Reviewing - The Dark Knight Trilogy
This is the trilogy that redefined not only Batman, but the very notion of what a superhero movie was capable of. By rooting the Dark Knight firmly in a real world devoid of the fantasticality other caped crusaders revel in, we were introduced to a hero who had to face very real enemies far more often than the typical supervillain with a plan to blow up the world. Drug lords, mafia bosses, and organized crime are Batman's everyday opponents. If anyone can save Gotham City, it's him - because he's Batman.
Batman Begins (****1/2)
In which a rich guy comes home from an extended vacation and starts sneaking out at night to punch people in the dark
Batman has always been my favourite superhero, and Christopher Nolan uses The Dark Knight Trilogy to show how the Caped Crusader is fundamentally different from so many other heroes of our time.
The first thing I noticed about this film was the obvious grit. Forget the zany charm of the MCU or the campy vibes of the Schumacher Batman films. This isn't a world of talking raccoons or villains who use bad puns - it's a world where substance abuse and widespread poverty are the villains. Gotham City is a scary place because it's a real place. The problems that Batman has to deal with are incredibly real problems. Organized crime. Corrupt government. Broken neighbourhoods. These are the things that plague our urbanized society. Super-villains are fun, but we all know that Thanos isn't real. Drug lords are very, very real. So it's very cool to see a superhero do battle with real threats. I admit that by the end of the film there is a clear super-villain with a plot to destroy Gotham just like all super-villains do, but most of the film is about locking up ordinary flesh-and-blood criminals. I really like that.
The second thing I noticed has to do with the themes of anger and fear that permeate this film. Bruce Wayne conquers his fear, but he never conquers his anger. In fact, he further subjugates himself to his own rage in order to triumph over fear. He trades one evil for another, because you always feel more powerful when you are angry than when you are scared. Batman needs to control Gotham because he cannot control the traumatic events that have already occurred. Batman is a fundamentally broken man in a way that many other superheroes are not. The character of Bruce Wayne is so rich (see what I did there?) with depth that you can examine and analyze his motivations at great length.
Then there's the Batmobile to consider. Man, is that thing cool. The scene where Batman flies through Gotham with Rachel in the seat next to him is action-packed and thrilling from start to finish. The cops reacting with astonishment to the vigilante's vehicle is terrific, and the design of the car (if you can call it a car) is jaw-dropping.
The one thing I noticed that I don't love is some of the fight scenes. When Batman beats up bad guys, the editing is so quick and disjointed that it's impossible to see what he's actually doing. We know who Batman is so we know he's kicking butt, but we never actually see this happen a few too many times. That said, I find this fairly easy to forgive when I remember all the awesome moments that we got to see in spite of this. Batman summoning an army of bats was AWESOME, and his interrogation of Flass is too much fun not to love. I can't wait to get through the next two.
The Dark Knight (*****)
In which people are getting tired of being punched by the rich guy all the time so they hire a clown to cheer him up
This is one of the greatest (and deepest) superhero films of all time.
The previous film showed us a man who traded fear for anger. This film showed us the consequence of such a force in a corrupt city. To differentiate himself from the criminals he hunts, Batman has a set of rules that he feels keep him on the right side of justice. He doesn’t use guns (sort of – his vehicles have guns all the time, but he never shoots people with them), and he doesn’t kill people (sort of – one time he blew up a train that had a bad guy on it while saying “I don’t have to save you” even though he deliberately put the bad guy in a situation that would end up with him getting killed – so that’s basically murder). With these ‘rules’, Batman sees himself as the hero/vigilante/monster that Gotham needs, and when ‘The Dark Knight’ kicks off, he’s been putting bad guys in their place for two years.
‘The Dark Knight’ explores these rules that Batman has placed on himself, as well as the rules that society has placed on itself. If our hero focuses on rules, it makes sense then that our villain would have much to do with the disintegration of those rules. Chaos is the mantra of this sequel’s central antagonist, the Joker. Everything he does is in an attempt to ‘upset the established order’. He forces characters to make decisions that are outside of their regular comfort zone – like demanding ‘half’ from the mob leaders, giving Batman the locations of two significant hostages, the ‘boat’ test, and so on. It’s exciting to watch, but terrifying to consider. The Joker is a truly horrifying villain, portrayed in an unforgettable manner by the late Heath Ledger. He owns every second of screentime, and the first time I watched this in 2008, I legitimately looked away from the screen during his first ‘scar story’. Scariness is not a wholly unsurprising trait to be found in a villain, but now that I think of it, there are few supervillains that come to mind who freak me out like the Joker does. He’s frightening in a very real way, contrasting starkly with the imposing but comparatively uninteresting villains of the MCU. I wouldn’t want to come face to face with Thanos on the sidewalk, but the Joker could actually give a guy nightmares.
Pages and pages have already been written about how Batman and the Joker are the perfect opponents, so I certainly don’t need to get into that in depth. What I do want to touch on are the choices that our characters make when faced with the Joker’s dilemmas. At the end of the day, any significant choice that a character makes is decided not by them, but by the filmmaker. The filmmaker uses these choices to say something about the human condition. So when the ‘boat test’ ends with neither side choosing to blow up the other, this is Nolan’s way of showing a belief in the innate goodness of man. Who’s to say how this event would actually have gone down in real life? I’d like to think that it would have ended in a similar fashion, but it’s hard to say how things would have gone if this were a real scenario. What I do think is that even if one boat had blown up the other, the Joker would likely have detonated the surviving boat as well. The Joker thrives on twist endings and unanticipated results, so I think the people on the boats did the right thing in more than one sense.
What I think Nolan is saying about us through this film and through the choices his characters make is that anyone can be corrupted…and anyone can resist corruption, too. The Joker pulled with all of his might to bring both Gotham’s Dark and White Knights down to his level, but only one of them gave in. Both certainly had reason to, but it was Dent who gave in to chaos and Wayne who stuck to his guns – or his lack thereof, rather. The two thugs who had to compete in ‘tryouts’ for the Joker presumably fought to the death over something that neither of them really wanted, but the civilians and criminals on the boats individually agreed to spare each other’s lives in favour of a greater good. Seeing how different people responded to what was essentially the same question over and over was really interesting. It’s a question as old as Adam and Eve – is there a point where the rules stand in the way of something greater?
Philosophy aside, this is a blast of a film. The Tumbler makes its return as Batman’s fearsome tank-like vehicle, and we get introduced to the ‘Batpod’, a brutally cool motorcycle. The back-and-forth between the Joker and Batman in terms of their moves and counter-moves is really exciting, and it’s always great to face a villain who seems to constantly be one step ahead. The fight scenes are more clear than they were in Batman Begins, so you really get to see the Caped Crusader in all his fist-swinging glory. His costume update is also killer. This is unquestionably the best Batman film in The Dark Knight Trilogy, and it’s little wonder that many regard this as the best superhero movie of all time.
The Dark Knight Rises (***)
In which the rich guy comes out of retirement and gets punched for doing it
This may not be at the same level of excellence that its predecessors reached, but it's a far cry from so many other 'threequels' that fumble their way to the finish line.
First, here's what I think are the central problems with this film. The movie keeps three of the franchise's biggest characters relatively out of commission for much of its runtime. Batman is 'retired' and a recluse, which is fine - but the drawback is that we don't get to see as much of the hero that we came to see. Jim Gordon gets sent to the hospital fairly quickly, so he doesn't get to play as big a role as he might have otherwise. Alfred straight-up walks out of the story right until the very end. Knowing that your hero has been sitting on his butt for eight years doesn't get you very amped up.
The other problem has to do with the fact that this almost doesn't feel like a Batman movie. Gotham City is clean and organized for much of the film, in many ways the polar opposite of the Gotham we were introduced to in 'Batman Begins'. I know Bane comes along eventually to mess it up, but even then most of the shots of the city were shot in the daytime. That fact alone is what I think damages the film - so much of it happens in the daytime, and Batman is obviously a hero who's best situated to the night. Think of the climax to either of the previous two films. They happened at night! That's not by accident. I know that a central point of this film is that Batman's actions last time around have effectively "cleaned up Gotham", but that doesn't mean everything needs to be so prim and bright. What defines this iteration of Batman is the grittiness, and there's not a whole lot of that this time around.
That stuff aside, Batman's fighting a relatively straightforward comic book villain, which we haven't yet had in this trilogy. Bane wanting to nuke the city is more reminiscent of an MCU villain. Yes, the villain from 'Batman Begins' wanted to destroy the city as well, but it was more of a cleansing fire than an utter decimation. Maybe it's just the fact that it's literally a nuke that's got me feeling a little let down. Nukes are for cartoon bad guys, not the masterminds that Batman's used to.
Okay, enough of the bad stuff, because there's some great parts to this film as well. First of all, Nolan didn't blow it on the third film like so many directors do. He gave us an appropriate and heartfelt ending to the story, tying all three of the films together and resolving plotlines without looking rushed about it. Apart from the fact that he tries to nuke the city, Bane is as iconic as any of the other villains Batman's gone up against. People were quoting him in his unforgettable voice for years after this film was released. Catwoman is a compelling addition to the film, and 'Robin' is likeable too. The final all-out war is pretty epic, as is Batman's earlier chase through the city when he's followed by literally all the cops. That was sweet.
So while this film may not be saying anything as profound as the last two films - and while it may not feel like the Batman we're used to - it still wraps up the story in an emotionally satisfying way. Hopefully one day the Batman will return to this level of excellence, because in the past few years the best Batman I've seen is made of LEGO.
This post was originally published on March 16, 2020.