The Dark Knight Rises (Review)

The Dark Knight Rises was certainly one of my most anticipated films of 2012, and I think everyone else was just as hyped about it.  The Dark Knight (2008) was in my opinion one of the best, if not the best superhero movie of all time. Christopher Nolan has proven himself to be one of the few filmmakers in the world capable of staying true to his own vision while still being able to make a blockbuster film; also I’m a huge Batman fan, so naturally I was expecting a lot.  Unfortunately, I have to say my expectations were not even close to being met.  The Dark Knight Rises is probably the worst film Christopher Nolan has ever directed.

The film started out strong with every scene building upon the previous one and climaxing in excellently when Batman returns for the first time in nine years to chase Bane and his henchmen.  Things remained interesting from that point on up until when Bruce Wayne was thrown into prison by Bane, and from there the movie experienced a sharp decline.  Batman was essentially not in 1/3 of the movie, and in that time the film focused instead on Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Gary Oldman running around Gotham and doing things that I just did not care about at all; the scenes simply dragged on and on.  Finally, when Batman did return, the film just morphed into a generic, “epic” action movie that was totally out of character with the rest of the franchise.

The main problem I had with the film was the actual plot itself: the ending was totally unsatisfying and the middle part of the film focused way too much on underdeveloped characters that I just did not care about (William Blake, Miranda Tate, etc.).  Although the acting is at least adequate and the dialogue is about as good, it doesn’t really make up for the lackluster plot.  I would recommend this film to any fans of the previous two films in the trilogy just so you can see the story of Batman through, but if you weren’t particularly a fan of the first two films– nothing in this one is going to change your mind.

Final Grade: C 

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