Batman - The Dark Knight Rises

I had a minor operation Tuesday afternoon, but despite the local anaesthetic wearing off and the pain slowly rising in my back, nothing was going to stop me seeing the final part of Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy at the first possible opportunity. So in the evening I gritted my teeth against any discomfort and drove down to Winnersh Showcase for a half-full screening. The Dark Knight Rises is the final part of this series of films in which crime and crime-fighting are shown as two sides of a very dirty coin. The films have explored the legitimacy of fighting crime at all costs, as well as the morality of humanity left to its collective impulses. Crucially though, they have been directorial triumphs for Nolan - and helped him break into the Holywood A-list for film producer / directors.

Let's start with the cast. I'm going to provide a list and stop when I get to someone who who has not played a lead role in a major film: Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Anne Hathaway, Liam Neeson, Joseph Gordon Levitt, Marion Cotillard, Morgan Freeman, Cillian Murphy, Tom Hardy. Now that's an A-list. I can only assume that there would have been a role for Heather Ledger too had he not died.  With a cast like this and a director of Nolan's capability, could there be any doubt that 'The Dark Knight Rises' would be a classic?

And now the plot. It's 8 years since the Joker's reign of madness was ended by Batman. The Batman has gone into hiding and Bruce Wayne is a recluse, but a new grandiose evil - Bane - is threatening Gotham's security and so Batman is set to return to protect the city once more. This time though, Batman is wanted by the city's police and only trusted by police commissioner Gordon. While this is happening, a master-thief - the Catwoman - is beginning to ruffle the feathers of the city's rich and famous. As Bane's plan to 'free' Gotham's citizens from its police and governors is revealed, Batman is in a race against time to free himself from captivity and help the city's beleaguered residents. Classic comic book stuff. Let's start the review off with a positive shall we, Anne Hathaway.

Anne Hathaway plays catwoman - and she is amazing. Not in a pervy way, though she does look fantastic in the variety of figure-hugging outfits they must have sewn her into, but in a she can act after all way. Who would have thought she could pull off an action role? Most her lines could easily have turned into cheesy mush a la Halle Berry - they never do. All the best scenes are when she's fighting against her instinctive reaction - to go it alone in a laissez faire style and screw the world; can she be convinced to make a stand against all the injustice she knows is happening? When called upon to pull off high kicks, one-liners and ninja moves, she's no Heath Ledger, but she's more than up to the task. Though the film is nominally about Batman and Kane, it is Hathaway and Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Robin Blake who provide the central character arcs for the film. Each of these characters starts out as a naive idealist - he is the green cop for whom no criminal is too well-connected, she is the impudent thief for whom no treasure is beyond taking - each ends up learning that both sides of the law / crime divide have their dark sides and cannot be given unquestioning trust. He starts out as lawful good, she chaotic neutral - by the end each are probably chaotic good. Bonus marks to people geeky enough to understand this reference.

A lot of news print in the last few weeks has been dedicated to discussing the politics of this film. Despite being a summer blockbuster it's a film that has a lot to say about politics, and seems to be espousing a subtle right wing agenda. Bane - the arch-villain - is a Robespierre figure, who on occasion espouses the kind of pseudo-communist nonsense I can only imaging US Republicans think Socialists like myself believe. The parallels with the French Revolution continue as Commisioner Gordon reads from 'Tale of Two Cities' at the end of the film and Cillian Murphy's character sit astride a court reminiscent of the kangaroo courts of the Reign of Terror. Nolan seems to be creating a not-so-subtle anti-revolutionary agenda here, where the French Revolution was a terrible mis-adventure in which the barbarous and unwashed masses cruelly rose and obliterated western civilisation for a brief period.

An example of the subtle centre-right propaganda comes from Catwoman's character development. She starts out as an antagonist, and tells Bruce Wayne that he shouldn't presume he and his friends can have so much wealth and expect everyone else to let them have it. Bad Catwoman talks like a Commie you see. After Bane's 'revolution', her housemate comments that a house previously owned by a family is "everyone's house now", a comment that visibly saddens Catwoman. The subtext being that now Catwoman is coming around to the side of good, she's understanding the need for property rights to be respected.  Read into this what you will. I can only recall one moment in which anyone points out that Bane's 'revolution' isn't really a revolution at all, more like it's a huge ransoming of human life in which millions of people are imprisoned to his will. For all the anti-left wing messages in the film it's hardly a balancing moment. The film exhibits at best an establishment view of the world; at worst it's not far off a sort of subliminal propaganda.

In addition, the film has a huge number of plot holes and contrivances. Characters are constantly conveniently turning up at various points to provide input, rescue someone or explain the plot. There's a major plot twist towards the end of the film that is absolutely unnecessary. Also, they do that classic movie thing when a scientist says that a disaster will happen in about 5 months, at which point someone sets a clock with a countdown timer to the time exactly 5 months hence. I'm still shaking my head over that one.

In the end though, all is forgivable. All the plot holes, continuity errors, macguffins and right wing sub-texts are forgivable because this is a tour de force of blockbuster film-making. Christopher Nolan is the master of outlandish directorial feats, so each time when the camera expanded out to a wide view or the music swelled in anticipation of something I pushed myself back into my seat and thought "c'mon Chris - gimmie something amazing". I was never disappointed. From the opening scene of a kidnapping on a plane, through to several moments of epic destruction as Bane enacts his plan to bring Gotham to its moral knees, there was just too much to be in awe of to worry about the occasional continuity error. This trilogy of Batman movies has been an outstanding achievement by this landmark director. He has forever re-defined what is possible with a comic book movie adaptation. Never again will people automatically assume that such films are Val Kilmer-esque cheese festivals full of dodgy one-liners and fluorescent costumes. Nolan has proved that comic book adaptations not only can be dark and full of hidden depths, but that they're better like this.