THE DARK KNIGHT RISES

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES
Written by Jonathan Nolan and Christopher Nolan
Directed by Christopher Nolan
Starring Christian Bale, Tom Hardy, Anne Hathaway, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Michael Caine

Bruce Wayne: You’re afraid that if I go back out there, I’ll fail.
Alfred: No, I’m afraid you want to.

It is a rare occurrence in Hollywood for any film franchise to be as consistently incredible throughout its run as Christopher Nolan’s Batman series has been. With THE DARK KNIGHT RISES, Nolan brings his ambitious take on the Batman ideology to an epic and fitting close. He brings his slow burning exploration of human fear to the brink of catastrophe and drags Gotham City and all its good people right along with it. The tension he has been building systematically since BATMAN BEGINS, that he brought to entirely unexpected heights in THE DARK KNIGHT, could only conclude in one way and that is with an all-out war. The question is, will anyone come out of this war a winner? Or even alive for that matter?

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES picks up eight years after the last installment left off, when Batman took the fall for Harvey Dent, so that Gotham could go on believing in the hero it needed at the time to move forward. Batman is retired and the man behind the mask, billionaire extraordinaire, Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) has become a recluse from society. Wayne has always been a conflicted character but the necessary and inevitable journey he must make here to find the bat within and come out of retirement, makes for a bit of a stunted start to the film. We know he will get there so watching him walk away from his waking coma slows us down some, but once he gets there, that’s when things get interesting. Very interesting.

Batman must take on Bane (Tom Hardy) and he has no idea what kind of brute force he’s up against. His motivation to dust off the cape and mask come into question, primarily from his trusted aid, Alfred (Michael Caine, who impresses yet again by finding all new layers to this well known character). Is he doing this because Gotham truly needs him? Or is he doing this because he needs Batman to live? Worse yet, is he doing this because he needs Batman in order to justify killing himself? Regardless, he gets more than he ever expected with Bane, a man with a past that is even more complex than his own. To complicate matters even further, Batman must also contend with feisty cat burglar, Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway). He can never quite tell whose side she’s on and thanks to Hathaway’s playful performance, neither can we.

It isn’t just Batman who must rise to the occasion in this film. Nearly every character we meet must overcome their own limitations and rise to honour their past, their legacy or themselves. Like THE DARK KNIGHT before it, THE DARK KNIGHT RISES builds on ideas of fear, from struggling with it internally to inspiring it in others externally. Unlike last time though, this conflict is more visually destructive than it is psychologically disturbing. As a result, some of the motivation behind the terror felt like more of the same than another truly original installment. That said, the war itself is worth every second. So while THE DARK KNIGHT RISES may not have risen as high as I would have liked it to, it does soar through the sky like only Nolan’s great winged bat can.

Best of Black Sheep: THE DARK KNIGHT

THE DARK KNIGHT
Written by Jonathan Nolan and Christopher Nolan
Directed by Christopher Nolan
Starring Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart, Michael Caine and Maggie Gyllenhaal


Alfred Pennyworth: Some men simply want to watch the world burn.

There can only be one Batman and as I sat amongst a full crowd that was silent in awed anticipation at the crack of the film, it is clear that director, Christopher Nolan’s Batman is that one.  In BATMAN BEGINS, Nolan (whom at the time he attempted to revive the franchise had only directed a handful of indie projects) took an icon and made him human.  Batman, and of course his real life persona, Bruce Wayne, was damaged.  He had fears; he had frustrations; he had to find himself.  What he found, with a little push from Nolan, was a flawed figure, but also a man whose heroism was defined by his humility and relentless pursuit of justice for those incapable of demanding it for themselves.  With the arrival of THE DARK KNIGHT, Nolan has finished with his foundation, and taken to the vertigo-inducing heights on the tallest of Gotham’s buildings to analyze the city and all its inhabitants.  Gliding both gracefully and dauntingly through all of it is the dark knight himself (reprised by third time Nolan collaborator, Christian Bale).  What he sees from his unique view, which becomes our privileged spectacle, is a world of delineating lines and order, that is about to be torn apart by chaos and chance.

Gotham City must be pretty far down the list of safest places to live in America.  Not only does there seem to be nightly violence at the hands of common street thugs, but all the crazies seem to end up setting up shop there too.  Enter the Joker (Heath Ledger).  We know nothing of what made him the homicidal maniac he is, nor does he have any regard for human life.  In fact, he has nothing but disdain for it.  Humanity’s rules may disgust him but they also make it possible for him to predict how people will behave, allowing him the chance to throw them off and laugh at their expense. The Joker is frightening enough in concept but Ledger’s performance is down right terrifying.  As he constantly licks his lips with self-assured cynicism, he cuts to the chase in every scenario.  He has no time for any games, other than the ones he orchestrates himself, and commands control everywhere he goes.  His idea of playing always involves the ultimate consequences and the highest of stakes.  In order to win out, you must reject what you know and become everything you denounce.  Only winners will know the rewards of living both sides of the coin and the Joker is counting on fear to prevail so that he can finally have someone to play with.

Along with his co-screenwriter, brother, Jonathan, Nolan has crafted a dark, twisted dissection of duality and morality that is often shocking, unexpected and intricately detailed.  In every superhero tale, everyone always wants to know the man behind the mask.  The mask itself, the creation of another persona other than the one that sits safely behind it, initiates the duality that permeates the notion of the superhero figure. Batman is the dark knight.  He only comes out at night and no one would suspect the man he is by day might be one and the same.  The Joker’s chaos theory ruptures Batman’s controlled existence and forces him to think in a darker fashion than he has ever had to before.  Thinking that darkly though can leave you stranded in that space and this is what the Joker is counting on.  What makes THE DARK KNIGHT so rich is that almost every character has conflict and questions their actions and motivations.  No answer is the clear right one and deceit seems to play a role in even the most well-intentioned decisions.  The greatest irony is that the darkest character actually has the purest of souls while the would be clown seems to have no soul at all.  This is perhaps what makes them such worthy adversaries and why they both almost seem to enjoy the challenge.

When THE DARK KNIGHT feels like it might be ending, the anxiety mounts because you won’t want it to end.  It has an enormous scope but is somehow still subtle.  It is incredibly complex but yet still simple.  The film itself is steeped in just as much duality as its hero. Nolan never loses control of his duty – to create a Batman film that pleases both the masses and the fans, that encompasses the grandness of a blockbuster with the darkness of the independent spirit, and wows without resorting to cheap tricks.  Once again, Nolan has grounded the sensational on a very firm footing by never allowing Batman to be anything other than a man.  We can then stand on the same level ground as the giant bat and feel a satisfaction that is both real and incredible.

BATMAN BEGINS

BATMAN BEGINS
Written by David S. Goyer and Christopher Nolan
Directed by Christopher Nolan
Starring Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Liam Neeson, Katie Holmes and Cillian Murphy


Thomas Wayne: Why do we fall, Bruce? So we can learn to pick ourselves up.

From the terrifying opening shot of countless screeching bats flying across a burning red sky, it is unmistakably clear that Christopher Nolan’s BATMAN BEGINS will be nothing at all like the film incarnations that came before it. I describe it as terrifying because, like the man behind the mask of the titular character, I too am not a great fan of bats. I do however, enjoy movies about men who like to dress up in giant bat costumes quite a bit, and when I first saw Nolan’s reboot of a series that had been run deep into the ground by the previous hack of a helmer, I knew that this Batman would not only be invigorated for a new generation of fans but that it would likely go on to become the definitive incarnation of this iconic hero.

True to its title, Nolan, along with co-screenwriter, David S. Goyer (BLADE), provide the audience with a truly authentic and well-rounded origin story. What is perhaps most impressive about their take is how original it feels considering its been told so many times before. We are introduced to Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) when he is still just a child. While playing, he falls into a cave and is attacked by a colony of bats. While this scene doesn’t pretend to show that this is where Batman was born, it does, at the very least, show us where his fascination with the winged creature came from. Cut from his first bat encounter to years later, as he takes his first steps toward becoming Batman, fighting, as Wayne in plain clothes, in a Bhutanese prison against a number of opponents, before embarking on an intensive ninja training that leads to his ability to appear invisible and his flare for the theatrical. These choices are so well rooted in believable reality that for the first time I can account for, Batman seems like someone who could actually exist.

The main theme of BATMAN BEGINS is fear. Wayne is afraid of bats; he is afraid that ultimately he is responsible for his parents’ death; perhaps most significantly though, his fear has paralyzed him from participating in life since he was that small child. He learns, under the tutelage of Henri Ducard (Liam Neeson), not only how to face his fears but to have those same fears fuel his fury forward onto his enemies. Having found himself and a way to follow in his father’s footsteps by helping the good people of Gotham City (which is breathtaking in its glory days), Wayne grows up before our very eyes and Bale does a marvelous job at conveying this to his audience. We know he has a great spirit hidden far behind the self-imposed walls surrounding him; his supporters, and our superb supporting cast, from trusted butler and guardian, Alfred (Michael Caine) to childhood sweetheart and current Gotham City district attorney, Rachel Dawes (Katie Holmes), know what he can truly be if he lets it happen; the only person who still doesn’t see it is Wayne himself.

Just like you and I, Batman too has bats in his cave that plague him. Instead of cleaning them out though, he learns how to harness their power for the good of the many. With BATMAN BEGINS, Nolan redefines what it means to make a comic book movie. Unlike some other superheroes, Batman is just man. He just happens to have extensive training, enough money to equip himself with plenty of gadgets to take down his detractors, and a chip on his shoulder large enough to keep him doing it for the rest of his life. Nolan knows that this chip is what bonds Batman to the masses though. His mission to do right by the people of Gotham makes him a hero, but his somewhat selfish motivation to right the wrong that was done to his parents right before his eyes, taints his supposedly altruistic nature and makes him human. Batman has always been conflicted but never before has it been communicated on film in such a relatable way. And, never before, has it been so damn good.