The Dark Knight Rises

The Dark Knight Rises

Legendary Pictures/Syncopy/Warner Brothers, 2012

Directed by Christopher Nolan

Starring: Christian Bale, Tom Hardy, Joseph Gordon Levitt, Anne Hathaway, Marion Cotillard, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman

Four stars

How do you reconcile impossible expectations with reality? How do you close out a franchise that has, over the past seven years, become one of the most beloved and acclaimed of our time? How do you give a definitive conclusion to the story of a character who has been seen in many different forms, in many different times, a character that will doubtlessly be re-imagined by another in time? How do you give fans the big payoff they deserve without falling into the traps that so many promising trilogies have stumbled into with their third film? The truth is, I wouldn't have the first idea of how to answer those questions.

Thankfully for us though, Christopher Nolan did.

The Dark Knight Rises, all hype aside, all of the polarizing reviews and all of the fans who will doubtlessly cry out that it doesn't live up to its predecessor (untrue, but we'll get to that in good time), manages all of the above and more. This movie is massive, boasting an epic, almost three-hour runtime, and bringing the series to a resounding full-circle conclusion. It's also a definitive ensemble piece, allowing every character we've come to care about throughout the series (and numerous new additions, all of them positive) their moment to shine, bringing all of their stories to a satisfying and deserved finale. Even Harvey Dent and Rachel Dawes, a pair of characters whose presence (and ultimate demise) was of pivotal importance to the last installment, linger in the hearts and minds of the people of Gotham City. Only Ledger's Joker is left unmentioned, a loose end that Nolan had never intended to leave, though, after seeing what he orchestrated here, I can't help but wonder how the character could have fit into the story anyway.

But Nolan does more than just hit all of the requisite checkpoints here: with an ambitious script and a structure only befitting an epic and unforgettable conclusion, he sets out to make his masterpiece. Since he started his journey with Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins, Nolan has become a world-class auteur, breaking up his Batman flicks with a pair of innovative and dense pieces of sci-fi cinema (The Prestige in 2006 and Inception in 2010). But while those movies felt like separate entities upon their release, like a director flexing his creative muscle before returning to the more limited boundaries of a comic book adaptation, they seem to fit into something greater and wider-ranging now. Nolan incorporates more than just cast members from those films here, using the tools and techniques he learned from them (along with a few thematic nods) to construct a film that stands as the pinnacle of his directorial endeavors. It's a film that not only fits into a series and an overall story arc, but also into the interconnected body of work of its director, and when viewed in that context, the enormity of it all is baffling. In recent years, many fanboys have proclaimed Christopher Nolan as the greatest director of his time, and with this film and the completion of what appears to be a meticulously planned cinematic progression, he makes a startlingly strong case for just that.

Of course, it would be all for naught if the storylines didn't come together, but they do, and in ways that I would never have imagined. The film picks up eight years after The Dark Knight ended, with Batman a mere memory from the night that he took the blame for Dent's murder and disappeared. The mob, always a secondary villain in the first two films, has been vanquished, and Bruce Wayne has retreated into the life of a recluse. But Selina Kyle, a slippery cat burglar (Anne Hathaway, brilliant), shakes Bruce out of his reverie. "There's a storm coming, Mr. Wayne," she says in a scene early on, and when the storm hits, it's something to behold. Enter Bane (Tom Hardy, horrifying and unrecognizable from his work in Inception and Warrior), a tank of a man with a face mask, a voice that sounds like it belongs to the devil himself, and a tie to Bruce's past. And while Ledger's Joker will likely remain the series' "definitive" villain, Hardy's Bane is at least as disturbing. In past film incarnations (Batman & Robin being the one most moviegoers will likely recall), the character has been portrayed as a stupid, stumbling thug. That's not how it was in the comics though (specifically in the Knightfall storyline that the film borrows from), and Nolan is committed to making Bane the fearsome figure he should be. Where the Joker specialized mostly in mind games, Bane is Wayne's physical match, and their battles are everything that the final confrontation between the Batman and the Joker could never be. One riveting fight scene halfway through the film will take your breath away. There's no music, no stylish camera shaking or editing, just the sickening reality of our hero fighting for his life. It's a splendidly well choreographed scene, miles away from the hard-to-follow action sequences in Begins, or the blink-and-you'll-miss-them ones in Dark Knight. Nolan wants you to pay attention, he wants you to see this, and it's equal parts devastating and stunning; the stakes have been raised.

But for most of the film's first half, Nolan takes his time, shedding the frantic pace and wild tension from his previous installment in favor of the calculated escalation that made Begins such a winner. Some critics have called it "slow," but I would argue that they're missing the point: Nolan lays all the groundwork in these scenes, establishing Bane, Catwoman, and the other two new faces (Inception vets Joseph Gordon Levitt and Marion Cotillard, as John Blake and Miranda Tate, respectively), and carefully writing in some seemingly disposable lines and hints that will be of pivotal importance to the plot down the line. We also re-establish the relationships between Bruce, Alfred (Michael Caine knocks it out of the park here, in a beautifully conflicted and poignant, fatherly performance), Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman just gets better and better), and Lucius Fox (Freeman feels underused again, but it's a small gripe), all of which play important roles in the development of the story. And it's a joy to see such strong female characters this time around. One of my main problems with this series so far has been the dearth of relevant women throughout the proceedings. It certainly didn't help that Rachel Dawes, the only female role of any size, was traded from Katie Holmes to Maggie Gyllenhaal between film one and two, a jarring shift that hardly felt like the same character. But Hathaway and Cotillard, two of today's finest actresses, provide strong presences for their characters...both of whom are more than meets the eye.

Once the film really takes off, there's no looking back. Nolan aims for the fans here, throwing out a slew of clever references to the comic, making more than a few callbacks to the first two films, (especially Begins), and playing true to the characters, themes, and ideas that he established for himself back in '05. He also builds the story up on many levels, a la Inception, directing the project like a complex game of chess before bringing all the pieces together for the flawless third act. The last hour or so puts other comic book movies to shame, bringing everything that has been building for three films crashing down in a masterfully choreographed fireworks show. If you think you have a handle on what this movie is, think again: it morphs into something else entirely as it races toward its climax, hitting fans with a big twist and a tremendously satisfying reveal, and then dropping them back into the fray. In Batman Begins, Liam Neeson's Henri Ducard told Bruce Wayne that "theatricality and deception are powerful agents," and Nolan epitomizes that here. Everything about this film, from the promotional campaign to the ever-important groundwork Nolan lays early on, is a house of mirrors, and it's all set to shatter around this single twist: be sure to make it to the theater before someone spoils it for you.

That twist sends us hurtling toward a shattering climax, and suffice to say that the film's final minutes exceeded every one of my lofty expectations. There are crowd pleasing tie-ups, Inception-esque cliffhangers, "a ha!" moments galore, last-minute twists, and then, to top it all off, the traditional swell of Hans Zimmer's theme music, right before the film cuts to black. It's an emotionally weighty and viscerally satisfying conclusion, one that leaves questions to be debated, references to puzzle over, and plenty to re-examine on repeat viewings. And repeat viewings will come, that's for sure, but the film does on its first glance what it's supposed to: it takes a great trilogy out on its highest note. As soon as the credits rolled, I clapped, I cheered, and I wanted to see it again right away. And as I drove home, pondering everything that had just played out on the screen in front of me, I was ready to call it a masterpiece. I could hardly recall a better moviegoing experience. I had my reservations about The Dark Knight, about the claims that it merited Oscar attention, and about the "classic" status it was almost instantly annointed with, but this time around, I'm thoroughly on board. This film, in scope, in ensemble performance, in overall depth, is the best picture of the year so far. It's a beautifully executed summer blockbuster, loaded with stunning camerawork and special effects, but it's also more than that. It's the conclusion of one of the most riveting stories any filmmaker has told in my generation. It completely transcends its genre, making other comic book films look almost silly in comparison. And as a trilogy, it stands among the greats, with The Lord of the Rings and Toy Story from the last decade, or alongside Star Wars and The Godfather from the catalog of classics. At it's heart, Nolan's Batman is about a man who struggles with his anger, his past, and his own shortcomings to become more than a man. To become a legend. But with all the talent on display here, with all the characters and storylines and complexities that Nolan outfits this final film with, it becomes something even deeper, something more profound. Something that needs to be seen to be understood. Something that audiences will be watching and discussing for decades to come. It would be shameful for the Academy to ignore that.

As the sun sets on Nolan's Batman series, as the credits on The Dark Knight Rises begin to role for everyone around the world this weekend, I can't help but think of the trilogy in the words that Michael Caine used to lay out the rules for a great magic trick in The Prestige. And somehow, knowing Nolan and how he used pieces of each of his films here, I think that might be more than coincidence...

"Every great magic trick consists of three parts or acts. The first part is called 'The Pledge.' The magician shows you something ordinary: a deck of cards, a bird or a man. He shows you this object. Perhaps he asks you to inspect it to see if it is indeed real, unaltered, normal. But of course... it probably isn't. The second act is called 'The Turn.' The magician takes the ordinary something and makes it do something extraordinary. Now you're looking for the secret... but you won't find it, because of course you're not really looking. You don't really want to know. You want to be fooled. But you wouldn't clap yet. Because making something disappear isn't enough; you have to bring it back. That's why every magic trick has a third act, the hardest part, the part we call 'The Prestige.'"