Can you believe it’s taken me thing long to cover this one?
The Dark Knight Rises is one of my earliest reviews, and one I largely still stand by, it’s not a bad but a disappointing end to the trilogy of films. But as I hope my Neeson Month review of Batman Begins demonstrated, the series had problems even early on.
But when people point to Christopher Nolan as the guy who Fixed Batman, again, after the disaster that was Batman and Robin, it’s usually this film that gets the most attention. It’s considered the best in this trilogy, and it’s where the franchise made serious money, over $1bn of Box office revenue on a $185m budget. Let's take a look and see if we can work out why.
The Joker begins vying pressure of Gotham’s mob circuit with an attack on one of their banks, they’re being squeezed from all angles as the MCU (Major Crimes Unit, not Marvel Cinematic Universe) lead by Captain James Gordon and new District Attorney Harvey Dent are working to capture them on anything and Batman continues to raid their operations at night. So, when the Joker returns with a unique offer, they eventually decide to go with it. But the Joker proves trickier than anyone could’ve imagined and what he leaves in his wake will result in the change of everything.
Well, first thing that I must say is a major improvement over Begins is the action. It’s edited well, I can tell what’s going on for all of the fights, it’s not a mess of shaky cam and quick cuts like we got sometimes with the first one. There are quite a lot of them, they hit the ground running with the action and don’t ever really let up. The story still involving the mob gives them justification to have a lot of hired goons for Batman to beat up.
But one thing the mob aren’t is that interesting, they’re largely faceless goons and there as fodder for the real villain, the Joker. I under Heath Ledger’s casting as the psychotic clown was controversial before the film came out and iconic not long after and I have to agree with that assessment. The version of the Joker they’re going for is fantastically portrayed by Ledger. Because of the realism factor, they don’t have his skin bleached in chemicals like they did in the comics, he’s just wearing clown makeup because of reasons.
This version of the joker misses the theatricality that Jack Nicholson did so well and focuses on just how terrifying he is. The home videos he makes of killing his hostages and making his intentions known are fantastic for making the Joker seem scary. His obsession with Batman is not particularly well integrated, it kinda comes out of nowhere but that’s fitting with this version as well. He doesn’t really plan for anything; he just is very good at seeing the intricacies of other plans to tearing them apart.
The Joker is the dominating character of the movie, but he’s not the only Batman rogue to make an appearance. Harvey Dent is a prominent character through the movie, giving him an instant connection to Bruce Wayne by having him date Rachel and his stand against the mob, making him a prime target for the Joker in the first half of the movie.
They do a decent job in foreshadowing his turn to evil with a moment where he threatens one of the Joker’s men, it’s a bluff at this point, using a two-headed coin but it’s an effective bluff on par with Batman’s interrogation skills and hints at a much darker, angrier side. His motives are also well established as he throughout the film hints at distrust with the men in Gordon’s MCU department, a trust that would later be the leading cause of his tragedy.
Speaking of the tragedy, killing Rachel to develop the main characters, it’s a textbook example of fridgeing. Rachel really does get the shaft in this, she seems to be okay with Harvey being shot at by a bunch of gangsters, despite essentially the same reason being why she’s not okay with dating Bruce, something that is brought up in this movie, by the way.
Anyway, the way they got Two Face to look is terrifying, the only problem is he’s severely underused because the film is so dominated by the Joker, and he goes out very easily as a result. I very much enjoyed what time he got and was left wanting more.
Moral greys are a theme of the movie, is it right for Batman to let innocent people die at the hands of the Joker to stop innocent people dying at the hands of everyone else? Gordon faked his death and lied to his family to stop the Joker? And what happens when it’s no longer Batman the Joker wants and is just some random lawyer? Can a boat of prisoners blow up a boat of civilians before they blow up their boat? Is it more important for Batman to save Harvey, a beacon of hope in the city or his girlfriend, one of the few bright spots in his personal life? Is it okay to breach people’s privacy to create a private surveillance network when there’s a madman on the loose? These kinds of greys are important to the Joker’s chaotic nature, as he’s trying to prove everyone’s as crazy as he is, and scores a victory of sorts with Harvey Dent.
Batman taking the fall for Harvey makes no sense though, I mean the Joker was killing people the entire movie. Lucius and Alfred are entertaining as always and serve their roles well, Batman’s voice still sounds kinda silly but I still like this version of Batman.
The Dark Knight is beloved for a reason, and that reason is the Joker, let’s not kid ourselves here. But the movie is well-paced, delivers tonnes of great action, some great character bits and some moral quandaries that make the audience think along with the heroes. If you were in that boat, what would you have done?
Rating 90/100
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