The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

DIRECTED: Christopher Nolan
STARRING: Christian Bale, Tom Hardy, Anne Hathaway
AGE RATING: 12A


I loved The Dark Knight Rises. Admittedly, I went in expecting to love it and the cast is made up of a selection of my favourite actors, so I can't help but lean favourably.

But before I dive right in, I'm going to take a quick look at Nolan's Gotham. I love it. I love the modern, urban cityscape and the feel of the environment, the corruption that's spread through every part of Gotham, from the bottom of the sewers to the tips of the skyscrapers. There is an edge to Gotham that creates a dark tone prevalent throughout the film, enhanced by Nolan's bleak use of colour. Watching a Nolan 'verse Batman film is like watching a film set in a post-apocalyptic world. A sense of hopelessness has permeated every part of the city. There is no doubt that Gotham is in need of change.

Onto Batman himself, rather, his voice in particular. I have nothing against the voice, it's gravelly and cool and badass, you can't deny it. But there is one scene in the film, just one, where it makes me laugh, because it's just silly. Batman and Catwoman have teamed up to take down the bad guys, there's a brief exchange and then Christian Bale delivers the line: "So that's what that feels like." But Catwoman has already left. He's using the voice ... by himself. He's alone. There is nobody there with him that he needs to hide his identity from but he's still doing the voice, I don't know why he's doing it.

But it leads me onto my next point, in a similar vein: Bane's voice. Ah, Bane's voice, the source of many tensions among Batman fans. How bizarre is Bane's voice in TDKR? At first I found it incredibly off-putting and so strange that I couldn't take in anything Bane was saying because I was laughing too much. Although, yeah, halfway through the film I grew accustomed to it, but I still missed that first half.

I was a little underwhelmed by Bane overall, if I'm honest. As a fan of Tom Hardy, I've seen a lot of his other performances and am familiar with a lot of the roles that he's taken on, including his role as the titular character in the biopic Bronson. Now, after seeing Hardy's impressive and very intimidating Charles Bronson, one would assume that something of the same would be brought to his performance as Bane. Hardy put on the muscle, he put on the mask, he even put on the weird and almost unintelligible accent, but Bane's all muscle and domineering physical appearance. He talks and talks and throws a few punches, sure, but I felt that it wasn't enough. I was anticipating the moment that Bane would snap, but he was measured, tempered anger that didn't broil once. I was left feeling a little dissatisfied.

And back to Batman himself, well. There just wasn't enough of him in the film overall, at all. Sure, we had some Bruce Wayne. Some rickety old recluse Wayne hiding away in his mansion and then some sad, broken Wayne at the bottom of a pit, but there wasn't much Batman. Of course, it's all about his journey into re-becoming the hero, but there wasn't much heroic Wayne at all. When he did show up it was brief and then he was gone again.

But despite this, I immensely enjoyed The Dark Knight Rises and am looking forward to its DVD release.