*Bane's voice* When you are done reading, then you have my permission to comment.....
Wow, so i guess it's finally over, the Dark Knight finally hung up his cape and cowl and Gotham is forever in his debt. That's the last time we'd sit and speculate about how anyone could ever possibly follow up with a third superhero story and live up to the legend that was The Dark Knight. In all fairness to Chris Nolan, this was probably the best way to go and the whole crew of TDKR deserves every bit of the praise that comes their way. Not many expected a very good follow up movie, i too was a little scared that this may just end up screwing up the franchise, and to my relief i was horribly mistaken...
The story picks up about 8 years after the Joker's plan was stopped and Harvey 'two-faced' Dent allegedly died a hero. We get a good look at Bane and he shows just why he's the lead bad guy; if the Joker was an agent of chaos who's just plain scary, Tom Hardy's Bane is as calm and methodical as can be with pure cold evil just dripping out of his eyes, point made Mr Nolan.
Men of war are often overwhelmed at the prospect of peace, that's the first thing that went through my mind as we see Bruce Wayne holed up in the manor in a self imposed exile. Jim Gordon going through the motions of being a good cop without a purpose, the decision of pinning those murders on Batman because that's what needed to be done has taken a toll on him. Alfred's still around to look after the Wayne manor and Fox handles the company. There's also Hathaway's character (Catwoman in everything but the name), a young hot-headed cop named John Blake and the regular fillers. I am not here to just walk you through the story, cause that'll serve no one's purpose, I'd be better off just expressing what I saw and took from the movie.
Some say that the story is Nolan's version of a tale of 2 cities, but we comic fans know better, anyone who's read the Knightquest, Knightfall, KnightsEnd and No Man's land series of the Batman comics would realize that the movie was a simplified and watered down story from the comics. Nolan took the best parts of all these series and put them together.There is this sense of continuity in the story, the director knows that the people who watch this film are those who have fallen in love with this series and TDKR falls back heavily on the first two movies to bring out the interconnections present throughout the series. That was almost like a small present to the faithful fans, cause in order to really enjoy the story, you need to be there from the start. I also loved the way the franchise has taken a bold step of walking away from the stereotypes of making all the gadgets and vehicles look a lot more realistic rather than a lot more ... um, well bat!!! The batmobile is a military vehicle and not a stretched car in the shape of a bat, the hovercraft/aircraft kinda batwing is not a giant bat shaped jet (although pulling that off would have been awesome) because Nolan wants us to believe that this can actually happen.
Anyway that's nothing new, the last few lines would have made a lot more sense in 2005, lets talk about what this movie really was, the way we bid farewell to the caped crusader. It brought us up close and personal with Christian Bale's Bruce Wayne and his personal battles, all those nights of hunting down bad guys and beating criminals up with his bare hands have left physical scars on him, but the realization that after the whole journey, he's ended up right where he started (if not worse), without any friends or family other than good ole Alfred is what's taken the biggest toll. They say that you either die a hero or live long enough to become the villain, but nothing is said of those who fight the hard battles and have to walk away from everything because it's the right thing to do, because they are just not needed right now. Having lost all your loved ones and not having a life to get back to also doesn't help matters. Alfred was the only one who understood what was going on in Wayne's head, and it hurt him immensely. Bruce would get back into the cowl, not because he had to, but because he wanted to give Gotham everything he had and hoped to die while he did it, because he honestly had no desire to live on. Alfred's fears were even more evident when he saw that an adversary like Bane was more than capable of destroying Batman, but i suppose all that Bane did was break his back. It wasn't really tough though because the spirit of Batman was already broken, he still wore the cape and cowl but this wasn't the real Batman. This was just a guy who lost everything he held dear and now uses his vast resources to pass some time, the real Batman was driven: he was motivated and he had that fire in his heart. A fire that was now just an ember, it took a broken back, a few months of seeing his city in chaos and most importantly the realization that Gotham needs it's hero that reforged the spirit that was the Dark Knight.
When he got back to Gotham, you could almost feel sorry for Bane because this was THE GODDAMN BATMAN, the fire was back, and even in Gotham's unforgiving winter, the symbol of the bat was out there for everyone to see, and from this moment on, it was just a matter of curiosity to see how bane would get his ass handed to him. The end was definitely worth all these years of wait, finding out the true identity of Ra's al Ghul's child and the back and forth race against time to stop the nuclear explosion. I will never forgive Nolan for those five minutes of making me cry like a baby when the bomb goes off, that was a really mean thing to do, specially the funeral where Alfred breaks down, and if we hadn't seen the last couple of minutes i think we'd all come out feeling a lot worse.
The movie was an amazing experience overall, it celebrated and highlighted everything that I held dear about the comic book hero, the animated character and Nolan's take on him. A friend of mine said that it wasn't all that great a film, but she did say that it was a well made movie and the details were well taken care of. I suppose that's fair enough, cause when it comes to such characters that aren't all that real, it's just a matter of how you see them and how they affect you in anyway. I just checked out this forum the other day where some guys were debating about who's better, Superman or Batman or some other man, i guess it all depends on who's telling the story, on how Batman or Superman affected his/her life, on what you take home from these guys, on how you relate to them. Somewhere along all this, someone comes out with something that just expresses a lot of what you feel and that's just beautiful, this was one of those special somethings, so thank you Mr Nolan for three good movies and for sharing your insights into Gotham's Dark Knight....
Wow, so i guess it's finally over, the Dark Knight finally hung up his cape and cowl and Gotham is forever in his debt. That's the last time we'd sit and speculate about how anyone could ever possibly follow up with a third superhero story and live up to the legend that was The Dark Knight. In all fairness to Chris Nolan, this was probably the best way to go and the whole crew of TDKR deserves every bit of the praise that comes their way. Not many expected a very good follow up movie, i too was a little scared that this may just end up screwing up the franchise, and to my relief i was horribly mistaken...
The story picks up about 8 years after the Joker's plan was stopped and Harvey 'two-faced' Dent allegedly died a hero. We get a good look at Bane and he shows just why he's the lead bad guy; if the Joker was an agent of chaos who's just plain scary, Tom Hardy's Bane is as calm and methodical as can be with pure cold evil just dripping out of his eyes, point made Mr Nolan.Men of war are often overwhelmed at the prospect of peace, that's the first thing that went through my mind as we see Bruce Wayne holed up in the manor in a self imposed exile. Jim Gordon going through the motions of being a good cop without a purpose, the decision of pinning those murders on Batman because that's what needed to be done has taken a toll on him. Alfred's still around to look after the Wayne manor and Fox handles the company. There's also Hathaway's character (Catwoman in everything but the name), a young hot-headed cop named John Blake and the regular fillers. I am not here to just walk you through the story, cause that'll serve no one's purpose, I'd be better off just expressing what I saw and took from the movie.
Some say that the story is Nolan's version of a tale of 2 cities, but we comic fans know better, anyone who's read the Knightquest, Knightfall, KnightsEnd and No Man's land series of the Batman comics would realize that the movie was a simplified and watered down story from the comics. Nolan took the best parts of all these series and put them together.There is this sense of continuity in the story, the director knows that the people who watch this film are those who have fallen in love with this series and TDKR falls back heavily on the first two movies to bring out the interconnections present throughout the series. That was almost like a small present to the faithful fans, cause in order to really enjoy the story, you need to be there from the start. I also loved the way the franchise has taken a bold step of walking away from the stereotypes of making all the gadgets and vehicles look a lot more realistic rather than a lot more ... um, well bat!!! The batmobile is a military vehicle and not a stretched car in the shape of a bat, the hovercraft/aircraft kinda batwing is not a giant bat shaped jet (although pulling that off would have been awesome) because Nolan wants us to believe that this can actually happen. Anyway that's nothing new, the last few lines would have made a lot more sense in 2005, lets talk about what this movie really was, the way we bid farewell to the caped crusader. It brought us up close and personal with Christian Bale's Bruce Wayne and his personal battles, all those nights of hunting down bad guys and beating criminals up with his bare hands have left physical scars on him, but the realization that after the whole journey, he's ended up right where he started (if not worse), without any friends or family other than good ole Alfred is what's taken the biggest toll. They say that you either die a hero or live long enough to become the villain, but nothing is said of those who fight the hard battles and have to walk away from everything because it's the right thing to do, because they are just not needed right now. Having lost all your loved ones and not having a life to get back to also doesn't help matters. Alfred was the only one who understood what was going on in Wayne's head, and it hurt him immensely. Bruce would get back into the cowl, not because he had to, but because he wanted to give Gotham everything he had and hoped to die while he did it, because he honestly had no desire to live on. Alfred's fears were even more evident when he saw that an adversary like Bane was more than capable of destroying Batman, but i suppose all that Bane did was break his back. It wasn't really tough though because the spirit of Batman was already broken, he still wore the cape and cowl but this wasn't the real Batman. This was just a guy who lost everything he held dear and now uses his vast resources to pass some time, the real Batman was driven: he was motivated and he had that fire in his heart. A fire that was now just an ember, it took a broken back, a few months of seeing his city in chaos and most importantly the realization that Gotham needs it's hero that reforged the spirit that was the Dark Knight.When he got back to Gotham, you could almost feel sorry for Bane because this was THE GODDAMN BATMAN, the fire was back, and even in Gotham's unforgiving winter, the symbol of the bat was out there for everyone to see, and from this moment on, it was just a matter of curiosity to see how bane would get his ass handed to him. The end was definitely worth all these years of wait, finding out the true identity of Ra's al Ghul's child and the back and forth race against time to stop the nuclear explosion. I will never forgive Nolan for those five minutes of making me cry like a baby when the bomb goes off, that was a really mean thing to do, specially the funeral where Alfred breaks down, and if we hadn't seen the last couple of minutes i think we'd all come out feeling a lot worse.
The movie was an amazing experience overall, it celebrated and highlighted everything that I held dear about the comic book hero, the animated character and Nolan's take on him. A friend of mine said that it wasn't all that great a film, but she did say that it was a well made movie and the details were well taken care of. I suppose that's fair enough, cause when it comes to such characters that aren't all that real, it's just a matter of how you see them and how they affect you in anyway. I just checked out this forum the other day where some guys were debating about who's better, Superman or Batman or some other man, i guess it all depends on who's telling the story, on how Batman or Superman affected his/her life, on what you take home from these guys, on how you relate to them. Somewhere along all this, someone comes out with something that just expresses a lot of what you feel and that's just beautiful, this was one of those special somethings, so thank you Mr Nolan for three good movies and for sharing your insights into Gotham's Dark Knight....
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