The Dark Knight Rises surpasses the hype.
TDKR is the result of a collaboration of artists working at the very top of their game. Christopher Nolan is the biggest name director on the planet right now, and after this, stands every chance of being rated as one of the greatest directors the medium has ever known come the (hopefully very distant) end of his career. His hit rate is extraordinary, not to mention his ambition. Simply to imagine events on the scale depicted in TDKR takes serious guts. Most would never even contemplate it. Even if they did, they'd never be granted the budget to realise it. Even if they were, it's a whole new challenge to actually realise the mammoth enterprise on screen. Nolan manages it with a flair and skill that is often breathtaking.
Enough with generalities. The first bold move TDKR makes is setting its action eight years after the events of its predecessor, The Dark Knight, it having ended with our hero on the run, believed to have killed Gotham's "White Knight", Harvey Dent. Come the start of this film, Batman has been AWOL since that time and Bruce Wayne is a Howard Hughes-esque recluse holed up alone in his cavernous mansion. It gives Christian Bale a great arc to play with and more heavy dramatic lifting to do than in TDK, in which he was a relative bystander compared to the human wrecking ball that was Heath Ledger's Joker.
It has been said before that the villain is what makes a great comic book movie. While it could be argued that Batman Begins disproved that notion, it's also unequivocal that TDK would not have been half the film it was without The Joker. The villain this time is not quite as iconic, but Tom Hardy's Bane proves to be an able foil, providing a true physical threat to Batman. Initial concerns about Bane's muffled voice and his at times teetering-on-camp mannerisms are soon swept aside once he unveils his master plan to conquer Gotham City. Bane is a force of nature in the film, and his villainous scheme elevates the stakes to levels almost unheard of. The outcome, for once, is not a foregone conclusion.
Also in the mix is Selina Kyle (AKA Catwoman, but she is never named that in the film), whose ambiguous motivations make her a compelling character. I admit I had reservations about the idea of the character and about Anne Hathaway playing her, but I needn't have worried. Nolan knows what he's doing, co-scripting (with his brother Jonathan; story credit also goes to David S. Goyer) an excellent role for the actress. Hathaway excels here, not only in donning a skin-tight plastic suit with certain aplomb. Her introduction, when she casts off her disguise as a party maid at Wayne Manor and unveils her true cat-burglar self is played to perfection; Hathaway lowers her voice, drops her eye level, and transforms before our eyes. The simple change in posture recalls Christopher Reeve's transitions between Clark Kent and Superman.
There is no shortage of moments that send chills down your spine. The first is when Batman finally makes his long-awaited introduction. Hans Zimmer's theme blasts out and the movie soars into the stratosphere just as the hero himself takes to the skies in his new gizmo, The Bat. The scale of the sequence when Batman reveals himself again to the world is monumental, as he has what looks like the whole US Police force on his tail, but this is only the end of the first act. Any of the action scenes involving Batman are big enough for and indeed even surpass the scale of the finales of almost any other given blockbuster. This is cast-of-thousands epic filmmaking.
In picking out just the three central characters above I've ignored the myriad supporting roles. There are a lot of characters, but Nolan handles their interweaving narratives with ease. The storytelling is simultaneously more complex and more lucid than in TDK, whose plotting, for me, occasionally felt undernourished, with some kinks that needed ironing out. That is not the case with TDKR. The pacing is tight and precise; all scenes seem relevant and important, and every arc has a satisfying shape. Special praise must go to Joseph Gordon-Levitt (far from the only cast member making this an Inception reunion), as an honest beat cop, and Michael Caine as loyal butler Alfred, who in limited screen time strikes magnificent emotional chords.
The whole film is thrillingly unpredictable. There are numerous moments where it's hard to believe what's happening in front of your eyes, including a mid-film face-off that is wince-inducing in intensity (and it's one of the few times Hans Zimmer's magisterial scoring takes a back seat, letting the crunching sound effects do the work, to great effect). There's a period after this - slight spoilers, possibly - where Batman sits out of the film, and Bane runs amok in Gotham. If this section feels slightly over-extended, there's no denying it increases the catharsis of Batman's reappearance come the finale that practically brings the house down. It's not too dissimilar to the stretch in Superman II when Zod takes over, and then Supes returns to ask him to "step outside". That's an all time favourite moment of mine. Married to Nolan's vision and budget, you know you're in for something special.
The only elements that may be foreseeable are certain developments at the film's very end (a couple of ending twists may have been unfortunately telegraphed in the media). However, that's not to say it doesn't end magnificently. I'd in fact say the ending is absolutely pitch-perfect. Cut to black. The Dark Knight Rises.
Summary
This is all-time-great level stuff. The Dark Knight Rises is jaw-droppingly, heart-breakingly, gasp-inducingly magnificent. It's the most exhilarating cinema experience I can remember having for a long, long time. Christopher Nolan, take a bow. Good luck topping this.
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