The Dark Knight Rises Was Flawed, But Ultimately Great

And so – in my humble opinion – was The Dark Knight Rises. TDKR wasn’t perfect, but I loved every second of it. If my bladder were stronger, I would have wished the movie went on for another hour.

*Spoilers ahead*

Which brings me to the problems with TDKR. I saw the movie in the afternoon, didn’t have anything to drink, went to the bathroom right before we entered the theater and it still took every bit of willpower I could muster to not pee my pants before getting out of the theater. 2-hours and 44-minutes is a long damn time. The director’s cut should include an intermission.

The Dark Knight trilogy is one of the best trilogies ever and you could make a case for it as the greatest trilogy ever. (Apologies to The Mighty Ducks.) For me the debate is whether or not TDKR is better than TDK. After one viewing of TDKR and approximately a thousand viewings of TDK, I have to say it’s close.

My first complaint about this movie I loved is that the audio mix was distracting. The booming score was awesome, but the dialogue was bad at times. People worried that Bane would be intelligible and he was at times. You get over it because of the action and the beautiful scenery, but the sound was my main problem.

Can we talk about the number of actors from Inception? I’m a massive JGL fan so I was able to get over his inclusion, but whenever I saw Marion Cotillard all I could think of was her sitting on a ledge threatening to jump. Talia al Ghul? More like Malia al Ghul, am I right?

Before moving on to the ending, I just want to pick a few quick nits. In 8 years, billionaire recluse Bruce Wayne couldn’t have fit in a trip to Germany to see Kobe’s knee guy? 8 years after TDK, he’s still limping around using a cane? He didn’t even bother having a physical therapist come over for some simple rehab? Come on.

How many times can a brother break his back and recover in a month? Sheesh.We’re supposed to believe that a little girl can make the jump of faith because she feared death, but no grown man could? And how in the world did Bruce Wayne get from the prison back to Gotham? He has no shoes and no wallet. And, at this point in the film he is broke. I guess fearing death allows you to run across oceans and not get tired?

Still, all this was better than anything that had to do with Maggie Gyllenhaal.

Speaking of reboots… Joseph Gordon Levitt as the new Batman? (Not going to happen, I know.) Lozo wrote a terrific post about why that wouldn’t work (along with plenty of other concerns with the film) but it does go towards Bruce Wayne’s idea that Batman himself was an idea. (Or something.)

Which brings us to the ending. Oh, the ending. Ignoring the fact that the bomb did not go off more than 6 miles from Gotham for a moment… I don’t think there is any question that Nolan should have killed Batman. At the very least, the movie should have ended with Alfred’s nod. You know, like when Inception ended and we don’t know for sure if the top stopped spinning. I got into an argument about the ambiguity of that ending at the bar after TDKR. My friend is certain it stopped. I’m certain you’re not supposed to know. And that would have been fine for TDK trilogy. Not knowing if Bruce Wayne ever actually used the autopilot.

Instead, we got the happy, cutesy ending where Batman has fallen in love with Catwoman and magically has tea at the same Paris Florence cafe that Alfred mentions to him once without giving an actual location. In Bruce Wayne’s defense, wouldn’t you run off to Paris with Anne Hathaway?