The Dark Knight Rises: An End of an Era

Right when the movie ended, somehow I felt like it was an end of an era. I was happy and sad at the same time. I was in awe. I was speechless. All of those conflicting emotions… no words can aptly define… somehow it just hits you right there.

You can see that everything was ingeniously crafted, from the storyline, the characters, the effects, the comedy, the drama, the action, the pacing, the continuity, the foreshadowing, the list goes on. You can expect nothing less than excruciating detail from Nolan. And he has not let me down in the Dark Knight Rises. 

At the beginning I was kind of surprised with the setting. It has been exactly 8 years since Harvey Dent died, Batman being blamed for his death, and Bruce has become an arthritic recluse in his own house. In some sense he blamed himself for Rachel’s death, and he has a hard time getting over that. But in spite of everything happening to Bruce on the inside, on the outside Gotham was at peace… or so it seems. 

We are then introduced to Selena Kyle, who for some reason was tasked to acquire Bruce’s fingerprints. She’s the catty little cat burglar, highly manipulative and (almost always) only looks out for herself. (I have to say, top notch performance there by Anne Hathaway. I was kind of skeptical at first, but yeah, she was kick ass awesome! She has proved to be a great and very flexible actress in a number of films before, but adding this movie to her resume has just secured her Hollywood status.)

Now apart from that, deep underground there’s an insurgence going on, and it seems to be headed by the muscular masked Bane. (I actually can’t believe Tom Hardy was behind that mask, he’s just so flexible when it comes to roles, and boy did he work out for this one. He seemed like a whole different person.) Commissioner Gordon was attacked when he decided to investigate the sewers and he knew from then they needed Batman, which he relayed to the rookie officer John Blake. 

Now Bruce has retired from being the caped crusader, but even as he keeps repeating this to other people, deep down there was a struggle, deep down he wanted to become Batman again. And the appearance of Selena Kyle and Bane just became the perfect reason to put on the mask again, much to Alfred’s dismay. On the other hand, Lucius Fox was more than happy to once again provide state of the art vehicles and gadgetry. 

Batman was on the case, but little did he know that there was a plan to diminish his entire being. His fingerprints were used to make him officially bankrupt, and he was forced to make the wealthy Miranda Tate as a member of the board for Wayne enterprises to protect a device that was intended for sustainable energy to become a nuclear fusion-powered device. He was defeated by Bane in a brawl and Bane would exile him to a prison far and down below. He did not kill him for this would be too kind.

I have to say that it was in this third movie that Gotham came so close losing, there was chaos and destruction everywhere! There was even a point when I was like, how the heck can Batman resolve this?!

I haven’t really read much Batman comics so it came as a surprise to me when Miranda Tate LITERALLY backstabbed Batman; that she was actually the ring leader Talia, the daughter of the Batman Begins villain Ra’s al Ghul. It’s cool how the trilogy can individually stand on its own and is still be intertwined somehow. And the ending, how everyone thought he went kaput? I knew Batman wouldn’t die, but still, Nolan actually got me going there for a second.

Also, I actually didn’t realize that there was foreshadowing going on when Batman kept telling John Blake that he needed a costume so that he can protect those that matter to him. Looking back, yeah, it was pretty stupid of me not to see that John Blake had to have a bigger role. Hot damn, as cool and perfect as the trilogy was, I wouldn’t mind seeing how Nolan would come around doing a sequel with Robin around.

I’m kinda sad how the Dark Knight Rises is not doing as well in the cinemas as it should, what with the mass shooting and the Olympics going on, it’s too bad really. And I don’t know why critics didn’t give this a flat out 100%, it has set the standard of blockbuster movies to a whole new level people!

If it's still on in your cinemas, watch it now! It has EPIC written everywhere. You won't regret it.

100% - Perfect. Or Almost. Content, Originality, Style, the whole damn package!