After having watched the first two movies in the trilogy numerous times, I went to watch The Dark Knight Rises with the highest of expectations – expectations that were not only met, but surpassed, as I watched the movie.
The movie immediately jumps into one its most character developing scenes, where the main antagonist is shown doing what antagonists do – kidnapping and killing others. This scene is one of the most telling of the movie, as it acts as both as an establishment scene for the villains (which it does better than many other movies) while also giving viewers the impression that Batman is the only person who can save Gotham from this new terror.
As the movie progresses, we are met with a wonderful combination of action scenes and character development, a mix which many movies fail to accomplish. The Dark Knight Rises manages to both keep action viewers interested with a plethora of interesting fights, while keeping those fights relevant to the story and allowing the story to progress. This is something which is not new to the Batman franchise, but something which many other movies fail to do today, with many films putting the storyline on hold to allow for fight scenes, many of which have little or no effect of the storyline. This mix was done in an expert fashion, with the only part I felt was not of expert quality was one of the main fighting scenes, where the outcome is clear, but the fight continues for far longer than needed. This action of mixing the fighting scenes with story development is something which, when done properly, as it was done in The Dark Knight Rises, helps to rank any movie as amazing in my mind. With the establishment of new characters, Nolan manages to keep the series fresh and exciting, as we get to watch the characters we know and enjoy seeing onscreen meet other characters which bring unique acts to the story. With the story we are given, none of the characters felt extraneous, with each of the characters filling a certain role in the movie, and filling it with high quality acting. The only downside to keeping each of the characters relevant was the fact that in doing so, many irrelevant scenes were added, which did add to the story, but did not add to the overall experience. Though there were not too many of these scenes, the removal of these scenes from the movie would not change anyone’s understanding of the story, but make the film more concise, and possibly even increase one’s enjoyment of the movie.
Overall, though this movie is not one of my favourite movies of all time, it certainly ranks quite highly and left quite an impression on me. As classic comic book heroes such as Batman and Spiderman are revived and made into new movies, it is worth it for anyone who is interested in any comic book hero to check them out, with the chance of coming across a gem such as Nolan’s Batman trilogy making all the lower quality films worth it.
