As the conclusion to director Christopher Nolan's gritty, groundbreaking Dark Knight trilogy, The Dark Knight Rises is a thrilling, but at times slow burning epic that truly stands on its own as a violent, mythical parable for the economic tragedy and pretensions of modern Western civilization. And with a bevy of memorable new characters, including the addition of Anne Hathaway's dangerous, sexy thief Selina Kyle (whom moviegoers might inevitably call Catwoman), Joseph Gordon-Levitt's idealistic street-level Gotham cop John Blake and Tom Hardy's brutal, imposing terrorist Bane, along with grandiose, thunderous action sequences and an absolutely perfect third act, this is one of the year's most vital cinematic experiences.
Inspired by Charles Dickens' classic novel A Tale of Two Cities, Nolan's final Batman film picks up a full eight years after the events of The Dark Knight, with Gotham on the cusp of a major class war and Christian Bale's Bruce Wayne, now a recluse billionaire with a crumbling empire, holed up in the rebuilt Wayne Manor, once destroyed by Ra's Al Ghul in Batman Begins (a viewing of which is practically essential). Opening with a kinetic mid-air assault on a CIA aircraft and the kidnapping of a Russian nuclear physicist by Bane, a series of events are set in motion including the arrival of Bane and his underground army of ex-mercenaries and Gotham street thugs and a heist on the Gotham stock exchange heist orchestrated by Bane and corrupt businessman John Daggett, forcing Bruce Wayne to don the Cape and Cowl once again. Returning characters include Gary Oldman's Commissioner Gordon, whose committment to harboring the true nature of Harvey Dent's death in The Dark Knight has led to a dramatic decrease in crime, Morgan Freeman as Wayne Enterprises CEO and weapons genius Lucius Fox and Michael Caine with the most tragic, emotionally affecting portrayal of Wayne family butler Alfred Pennyworth seen yet on screen.
As is clear by now, this is a huge film. A fair number of scenes are purely expository as Nolan, an extremely careful filmmaker when it comes to establishing the stakes and usually labyrinthine-like plots of his films, takes about a full hour setting the stage for what one character calls "Gotham's reckoning." (One might call the film's first hour "slow". Some critics have called it "clunky", but I do not share that sentiment.) Reckoning, in my view, is the operative word in discussing the journey and fate of Batman et al. The tragic flaws of Nolan's main characters are usually tied in directly to his films' narrative arc. With The Dark Knight Rises, we see Nolan operating on a truly epic, macro level: Nolan has imbibed his Batman trilogy with a gritty, urban realism, wholly separating itself from the standard flash-bang, comic booky tone of modern superhero films by creating Gotham as a functioning, living organism, much like a real city. It is in the realization of Bane's plan that ultimately cuts the city of Gotham off from the rest of civilzation, where the pretensions of modern society are stripped away and characters are forced to confront their most primal fears; post-viewing I was reminded of HBO's seminal television crime drama, The Wire.
It might be a push to compare a Batman film with that of The Wire in this sense, but there is a startling comparison that I'd like make with The Dark Knight Rises. The Wire is a show that details urban decay and systemic inequalities at its very roots, but does so in a way that never loses sight of human ingenuity and the hope that exists in those who have the ability to achieve catharsis and escape the tragedy of political ego driven by the neurotic drive to survive within the system. Here, as laid out clearly in a memorable exchange between Bruce Wayne/Batman and Selina Kyle (another character that seeks catharsis, a literal "clean slate") towards the film's conclusion, we see how Nolan is equating selflessness with salvation:
Selina Kyle: "You don't owe these people anymore. You've given them everything.
Bruce Wayne/Batman: "Not everything. Not yet."
The overt Dickensian aspects of The Dark Knight Rises, encompassing issues of criminality, poverty and the prospect of urban salvation, have been beautifully detailed already by Forrest Wickman at Slate, but also are a true reminder of why Christopher Nolan is revered as one of the most clever filmmakers working today and perhaps one of the absolute best third act directors of all time. The last 20 or so minutes of The Dark Knight Rises is a pulse-pounding symphony of destruction, emotion and enlightenment in a long, disturbing film teeming with fear and tragedy. The Dark Knight Rises is a provocative film that yes, might require patience from the average filmgoer and the most hardcore of Batman aficionados, but as the finale in a trilogy that revitalized a franchise, and as a stand alone cinematic experience, it is a rousing spectacle of action, emotion and catharsis. It deserves to be seen on the biggest screen possible.
