3.5 stars out of 5
Batmeh. Somewhere in the middle, I was seriously considering giving this a “Batmeh.” But there are many high points, many thrills, and a strong enough ending to warrant a thumbs-up.
To me, the second installment remains the best film in the trilogy, even if the Harvey Dent/Two Face story felt tacked on and anticlimactic. Ah, but that half hour sets up the action in The Dark Knight Rises. (Still, maybe it could’ve just been a free iTunes download. That’s what Wes Anderson would’ve done. Just saying.) The disgraced Batman is missing, and coincidentally, no one has seen Bruce Wayne in a long while either. In fact, the only chance of glimpsing the reclusive billionaire is if you ring the front doorbell. But Gotham has changed. Will Batman come out of retirement and save the day?!? Well, OK, but just this one more case….
Now, your reaction to this movie may hinge on how you feel about director Christopher Nolan. He is not my all-time favorite. Nolan really likes things complicated; I prefer stories that are a bit more straightforward. And though I do feel he’s genuinely improved as a director, I don’t think he’s brilliant. Performance-wise, great actors give him great performances, and other actors just kind of show up and talk. Christian Bale does his very best Bruce Wayne work in this one. Anne Hathaway is terrific; I only wish that so much of the dialogue surrounding her wasn’t a formulaic chauvinist-comment-answered-by-sassy-retort-and-ass-kicking. Michael Caine is spirited and a lot of fun. Joseph Gordon-Levett is rock-solid. Due to a plot convenience, Gary Oldman spends most of the movie in a hospital bed. Ah well. Poor Tom Conti rots away in some crazy prison, The Wire‘s mayor Tommy Carcetti falls out of a plane, Cillian Murphy bangs a gavel, and Morgan Freeman returns as… is it Q? I want to say Q.
And the bad guy is Darth Vader. I’d comment on his performance but I only understood about 1/3 of what he said. Take that stupid thing out of your mouth! This ain’t Pulp Fiction. There’s also a heavily accented French woman (the La Vie en Rose lady), Russian criminals, mumbly Batman… I was ready to vote for anyone promising to bring enunciation back to Gotham City.
A whole lot goes on in this movie. In Batman Begins, I thought the early going lagged (begin already, willya?), and as I already said, Part II’s ending was extraneous. If this one has a weakness, it’s the middle. So very much plot. Old grudges and politics and Wall Street and Occupy and September 11th (including a gratuitous lingering shot of downtown Manhattan) and the slowest digital countdown on a bomb you’ve ever seen and Samuel L. Jackson pushing for clean energy…. Even as things are revving up later on, the story grinds to a halt as a long speech is delivered, explaining what is really going on. We don’t care! It’s a comic-book movie! Punch somebody!
When there is action, and there is a lot of it, this is indeed excellent. I saw the movie in IMAX—like, genuine science-center curved-screen IMAX—and it was pretty wild. Immersive. The 007-esque opening sequence was awesome. Nolan’s big set pieces really had room to breathe in IMAX.
And I thought the ending was very, very satisfying. They wrapped up the trilogy quite nicely. As far as the summer comic-book movies go, this is certainly the best made, and the most thought-provoking. But I actually found The Avengers to be more fun and more consistently entertaining. And call me crazy, but I kind of admire that in a superhero flick.
Jack Silbert, curator