‘The Dark Knight Rises’ gets lost in the dark

First things first: Director Christopher Nolan has crafted an exciting superhero trilogy and reinvented the scope of Batman on the big screen. From Batman Begins to The Dark Knight to the newly-released The Dark Knight Rises, Nolan made good on his promise to moviegoers that the myth of the Caped Crusader would be subject to realism, current events and darker elements than previous installments.

Does that make the trilogy perfect? Far from it.

Batman Begins is a solid film with a few annoying performances (Katie Holmes and Christian Bale, included). The Dark Knight is the best of the best, featuring a memorable performance from the late Heath Ledger. The Dark Knight Rises, although a fitting end to the three films, feels like a letdown. The plot, upon close inspection, falls apart. The characters are never compelling. The action is subdued. The title character never really “rises,” and becomes a supporting character in his own film. (Note to audience: Bale is still sporting a ridiculous deep voice when he wears the mask.)

You know things are imperfect when the most interesting and satisfying character is Alfred, the butler (Michael Caine).

Bruce Wayne (Bale) has been locked away from society for years. His company is in ruins, and the Batman suit is tucked away in the far reaches of the cave under Wayne Manor. There’s no mention of Joker and hardly any connection to the end of The Dark Knight, but it’s obvious our main man has entered a state of depression. With a scraggly beard and Alfred acting as father-pscyhiatrist-butler, things are dark at Wayne Manor.

Enter Bane (Tom Hardy), a terrorist who wears a restrictive mask that looks like a spider froze to his mouth. He’s big, bad and deadly — in other words, he’s a formidable candidate to take on Batman. Bane enters Gotham City in the wake of memorial services for Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart in The Dark Knight) and decides to employ his gang of bad guys to take over the city. With Batman/Wayne out of commission, it’s up to the Gotham City Police Department, headed by Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman), to save the day.

A few subplots emerge: Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway) is a cat burglar who steals pearls from the Wayne Manor and enters the secluded world of the Howard-Hughes-like billionaire. The key word here is cat, because Kyle eventually takes on the guise of Catwoman.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Blake, a young whippersnapper of a police officer who aids Gordon with the investigation to stop Bane. Marion Cotillard plays an environmentally-conscious woman who sits on the Wayne Enterprises board. Morgan Freeman is back as Fox, the man with the gizmos.

For the first 90 minutes, these characters circulate around a plot that has no thrust, immediacy or purpose. We’re led to believe that Bane is trying to detonate a destructive bomb in Gotham City, but his motives are lacking in detail. Speaking through a garbled voiceover, the entire character looks and acts like a bruiser, and somehow he’s able to commandeer this enormous terrorist plot without much communication to his underlings. His backstory never gives audience members a clue of his intentions.

The majority of the movie is set up as a plea to Wayne to stop his crying and put on the Bat suit. Gotham needs some sense of hope; the Bat signal has been turned off for too long.

When the Caped Crusader finally answers the call, there’s almost no time left in the movie for him to exercise his heroic powers. The Dark Knight is largely missing from The Dark Knight Rises, and this feels oddly miscalculated on the parts of screenwriters Jonathan Nolan and Christopher Nolan. (Also, am I the only one who sees parallels to  Greg Rucka’s Batman novelization, No Man’s Land.)

The worst development, by far, has to be when all of the police officers in the city walk into the sewer system to find Bane. When explosives trap them in there like animals in a cage, Blake is given the worst line of dialogue to appear in a superhero movie for some time.

Something like…

Bystander: All of the police are trapped.

Blake: Not all of them.

Bane is the best part of the movie. As portrayed by Hardy, he’s villainy personified, looking 3 feet taller than anyone else and much stronger. There’s a real sense of dread when watching this terrorist wreak his havoc. His motives may be missing, but his power is evidently on display. That mask is terrifying.

Hathaway is also not too bad as Catwoman. Rather than overplaying the part, the character becomes a confidant of Batman’s and rides a neat motorcycle. Caine, as mentioned, is his usual fine self. Oldman owns the role of Gordon, bringing some believability to the commissioner character.

There’s not much for Freeman to do with Fox. After you’ve seen one spiffy contraption, you’ve seen them all. Cotillard is a nice addition to the cast, even though her character’s fate seems implausible.

Bale is a fine Bruce Wayne, but his Batman voice really takes the audience out of the movie. Why he insists on making the voice so deep is mind-boggling. Also, with Nolan’s hyper-realistic approach, one has to ask a simple question: In a world of terrorists, police activity, palpable violence and frenetic activity, why would Batman bother putting on a Bat suit and painting the areas around his eyes black? It’s almost as if Nolan has created a 2012 drama ripped from the headlines, but there’s still this strange Bat dude driving around in a pseudo-military vehicle. What’s his deal? And why is he all dressed up?

Also, for those purists who remember the good old days of “Bang!” “Pow!” and a belt full of gadgets, you’ll be disappointed. This Batman doesn’t do anything special. There’s some fist fighting and high-speed chases, but almost no rappelling, gliding or fancy footwork. The superhero, in Nolan’s hands, has become just a hero, nothing special.

Watching The Dark Knight Rises is never boring or unenjoyable. At almost three hours, it does grow tiresome, but Nolan and the cast keeps the energy level sky high. As a set of three films, The Dark Knight trilogy is impressive, as much for its ambition as for its scope. As a pure entrainment vehicle, The Dark Knight Rises keeps the blood boiling.

But in the battle of this summer’s blockbusters, The Avengers resoundingly win. If for no other reason than the Marvel movie is a true superhero tale, while The Dark Knight Rises is a bloated thriller that happens to feature a deep-voiced man in a suit.

By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com

• The Dark Knight Rises

• 2012

• Directed by Christopher Nolan

• Written by Christopher Nolan and Jonathan Nolan; based on a story by Christopher Nolan and David S. Goyer; based on original characters by Bob Kane

• Starring Christian Bale, Anne Hathaway, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Tom Hardy, Gary Oldman, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard and Matthew Modine

• Running time: 164 minutes

• Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, some sensuality and language

• Rating: