The bat flies away

With the release on DVD of The Dark Knight Rises, I thought I’d record my thoughts on the cloud of my recollections at the time but regarding what I never got around to transposing from paper to ether.  With the comic incarnation of Batman finally dead and director Christopher Nolan informing us that this is the last instalment of the trilogy, he toys with the audience as to whether he too would ensure the demise of the hero.  For it would be a brave producer who greenlights a film solely around Robin, whose character arc and backstory are credibly modified to obscure his very appearance at the end.

Each part of the trilogy has an intellectual edge; if Batman represents rationality and innate goodness (such as, tellingly, an aversion to using guns to kill), his principal foes are not venal hoodlums but possess some overarching strategy and (im)moral aim themselves, from Rhas al Gul through The Joker to Bane – the three share a desire for chaos that is all-consuming and so, in their warped vision, purifying.  Batman is a symbol but so are they.

The first two films are referenced repeatedly here, stating that the fingerprints of our past inform our present, as Nolan did in his breakthrough picture Memento.  In this vein, he indulges the mysticism present in the comics whilst allowing the possibility of Christian Bale’s Batman hallucinating, with a cameo from Liam Neeson. 

This is typical of an all-star cast that isn’t wasted.  Whether she is ally or enemy, Anne Hathaway’s character is a sensuous Catwoman (though cat burglar is as close as Nolan will let fantasy intrude on reality).  She even has her own sidekick.  That Tom Hardy speaks with an eerily calm precision throughout lends his Bane a distinctly unnerving flavour of the menacingly psychotic.  The scale of his ambition and his malign genius are, of course, far-fetched but rendered plausible by a restriction of CGI unless absolutely essential.  He presents Batman with his toughest enemy so far – even lifting the Caped Crusader off his feet as he himself did in Batman Begins and, as in the comics, the Bat is broken.  Subtitles will probably be regularly applied upon DVD viewing so people can understand fully what Bane intones through his mask.

There is the familiar countdown to catastrophe so beloved of superhero flicks (beginning, I think, with James Bond), but as Nolan has avoided the ticking timebomb until now, it is an indulgence can be let to pass, plus it is given a fresh spin as it last five months.  This is in contrast to Avengers Assemble where they saved the world – how can they ramp it up from there to make the sequel more urgent?

TDKR is very topical, with echoes of the French Revolution, especially The Terror.  We may loathe the financial and political elites and desire a comeuppance but do we realise how that might impact on our lives should the wish be granted.  New York City is expressly identified as Gotham City (rather than in the abstract) with even the half-completed Freedom Tower given a fly-past.  This could be so as to have a go at Mayor Michael Bloomberg who removed term limits so he could continue in his role (the fate of Gotham’s mayor is a clear affront to Bloomberg).  Curiously, the US president is Caucasian which is a little jarring, though maybe the makers didn’t want to impugn Obama.

Very rare is the film where no faults can be identified.  After The Dark Knight, where The Joker blew up buildings and set booby traps with consummate and unrealistic ease (impossible to achieve under the radar), the plot is more finely crafted.  Still, I always find it doubtful when heroes and villains, even when genetically enhanced (as in The Amazing Spiderman) with super-strength, can smash through masonry and stone. 

I also spotted early on the ‘surprise’ villain, though they did disguise it very well.  There is a meta-narrative at work since the first film – how far can Rhas al Gul get inside Bruce Wayne/Batman without taking him over, tipping him into the dark side?

TDKR is a brilliant film with a poignant end, that even elicited a tear from me, as Michael Caine’s Alfred blubbered.  This will not be distorted into a quadrillogy, the equilibrium and purity of a trilogy untarnished.  I’m a little sad not to see Nolan’s take on The Penguin, The Riddler and Poison Ivy to list some of the the prime supervillains and I’m sure he could do a fine job with Mr Freeze, as the animated series achieved.  But maybe that is the point.  Nolan wanted to give his Batman a sharply realistic thrust and it is all the better for it.