A Review of Batman

After seeing The Dark Knight a few summers ago, and being much less in love with it than everyone else, I knew I wouldn't be that into its eventual sequel. The previews did nothing to excite me to see it on opening weekend. Of course I would see it eventually....when it came to the dollar theater. Which it finally did. I went in with pretty low expectations and still came out of it disappointed. It turned out it was worse than I had imagined it could be.

Don't get me wrong, it's not bad like Batman and Robin was bad, or bad like Spiderman 3. This was bad in that so many talented people got together, under the direction of Christopher Nolan, and made something that was weak. Worse than that, it wasn't fun or interesting at all.

The movie is long. Really long. Nearly three hours. It's probably a half hour longer than it should be. For a very large chunk of the movie Batman is gone. Completely gone and the film is given over to Bain and the cops trying to fight against him. One could argue that his absence was because Bain was in control of the city and the audience needed to feel, just like the residents of Gotham, that all hope was lost. I do not buy this argument.

Which leads me to my next issue with the film: the villain. The Joker, understandably, is a hard act to follow. But it was not an insurmountable task, especially with a director like Christopher Nolan. In my opinion, Bain was not charismatic or even interesting. He was just brute force. Then the switcheroo to Tate being the real villain felt a lot like lazy writing.

I also took issue with the film trying way too hard to be a relevant movie, with the "rich vs. poor" mentality espoused by Bain. I believe that the actual Occupy Wall Street movement had issues that were important to discuss. I do not think anyone believes we should pillage and demean the rich when the poor have taken over. Not at all. And I found it hard to watch it.

From a filmmaking standpoint, the movie was nothing spectacular. The cinematography was flat as was the direction. The music was loud and distracting. Again, I expect more from a director like Christopher Nolan; he's not Joel Schumacher or Michael Bay. All the actors seemed to be tired and just saying their lines. Batman exists in his own world, but this movie brought us a bomb, nuclear fusion, and the President of the United States. It was all so incongruous that it felt like a bizarre alternate universe where Batman and his cohorts were dropped in on.

This quibble is a small one, but I just couldn't get past it: the football stadium scene. First of all, why wasn't the stadium completely full? It looked like whoever had that task in the CGI department forgot to finish it. The previous films, although filming in either New York or Chicago, always made Gotham its own city. This movie was so obviously shot in New York and wasn't even attempted to make it look different. It bothered me.

And finally, Bruce Wayne/Batman was whiny and just too sad. I get that he loved Rachel, and the films took a chance on giving Batman one real, constant love throughout them. However it was bungled in this third one. As my friend said, it needed some rewrites so it wasn't stumbling across the finish line.

There you go. A very long dis on The Dark Knight Rises. It's much more fun to dissect what you think is bad about a movie than what was good. If you liked it, feel free to let me know!