Now we get to the final installment the 2000s-2010s Batman series. Light years ahead of the 1980s-1990s series, and setting a VERY high bar for the series starting in the 2020s (good luck though, Robert Pattinson and company).
I’ll admit it was my least favorite of the series. That said, although it wasn’t in the same league as The Dark Knight, it was comparable to Batman Begins. My big issue with The Dark Knight Rises is that, despite Raʼs al Ghul ‘s immortality, the first movie was mostly grounded in reality and the much better second movie had no supernatural elements whatsoever and completely transcended the genre. This movie felt like it didn’t really fit into the trilogy, whose other movies basically took place in our real world. I was left scratching my head about how a whole army of people were able to spend their entire lives growing up in the sewer and survive. That doesn’t mean the army isn’t terrifying though. It mainly is due to the absolutely haunting Bane.
Nolan followed up making Tom Hardy an overnight star by giving him a role where our inability to see his face is made up for by how terrifying he looks and sounds with his mask. Gorgeous Anne Hathaway is another terrific addition as Catwoman, whom she manages to make just as sexy as Michelle Pfiefer and Halle Berry did.* Joseph Gordon-Levitt, in his second collaboration with Nolan, is the other major addition to the cast, playing a cop who grew up in one of the boys’ homes Bruce Wayne founded for fellow orphans. He is terrific as usual, bringing a streetwise charisma to the meaty part.
Of course the returning actors from previous installments shine as well, most notably Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, and the man of the hour, Christian Bale.
I remember back in 2003 IMDB had a poll over who should be the new Batman. IMDB users were the people who had, at the time, recently voted the Lord Of The Rings movies the best three movies in history. I assumed Viggo Mortensen would win in a cakewalk. While he did easily get second, he still got only half the votes of Christian Bale.
I was baffled. Bale was in Empire Of The Sun as a preteen, Little Woman as a college-aged person, and American Psycho as a young adult, but nothing THAT big a deal critically or commercially in his life. What would make this guy such a perfect Batman that he could trounce all sorts of more famous actors in the poll?
Maybe I wouldn’t have wondered that if I’d seen him in anything already. The IMDB users who voted for him were right. He was incredible, and the trilogy vaulted him to the Hollywood A-list, even leading to his Oscar-winning role in The Fighter. While this movie’s ending felt a little TOO Hollywood (my only other complaint about it), it was a great sendoff for Bale from the role of a lifetime.
While this also closed the book for Nolan on the film series that made him one of Hollywood’s biggest directors, there was plenty more great stuff in his future!
Bottom Line: B-grade Nolan Batman = still great movie.
Up Next: Next masterpiece!
*Just kidding about the Halle Berry part!
%
Recent Comments