Why Batman sucked…
Obviously this is going of be full of spoilers, so don’t read it if you don’t want the new
Batman completely ruined.
So let me start by saying that Christopher Nolan makes good
movies and that this movie didn’t suck compared to all movies it just sucked
compared the other Batman movies and Nolan catalogue.
At the end of Batman, I heard a loud applause mixed with
tears and shouts of praise. In fact I was quite surprised to read on rotten
tomatoes later on that the movie had a 94% positive feedback rating, something
that was unfathomable to me. I must say that that was exactly the way I felt
when The Dark Knight finished 3 years ago. Aside from a few relative small cheesy
references to the idea of ‘big brother’ and the department of Homeland
Security, I was extremely happy with the second Batman. In the following I will
attempt to explain my reasoning for disappointment with the Dark Knight
Rises.
First, let’s talk about villains. Bane is a perfectly
acceptable nemesis of Batman, in Christopher Nolan’s Batman there has been an
eradication of the cheesy over-the-top super hero and super villain super
powers, something that has made the Batman series stand out as serious
contenders as actual good movies, not just movies starring the power of CGI. The
Joker, out of all of Batman’s enemies, is the ultimate and for a trilogy
probably should have been saved until the end. Seeing that Heath took a few too
many pills, we all lucked out by getting the Joker in the second film. The
Joker had a back story and true character as a villain, he was basically a psycho,
but he had a philosophy on which he elaborated throughout the movie. He thought
that humanity was sick with self-interest and continually throughout the movie
he showed that humanity fit the mold of being fucked up and completely blind to
the public good. The first scene he showed this in was when he killed a gang
leader and then made his henchmen fight to the death for a bigger piece of the
pie. The second was when he puts Batman on the spot and makes him decide between
love and the good of the city. Batman, blinded with emotion, rushed to save the
woman, but unexpectedly saves the face of justice for the city. The final time
is when he has the two boats, one full of supposedly moral citizens and the
other full of hardened prisoners. If you were sitting in the audience, you were
most likely thinking “fuck the prisoners, I would press that button” and when
asked about it after the movie you probably responded that you wouldn’t have
been able to press the button. In doing this, Nolan/Joker continually
questioned you as a person in the greater sphere of humanity. In the end the prisoners
seemed to be the most moral of all and everyone simply sat back made their
peace with their respective makers. You actually felt like humanity took a step
forward at the end of the movie.
Now, Bane didn’t have any sort of ideology accept that
Gotham deserves to burn because well this other guy said it once upon time in
the first movie. Bane had a small army
of followers who were willing to lay down their lives in a heartbeat for what?
Gotham’s reckoning apparently. Ok? Why does Gotham deserve its day of
Reckoning? Well, if you look around you will know. At no point in the movie was
there ever a moment where you questioned Gotham, it was all just assumed which
gives the audience no emotional tie. With the Joker, even though he was an absolute
lunatic, you could at least sympathize or see where he was coming from. In any
other present day action movie this small justification of Bane’s would have
probably been enough, but this is Christopher Nolan and he typically doesn’t half
ass scripts to this extent. Mr. Nolan could have developed Bane as a character
by showing more of his back story, or he could have developed his ideology by
showing the inhumanity of the Gotham elite, but sadly he didn’t.
Second point, Catwoman. Hurray for women, you were given a
bad ass little hero with absolutely no depth, unless you consider 10 one-liners
about high heels as depth—you should demand more. I think much higher of you
all; after all I am in the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Adlabad.
Catwoman represented yet another way that Nolan could have developed reasoning
for ambivalent feelings for Gotham. In the current times you would think that
Nolan could have merely watched the news for 2 hours and found 10 reasons (e.g.
search Google for: Bankers + golden parachutes) for elites being pieces of shit
deserving of their own personal reckoning. I believe it is useless to introduce
a character that is taking away character development time if you don’t
actually need that character in the movie. I believe that Nolan introduced
three or four relatively big characters into this movie. All of these
characters stand out as having purpose if you justify their existence in the
world. Those characters can only be justified if they have development time. I
believe that Nolan could have developed a better storyline if had not sought to
include so much. Catwoman saves Batman in the end, but it was completely clichéd
and could have easily been one of the other well-thought out character like
Robin or Commissioner Gordon.
Third and final point, what is your definition of a hero?
Mine involves courage and self-sacrifice of some sort. I have always disliked
Superman being called a hero because his character is essentially invincible.
Are you still considered courageous if you save the world when you are
invincible? No. If you don’t save the world you are simply a lazy dick. Batman satisfies
the first part of my definition by being a mortal, but in the third movie
offers none of the second qualifier.—no self-sacrifice whatsoever. Yeah, he
gets beat up pretty good, but that is about it. In the end they lead you on to
think that Batman made the ultimate sacrifice for the good of the world, but
instead you find out that he just casually slipped away and now lives in
paradise. Really??? You don’t have to have a super happy ending Hollywood. When
Batman gets stabbed in the kidney at the end (remember gladiator, would it have
been nearly as good if he wasn’t dead at the end?), you automatically think his
timer has been set, NO WAY he is going to live. In seeing the nuclear warhead
directly in front of him and his Batwing with two minutes on the clock, he
somehow winches the nuke up, takes off and flies away a minimum of 10 miles
(the blast radius was supposed to be 6 miles and the visual explosion from
Gotham looked like it happened a small state away) and managed to jump out or
eject somewhere along the way unscathed. So where did he jump out? Surely it
must have been straight into a private emergency room because the kidney shot
probably would have killed him otherwise.
The Batman comic book world is supposed to be dark and
unforgiving (think Game of Thrones), reality is pretty brutal if you mess up
there are consequences. The only self-sacrifice given in the Dark Knight Rises
was a cop who the audience didn’t give a shit about. Remember in the second
movie when Maggie Gyllenhall’s character dies, you were emotional engaged to a
good character that got outsmarted by the Joker—consequence=death. Bane didn’t
do anything besides imprison an island and kill faceless people. If HBO has
taught us anything over the last decade it is that bad people can do good
things sometimes and likewise that good people can do bad things. I think this
has been their success as a television producer. They make characters who are
personable and relatable and have goals that are created from a mix of
influences (both good and bad).
I believe that the 94 percenters walked into this movie
knowing that they would like it no matter what. They would forgive any mistake,
both large and small, so that they could have a trilogy that truly kicked ass.
Just like the Matrix lost its flare after the first , Batman dropped the baton
on the third and final leg. I believe that this movie is worth the price of
finishing the series, but in no way lives up to the hype. A lack of focus on
characters is its biggest flaw. It is definitely beautifully shot and has a
cast of great actors. Michael Cain’s emotional scenes were probably the most
noteworthy of the entire show because his character had emotional depth and
showed it. I swear I tried to like it but cannot jump on the bandwagon this
time around. Sorry folks. Mr. Nolan, I expect better.
Those are the biggest flaws I saw in the movie, there were a
few other small things like fight scenes that didn’t feel like consequence was
present (remember how Braveheart made you feel like the people were being
stupid/courageous? You don’t get that here). Anyhow, I have a lot of studying
to do tonight and can’t possibly write anymore, the point of this vent was
personal because I wanted to be able to stop thinking about it.
Also, I might have just changed the whole point of me having a blog. This is my first movie review ever. So forgive me if you think it sucks (grammatically), but tell me why if you just disagree with the ideas presented.