The filmmaking powerhouse that is Christopher Nolan delivered a fairly satisfying final chapter of his Dark Knight trilogy, even if it’s much easier to pick holes in than his previous two outings with the Caped Crusader.
The plot of THE DARK KNIGHT RISES might be a slow-burner, but the stockpiled tension accumulated over the course of the film explodes in an epic finale. Set eight years after the events of THE DARK KNIGHT, we find Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) has retired from crime-fighting and become a recluse, giving into his ailing body and the belief that Gotham City no longer needs Batman. This all changes when he encounters a far from ordinary cat burglar Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway) and Bane (Tom Hardy), the masked leader of a mercenary army bent on revolution.
With the addition of this final instalment, Nolan’s Batman series gratifyingly feels like a complete story that brings you full circle rather than a succession of tacked-on sequels. This was achieved thanks to an extraordinary joint writing effort by the Nolan brothers and David S. Goyer, who have put great effort into keeping their series tonally and thematically consistent. I loved the clear plot references to BATMAN BEGINS in particular (the police vs. Bats chase, the flashbacks, the involvement of the League of Shadows). This is one of the most enjoyable of the Caped Crusader’s screen outings, being pretty dark, provocative and relevant to an era of economic uncertainty (in an incredibly blatant way) but also never forgets to be fun, with a fair few lighter moments to break the monotony. Rises is a genuine, uplifting superhero film like Begins was, unlike The Dark Knight, which was more of a high-concept crime thriller that happened to involve people in silly costumes.
Is Tom Hardy’s Bane a more memorable villain than Heath Ledger’s Joker? Not by any stretch of the imagination, but he’s an entertaining, distinctive antagonist with a wonderfully odd voice and some of the best eye-acting ever committed to the screen. Bane’s introduction scene is arguably on par with the Joker’s from the previous film, though – both are creative, thrilling heist scenes that are served beautifully by Nolan’s love of IMAX. I’m not overly fond of the first Batman vs. Bane fight, though – it’s a bit lumbering and uninteresting, and I’m sure more effort and creativity could have been put into the choreography.
The old faithfuls of the franchise – Michael Caine, Gary Oldman and Morgan Freeman are good as ever, though with reduced screen time, and Christian Bale impresses as an older, creakier Batman. Series newcomer Anne Hathaway is mesmerising playing the manipulative and morally ambiguous Selina Kyle AKA Catwoman (though never actually named as such), who proves herself to be at least as formidable as her pointy-eared associate. Joseph Gordon-Levitt manages to hold his own in a cast of big-hitters as an honest cop served well by his instincts, though all his good work is nearly undone by a clumsy and unnecessary moment at the film’s conclusion (not Levitt’s fault, the writers’). The weak link of the cast sadly is the usually excellent Marion Cotillard, who veers from being wooden to hamming it up royally at an alarming frequency.
The main crime The Dark Knight Rises commits is attempting to tackle too much. The plotting is a lot looser this time round, conveniently glossing over such narrative inconveniences as the passage of time and geography, and there are frequent references to things that supposedly happened between the last film and this one, often resulting in an information overload. The amount of new incidental characters that are introduced, and the frequency at which they are dispatched again can be alarming, and it doesn’t exactly help a viewer in grasping the story. A lot of narrative fat could have been cut at the beginning of the film, and a tweak in plotting in the first act would have certainly helped with the flow of the story, and perhaps heightened the dramatic impact of the “rising” of the title. Also, if you’re paying attention, the plot twists don’t come as much of a surprise at all.
The Dark Knight Rises is still a hugely entertaining and handsome-looking film, and the mostly practically achieved action has never looked better, but if the story had been stripped back a little, and had been more focussed, then perhaps a more consistently enjoyable final product might have emerged. Whatever DC/Warner Bros do with Batman next, it’ll be nigh-on impossible to top Nolan’s trilogy, and tragically, since they’re starting from scratch, we’ll probably never see Hathaway’s wonderful take on Catwoman again. SSP
Beyond the Valley of the Casting
It’s been announced that various independent film companies have banded together to make yet another film about making a film titled RUSS & ROGER GO BEYOND. Set to tell the story of the collaboration between trash auteur Russ Meyer and respected film critic Roger Ebert on BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS (1970), like Meyer’s cult favourite, the end product will no doubt be…interesting.
Such an unusual and fascinating real-life tale seemingly lends itself well to a dramatic re-telling. Beyond the Valley of the Dolls was a semi-spoof-psychedelic-musical-comedy-drama-horror (try saying that in one breath) and despite studio clashes and the near-impossible task to market the film, it was a financial hit in the USA. It’s unclear at this stage what the film’s plot will focus on – the many challenges of the filmmaking process, the unlikely friendship and working relationship between Ebert and Meyer, the contrasting private and public lives of the men themselves, or all of the above. I sincerely hope they don’t spread themselves too thin and try to cover all of these angles – that was what destroyed HITCHCOCK as a film; it became bland and non-committal.
One of the main problems with films about films is that we’ve likely already seen the end product that we’re supposedly watching being made on-screen. We know the ending, so there’s zero tension. The only thrill we can possibly attain from a film where we already know the ending is witnessing how the journey affects the characters. For it to work, the characters have to engage, and because they’re usually actors playing real people, they have to utterly convince in their portrayal of that real person. We know Beyond the Valley of the Dolls was made, it was massively successful, and its popularity with audiences only increased over time. Beyond the quality of the screenplay (by Chris Cluess), which has to at least be engaging, it’s going to be down to how good our two lead actors are.
So, who should play Russ Meyer and Roger Ebert? That’s a tough one. While you could probably get away with slapping a pervy moustache on just about any larger-framed character actor to play Meyer (he was reclusive and rarely gave interviews), Ebert poses a real challenge for a casting director. He was arguably the most famous, and most frequently heard English-speaking film critic in the world. Whoever gets to play the late, great Ebert will have to do an uncanny impression of his voice and mannerisms. No-one immediately springs to mind to play Ebert, but I could see someone like Philip Seymour Hoffman – with a bit of hair dye – playing “The King of the Nudies”.
I’m really not sure about this one. It’s a great story to tell on-screen, and Roger Ebert and Russ Meyer were undoubtedly fascinating, insanely talented men, both iconic, in different ways, players in film. It’s all down to who they cast, and what direction their story goes in. A bit of artistic flare wouldn’t go amiss, either – I’d love to see a biopic in the luridly colourful visual style of Meyer’s later career, maybe with some Meyer-brand camp humour thrown in. No word on when Russ & Roger Go Beyond will be cast, filmed, or released, but I await it with equal parts excitement and trepidation. SSP