Dark Knight Rises

I just got home from Dark Knight Rises, and my first impressions are going to be more or less off the cuff here.  (Spoilers abound. If you don't want, stop reading) In short, "wow".  I was on the edge of my seat pretty much the entire movie.  It is to my mind, by a fair margin, the best of the three Nolan movies.

Now, part of that is that I feel that Ledger's Joker is badly overrated (a discussion for another time).  That said, even though the movie was closing in on three hours, it didn't feel it at all to me.  It had a powerful focus and held to it.

Is it a better movie than the Avengers?  No, but they are very different.  In fact, comparing the movies really does show that those differences.  Avengers is much more "old school" and just plain fun.  A good ol beat em up.  Yeah, the characters have their moments of introspection, but mostly, it's just a fun adventure.  DKR?  It is intense, just like the other 2 Nolan movies.  It's much more likely to leave you emotionally exhausted than Avengers ever will be.

The continuing cast (Bale, Oldman, Freeman and Caine) were their usual strong self.  I think that Hathaway did extremely well in her role as well.  I don't think she brought the sheer sultry to the role that Pfeiffer did, but she was very good, and truly did bring out Selina's conflicted antihero nature.  Gordon-Levitt was outstanding as Officer Blake.  A fantastic job by someone I mostly remember from a sitcom I never really liked.

This movie will never be able to be separated from what happened in Aurora, and it shouldn't be either.  In a deep and profound way, what we are seeing is the conflict that is deep within the movies playing itself out in very real and tragic form.

Why did the monster do what he did?  I'm not about to play internet shrink here, but the fact that he did it where he did, the way he did does lead one down certain trains of thought. 

The three movies do work with certain continuing themes.  One of them is the corruption and hypocrisy of society.  The darkness of Gotham, and what it has unleashed on the world is what Ras wanted to avenge back in the first movie, and this final movie returns to that theme.  In reading Gordon's speech to the world, Bane highlighted that hypocrisy, even as he gave a false and lying freedom.   Those movies of course are sandwiched around chaos unleashed, that is to say, the Joker.  The Joker who tried to show the utter dog eat dog nature of this world, yet was foiled by a bunch of convicts (of all things).

Yet, that's the flip side of the movie.  Even in the darkness of society, the utter corruption, the greed and avarice, the anger and hatred, there remains a glimmer of hope.  A hope born of people who stand against that tide.

That hope begins of course, with Batman himself.  In the first movie though, he has very few real allies.  His inner circle (Alfred, Lucius, Rachel) and then the one honest cop (Jim Gordon).  That circle doesn't really grow much in the second movie, but in the third?  It grows profoundly.

The movie isn't the story of one man who stood against the darkness, but men and women who risked everything to do so.  Batman may have been the pointman for it, and the inspiration, but he was not alone.  Selina, Officer Blake, Deputy Commisioner Foley, the assembled police department.

The same police department that was hopelessly venal and corrupt in the first movie.  When the hour came, they stood, they fought.  They charged into the first outgunned, and they fought. 

The inspiration that came from the symbol of the Batman has clearly grown through the movies, to the point that the forces of Order in Gotham are ready to give and sacrifice all.

The monster in Aurora?  He patterned himself after chaos.  He did his best to create chaos, and in a time and place, he succeeded.  Yet, he stands out because what he did was so monstrous.  He brought horror into the world, but in doing so, his evil is highlighted against the compassion and care of so many others.  Instead of bringing down society, he will in the end show how strong it truly can be.

There is more that I can say, and given some time and awakeness, I may get into the theology of the movie.  If Superman Returns played with the theology of grace, salvation and the nature of God, DKR is firmly rooted in anthropology (the theological version, though I'm sure the more familiar one would also have a great deal to say).