... And a Billionaire Shall Save Them

Very late, as usual (I may be no Procrastacritic, but apparently I have the same DNA ...), I have finally gotten around to watching the culmination of Nolan's Batman trilogy.  The Dark Knight Rises is, in its way, the perfect movie for our times - but it is not a feel good spectacle.

This isn't the statement it seems to be.  I like a "dark" movie, and don't ask for pap.  But this film is disturbing.  It doesn't question our world and posit something better.  Its function, in the end, is to look at our world - this economy of haves, the invisibility of the have-nots - the cruel dynamic of "the 1%" - the ever-tipping balance of imbalance - and posits that revolution is evil, *and* that self-rule equals anarchy and ends in death.

Bane, the villain of the piece, is the product of ultimate deprivation, and his theorem that the concentration of power (and money) in the hands of the few is unacceptable is positioned, in this story, as the ultimate form of evil.

The Dark Knight Rises celebrates the wealthy, mourns any injury to them in the most shamelessly sentimental terms - "This house belonged to a family" says, of all people, Catwoman, as The Great Unwashed overtake a mansion - and rejoices in the billionaire savior, come to return Gotham from its peril in the hands of The People and restore it to the wealthy, the rightful in power.

DKR is more offensive and disturbing even than The Artist or Battlestar, for being a direct rebuke of justice.  The Artist's problems were not thematically unallied to this thesis (a bid for pity of the wealthy white man who loses not even close to everything that counts, when he arrogantly and petulantly chooses to resist the very authority he's adored as long as it was making him a fortune).  Battlestar's were racist, sexist, and philosophical, though it was rising somewhat from its worst by the end.  DKR is simply a political piece, commanding obedience to the now, decrying any questioning of our existing economy, our existing political structure, as unthinkable villainy.

It's pretty sick, is what I am saying.  Worse, it's fairly engaging (though not as well done as it should be, and far too full of bizarrely convenient ramps for people to escape far too many chase scenes), if a bit murky to follow and somewhat poorly plotted.

Here is the surprise gem.  Catwoman, here portrayed in as close to her Julie Newmar incarnation as any production in the past forty years has attempted, by Ann Hathaway (she of all the teenaged girl-fantasies about getting to wear fancy fancy clothes) of all people.  Selina Kyle, in this incarnation is as wildly competent as ever, which is nice to see, and her sexuality, fully present, doesn't get to compromise her in this script.  The character remains competent at all times, is able to manipulate without missing a beat - but NOT because she is a "wily female" character (indeed, her gender is not the informing source of any of her worse traits, nor is it the excusing factor in redeeming her from them).  She is not vulnerable in the pouting, diffident way most female characters, particularly in action movies - *particularly* in *superhero* movies - are.  No, her evolution, through this story, is singularly personal, has some meaning, and keeps her the most fascinating character on screen.  She participates perhaps more than Batman, Bane - more than anyone else in the film, except Joseph Gordon Levitt's John Blake - in the reality of the consequences of the action.  She and Blake alone appear to actually represent the masses, the huge population of Gotham, enduring - and overcoming - the results of those forces battling it out so attractively for the audience.  I even like the design choice that justifies/creates her cat ears.

I didn't go into this watching hating Ann Hathaway, but I've come away appreciating the hell out of her bringing to life this character.  It's even explicit in the film:  "There's more to you than that."

All this and only one gratuitous shot of her ass.  Would this had been her film entirely.  Ah well.

Tom Hardy, unfortunately, is all but lost.  As a Trek nerd, I've watched him ever since America glanced across him in Nemesis.  But there's no way to direct around the constraints of the character Bane.  Hidden behind a mask, given another in the series of all-but-ridiculous voices the Nolan Batmans provide such a rich series of - there's not much an actor can do to clamber out of the hole dug by such constraints.  Edward Norton, in Kingdom of Heaven, and hidden behind a silver mask of his own, somehow managed to make a memorable character leap out from behind it - ironically, not least by his use of a somewhat funny voice.

Sadly, the funny voice doesn't seem to be the magic.  I'm sorry to watch Tom Hardy, whom I can't hold responsible for his own death, lost so completely in DKR.  Bane's not bad to watch, but there is no depth as written, and as directed there's nothing to lift the bad guy out of a flat comic panel.  After the late and legendary Heath Ledger, I guess putting the villain behind a mask was about all they could do, but it is still unfortunate to waste an actor like that.

Thirty-seven years ago, Luke Skywalker was a hero.  He was a rebel against tyranny, fighting the faceless, artificially animated Powers That Be.  Now the hero is the guy kicking down the rebel, who is himself repulsive for his infirmity.

Way to go, progress.

Way to go, billionaire Bruce Wayne.


Please understand - I know that this is a reductive interpretation.  That doesn't make it incorrect, and it doesn't redeem this film from its reckless and disturbing messages.  Dark Knight Rises is still a dangerous story in this day and age.  Think about whom it serves best before thinking it's time to get shrill on this reviewer.