In 2008, I had glowing praise for The Dark Knight. If you don't feel like clicking on the link right now, that's okay, but one poignant thing I said was, "We'll see how it settles," comparing a good movie to a good meal. I had thoroughly enjoyed The Dark Knight, but I wanted to see how it would settle in the annals of great comic book movies, and even great movies in general.
Four years later, and The Dark Knight has settled very well with me. I pretty much have it memorized, but I still watch it and enjoy it often. I have heard the criticisms, like, "Why would they believe The Joker when he says that Rachel was at this address and Dent was at this address?" (The answer? "What's the difference? At least one of them was going to die.") I can forgive some minor problems because, to me, it is such a good screenplay and such a well-crafted movie (very little CGI, Lucas!) that one or two quibbles are certainly acceptable.
So, with that in mind, I was excited, but also slightly nervous, to see The Dark Knight Rises. If it fell even just a little bit below my expectations, then would it be a disappointment? Would it have to basically be perfect to be considered good? Could it stand on its own, with such a great movie coming before it?
(These are simply the questions of a neurotic, over-analyzing film student and pop culture douche. I'm sure most normal people just wanted to buy tickets and be entertained for a couple hours. And to them, I say, "I envy you.")
This is the part where I am obligated to say I might spoil some minor parts of the film. But if you are reading this and didn't figure that something would be given away, then more fool you.
So, not only was I blown away by The Dark Knight Rises, but I answered all of those questions as well. For one, it did not fall below my expectations. It was still phenomenal, even though I'm sure there were imperfections (some of the foreshadowing was heavy-handed, even as I was sitting in the theater). And to my surprise and delight, it did not have to stand on its own. In fact, it had several nods to both of its predecessors (I loved the Liam Neeson and Cillian Murphy cameos.) Looking at it now, if this was your first installment of this Batman trilogy, then you probably didn't get as much out of it as you should have. And why don't you get to the movies more often?
The thing is, to say it was good and why is redundant. I could say i liked Bane, I liked Bruce Wayne's struggle to overcome all the odds, and, yes, I loved Anne Hathaway (especially from the back in her unexplained leather suit). Basically, I liked all the little things that make a great movie great, and I think that covers it. But when you really look at the thing, it is a Batman movie. Granted, it is far better than any movie made by Tim Burton or Joel Schumacher, and maybe slightly better than any one made by Christopher Nolan (We'll see how it settles.) This movie is about a comic book character. The Avengers was about comic book characters. X-Men was about comic book characters. And those movies, no matter how good they are, are almost taken with a grain of salt. When they're bad, they're bad. But even when they're good, they are comic book movies. They are enjoyable, but there is a certain drama that is always lacking because, let's face it, does anyone actually think that Loki is going to unleash an army on the Earth to take it over?
In my screenwriting classes, I was taught that the audience must believe the stakes. Obviously, none of us know what it's like to travel through time, but Back to the Future is so well-made that the audience believes that Marty will actually cease to exist if George doesn't ask Lorraine out. (When you put it that way, it's kind of silly, isn't it? I've not asked out hundreds of girls. Does that mean all our potential children faded away? Deep.) So, when you're making a movie about a man who dresses up like a giant bat to beat up criminals who dress as clowns, how do you make the audience believe that there is real danger?
Write the Hell out of it, I suppose. I won't give anything away, but The Dark Knight Rises does that. It raises the stakes. Through the roof. There were moments that I was pretty sure every character and every citizen of Gotham City was going to die. With The Avengers, for example, my one knock was that I never really believed that the good guys would not win. I know it sounds silly because the good guys win in all of these movies, but sometimes it's so well done that you have no idea how it's going to happen, and are impressed when it does. It is usually fun to watch them win, but the stakes can't really be that high when you know it's going to happen from a million miles away.
Still, in the context of great movies, where will the Dark Knight Rises settle? And where should it? Should it settle at the top of the heap of comic book movies, which, as I've illustrated, can be pretty horrible? To put The Dark Knight Rises in the same category of movies as Amazing Spider-Man would be doing it a huge disservice. Christopher Nolan said he wanted to make a war movie, and that he was slightly influenced by the Occupy Wall Street movement. Has there ever been a comic book movie that combined two such elements? They're usually about some jerk who gets powers or a suit of armor and now has to learn how to be a hero.
So, do we consider it a great action movie? A great war movie? Or will it (as it settles) transcend such labels and simply be what it is? And what about the entire trilogy of Batman movies? Will they be the Star Wars or Indiana Jones of this generation? Will it rank among the Harry Potter series and Lord of the Rings trilogy as the great ones of this era? Does it matter?
My opinion? This is one of the great films of my lifetime, and that's it. I guess since video stores are all gone, we don't really need to categorize movies anymore, so I'll just say it will be in my top ten favorite movies before long, and leave it at that. I mean, it's like comparing great baseball players. Pedro Martinez was the greatest pitcher I've ever seen, but was he better than Nolan Ryan? I guess it comes back to the same question I asked at the beginning:
What's the difference?
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