, which is what makes Nolan’s Batman movies so good. There are oblique and explicit references to #occupy, the Tahrir Square protests, the twitter reaction to Aaron Sorkin’s “Newsroom”, and the death of Sally Ride.

I am not going to spoil the ending for you, except to to say that it was already spoiled on David Letterman’s talk show. That’s right. You know what happens. Basically Drew Barrymore shows her boobs to the camera. It was a beautiful way to tie the entire franchise back even farther back than Batman Begins but to Batman Forever, one of Drew Barrymore’s earliest film appearances. Really sublime and touching. It was a really long shot. Just really, really long close-up shot.

Overall a great film and a perfect ending to all of the “Dark Knight Rises” films. Hope this franchise gets rebooted. “Dark Knight Rises Again” anyone? lol

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