Christian Bale and Company Rise to the Occasion one Last Time

As Christopher Nolan’s latest film, Dunkirk, storms theaters, we take a look back at some of the director’s other notable film’s we’ve reviewed in the past.  This is my capsule review from the time of the theatrical opening of The Dark Knight Rises.  It originally appeared as part of a group piece at TwitchFilm, now known as ScreenAnarchy.com.

 

DIRECTED BY CHRISTOPHER NOLAN/2012

From Adam West in 1966 to Christian Bale’s record-setting three outings as Christopher Nolan’s version, the long-running DC Comics hero Batman has proven to be one of our most fluid icons. Over the years, he’s shifted visually and tonally from camp humor to intense crime drama (with almost everything in between) as effortlessly as mass audiences are to accept him in most of those versions. And that’s merely in terms of the character’s big screen outings. Whatever one may think of one incarnation over another, there’s something undeniably cool about all of it.

With virtually the entire cast returning and Anne Hathaway’s winning take on Catwoman, much is in place for a satisfying final Bat-film.

But as much as things change for Batman, the more they stay the same. As we see in The Dark Knight Rises (in glorious IMAX clarity), some days he still can’t get rid of a bomb. Thankfully, the movie isn’t one. This latest magnum opus from the highly regarded Nolan may not measure up to 2008’s The Dark Knight, but that’s okay. With virtually the entire cast returning and Anne Hathaway’s winning take on Catwoman, much is in place for a satisfying final Bat-film. However, more-so than usual, the filmmakers’ modus operandi of dressing up real-world complexity as comic book allegory is particularly transparent. The uncharismatic Bane dominates too much of it, with Joseph Gordon-Levitt occupying yet more. But if I have one lingering complaint about The Dark Knight Rises, it’s that in its 164 minutes, maybe 35 of them actually feature the title character. He’d just risen, and I was missing him already. See you at the reboot, Batman.