“The Dark Knight Rises” grosses $160 million its opening weekend.
Cristina Vasquez-Muiz
Vasquez-Muniz.Cristina@wgecho.org
“Theatricality and deception, powerful agents for the uninitiated, but we are initiated, aren’t we Bruce?”
– Bane
Christopher Nolan’s end to his dark Batman trilogy brings not only hardy action and a satisfying conclusion as promised, but it manages to bring up a poignant look into the seemingly failing system of our society.
In this last installment, “The Dark Knight Rises,” Batman is pitted against Bane: a bulky, masked villain with a charming voice played by Tom Hardy. It’s been eight years since our hero, Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale), last donned the Batman costume, the night of Harvey Dent’s death.
As the years have passed, Dent has been revered in Gotham as a hero for cleaning up the streets with the Harvey Dent Act, putting thousands of criminals in jail for life. Batman, however, has become nothing but a legend. Only on the arrival of a nemesis too powerful for the police to handle does Batman come out of his hiding place.
The plot concentrates heavily on developing Bruce Wayne, rather than just Batman.
The most powerful performances come, surprisingly, from Wayne’s life-long servant Alfred, played brilliantly by Sir Michael Caine. “Brilliantly” meaning “Academy Award-deserving brilliantly.” He brings emotion to the film.
Anne Hathaway, playing the role of the Cat Burglar (Catwoman) dances around a love-hate relationship with Batman. From stealing his mother’s pearls to handing him over to a man who wanted him dead, Catwoman (aka Selina Kyle) is the real power behind the idea of anarchy and a social revolution, as she so eloquently says:
“There’s a storm coming, Mr. Wayne. You and your friends better batten down the hatches, because when it hits, you’re all gonna wonder how you ever thought you could live so large and leave so little for the rest of us.”
However, these ideas were lost on most. Nolan is a critically acclaimed director with some very impressive films under his belt (most notably “Memento” and “Inception,”) and he’s usually done a great job of letting his ideas subtly speak for themselves.
“The Dark Knight Rises,” however, failed in this respect. The subtlety used wasn’t all that subtle, and in an effort to make his trilogy go out with a big bang, he lost the point he was trying to get across.
In the end, this PG-13 Warner Bros movie is still a good one, and one that grossed over $1 billion.
“The Dark Knight Rises” must have had a hard time trying to outdo its predecessor, “The Dark Knight,” but in the end it gave the trilogy a well done (and deserved) ending. Even if it didn’t exactly make the statement it was hoping to make, it still made for an entertaining two-and-a -half hours.
