The Dark Knight Trilogy

I don't want to hear it. No, I haven't watched Christopher Nolan's infamous The Dark Knight trilogy. I saw Iron Man as a young girl in 2008 and was subsequently sucked into the vortex that was the MCU. Something subconscious in me must have repelled the DC Universe as this is my first foray into the behemoth comic world. I have watched the majority of Nolan's epic filmography, so this was a glaring hole in my knowledge. My hopes were very high, but I'll admit the trilogy was a mixed bag, filled with the highs of stylish ambition and the lows of missed opportunity.

Starting off with Batman Begins.

From the outset, Batman Begins does a lot of narrative heavy lifting. We meet an orphaned Bruce Wayne who, having witnessed the murder of his parents, is left disillusioned and lost. As a young adult, Bruce flees his wealthy life to experience the underworld of crime, a choice that leads him to The League of Shadows - a clandestine allegiance of ninjas led by the elusive Ra's al Gul. Wayne trains alongside them, learning the skills that will later manifest in his alternate, batty identity.

The beginning of Batman Begins suffers from feeling too rushed, particularly when Bruce falls out with the League after discovering their plan to decimate Gotham. The League reveals that their methods have spanned millennia (including the destruction of Ancient Rome) and argue that a massacre would neutralise the corrupt evil that has overrun the city. The philosophical/historical roots of the League of Shadows is certainly ambitious, but not given enough room to breathe, thus reducing their 'glory' to something more superficial. This is an issue that sustains throughout the film: the pace of Batman Begins is breakneck, preventing numerous plot points from having any satisfying payoff.

Bruce's relationships feel similarly hasty: Lucien Fox (Morgan Freeman) becomes one of Wayne's closest allies almost instantly, alongside detective James Gordon (Gary Oldman). Despite this, both Freeman and Oldman are fantastically charming and likeable side characters that we instantly root for. The relationships that survive the rush are those with longtime friend, Rachel, and legal guardian, Alfred. The skilled performances achieved by the array of actors redeem the pacing issues, tying us closer to Bruce's story.

My largest criticism for Batman Begins is its exceptionally clunky editing. There were numerous occasions where cuts (within and between scenes) felt jumpy, leaving me disoriented and scenes feeling unfinished. Another issue arises with the creation of Gotham City, which is, in many ways, a character in itself. The infamous fictional city felt underdeveloped. In a world of ganglands, poverty and corruption, Gotham looked rather like New York City to me and the set design lacked the visual potency of a crumbling metropolis on the brink of collapse. There was so much potential to add stylistic flair to this setting, making Gotham feel like a huge missed opportunity.

Cilian Murphy's Scarecrow, whose toxic gas sparks fear into the minds of anyone who inhales it, was a suitably mediocre adversary for Batman. Murphy did a good job, but after researching the Scarecrow, I feel more could have been done to heighten the character's dramatic presence. The Scarecrow felt more like a preface to The Dark Knight's later villains. It is revealed that Scarecrow is doing the bidding for The League of Shadows. The reintroduction of The League had the potential to be fantastic, but, again, the general feeling of rush refused a satisfying reveal.

Despite my mostly negative feedback, Batman Begins was not a bad film, but it falls short on so many levels that it feels like a shadow of what it could have been. Onto the next.

6/10

Next, The Dark Knight.

Wow. Ready for a full 180? In stark comparison to the first installment, The Dark Knight is truly fantastic.

The opening scene of the sequel is brilliant: a bank heist is carried out by a gang of masked clowns, who routinely kill one another under the orders of their leader, 'The Joker'. In the first few minutes, there is a sense that we are watching something far darker and more experimental. Heath Ledger's creation is brilliantly sadistic - an anarchistic crusader who brands himself as 'an agent of chaos.’ There is no limit to The Joker's evil as he murders impartially and threatens exceptional levels of violence. In comparison to The League of Shadows, his anarchistic philosophy is (surprisingly) more sound. Arguing that anarchy is fairer because of its impartiality, his absolute belief in his mantra makes the illogical nature of his killing even more terrifying.

The swanky new DA of Gotham City (and Rachel's boyfriend) is Harvey Dent, whose iconic line, 'You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain,' fatally predicts his own end. Dent begins the film as a justice warrior, taking an unwavering stance on crime and corruption in Gotham. His 'White Knight' image is waiting to be tainted from the title of the film alone.

The action in The Dark Knight is significantly stronger and is helped massively by The Joker's dramatic capabilities - although the motif of people sliding off buildings/mountain tops continues to be more humorous than nail-biting.

In a gut-churning sequence, Rachel and Harvey are kidnapped and taken to separate locations, surrounded by explosives set to blow. The Joker provides both addresses and Bruce races to save Rachel. The Joker, guessing The Batman's affections for her, gives Wayne the wrong address. Arriving before the police, Wayne saves Dent, whilst Rachel dies in the explosion. In a truly shocking departure from our romantic proclivities, Nolan's willingness to kill off the main love interest in such violent fashion laces the rest of the film with violent unease.

In a tense finale, The Joker rigs two ships with explosives, one loaded with convicts, the other with civilians. Both ships are given the trigger to blow up the other - fail to make a decision and both will blow at midnight. The scene is unbearably tense, yet neither ship decides to take the lives of the other. As the clock strikes twelve, The Joker is visibly shaken: his faith that a natural evil resides in every human has failed and the strength of human spirit prevails - huzzah!

But it doesn't end there. The Joker's true evil is achieved through Dent, who is transformed into a murderous vigilante, intent on enacting revenge for Rachel's death. Wayne kills Dent as he attempts to kill Gordon's son. Instead of revealing the murderous truth, Bruce insists on blaming Dent's death on The Batman, presenting Dent as a martyr figure. In doing so, he thwarts The Joker's attempts to corrupt the 'White Knight' image and preserves the moral optimism of an entire city. Wayne rides off into the distance, a Dark Knight. It is a brilliantly bittersweet ending that reminds us that the light and dark will always coexist.

 9/10

Finally, The Dark Knight Rises.

Last but...maybe least, The Dark Knight Rises. The charm that saved Batman Begins has worn off and the heavy lifting done by The Dark Knight feels lost in this final installment.

A stunning opening kidnap sequence (involving a dangling aircraft) introduces us to Bane (Tom Hardy), who will serve as a formidable opponent to The Batman. Hardy's voicework, combined with the sinister gas mask, does a great job of summoning fear - a human-robotic hybrid. Satirical and seething, Bane's violent displays are malicious and unfeeling. 'You merely adopted the dark,' he muses to Batman, 'I was born in it.' Bane and Batman come head-to-head in Bane's underground lair and Bane defeats a weakened Bruce with ease. His strength is near inhuman, powered by a cold fury that only faintly suggests there is a humanity lurking underneath the mask, making Bane particularly disarming. However, when Bane reveals he is part of The League of Shadows, I sighed. The League (for all its screentime in the first film) should be an ever-present, terrifying threat, but my issues with the first film still stand, making the reveal lacklustre. It is also revealed that Ra's AlGul had a child... Bane (more on that later).

Next, how could I not mention Anne Hathaway's performance as the iconic Catwoman? Selina Kyle is a jewel thief in cahoots with Bane and his cronies, who secretly seeks an escape from her criminal ways. Hathaway is burdened with an array of cringey lines that provide a good laugh, but risk reducing Catwoman to Batman's glitzy accessory.

The main romantic interest, Miranda Tate (Marion Cotillard), is the new CEO of Wayne Enterprises, which makes for a very boring love affair. Bruce entrusts Tate with the controls to a fusion reactor, a device which, in the wrong hands, could be transformed into a nuclear weapon - a little easy to predict the ending, huh? When it is later revealed that Miranda, not Bane, is the child of Ra's al Gul, I felt another twinge of a missed opportunity: it would have had a far greater payoff if the child of Ra's al Gul was a character more prominent in the rest of the trilogy, making the betrayal more meaningful to Bruce. Aside from Ra's al Gul briefly mentioning a personal loss in the first film, there were few foundations for this to feel like a worthy plot point.

The Dark Knight Rises has a few strong images, notably when Bane blows up an American Football stadium. As the pitch collapses, a single footballer rushes towards the try line, narrowly avoiding the fate of his teammates. It is in this image of a decimated American patriotism that The Dark Knight Rises hints at its own ambition. Bane takes the mic and encourages the people of Gotham to reclaim power from the corrupt higher-ups. I only wish that we got to see more of the evil at the top of these companies to give his destructive mantra a twisted logic. Bane reveals that they have transformed Wayne's fusion device into an atom bomb, set to destroy the city (shock!) With the city's exits blocked by the government, Gotham descends into violent self-governance, where freed inmates run rampant. Ideas of the proleteriat reclaiming the city echoes the previous films, yet the atomic bomb feels too big for the insular world which is Gotham.

Meanwhile, Bruce is kidnapped and thrown into the same jail Bane claims to have grown up in. The prison is a hellhole from which the only escape is climbing a wall that has claimed the lives of countless prisoners. Tormented by the goings on of Gotham, Bruce finally recovers from his injuries and (after a few failed attempts) completes the climb with no rope. A prisoner claims that fear is the true way to create change; strangely, this nihilistic philosophy mirrors The Joker's philosophy. The ghost of The Joker haunts the final installment, which screams out for his pure evil to save it.

Back in Gotham, Miranda sets off the reactor before dying in a fantastically mediocre fashion. Bruce hauls the bomb away from the city using a flying Batmobile and it detonates safely away from the city. Given that the only alternative was Gotham's complete annihilation, the climax lacks tension and Bruce's successful escape feels inevitable. Presumed dead, Wayne's Manor becomes an orphanage and Bruce's estate goes to Alfred. Wayne (who has somehow survived an atomic explosion) lunches with Selina, both having escaped the burdens of their past lives.

My issues with this film are clear: the strengths of its dramatic action, fantastic performances and stunning visuals are let down by rushed narrative and undercooked plotpoints. It was entertaining, yes, but lacked the slick, dramatic edge The Dark Knight so expertly displayed.

5/10