The Dark Knight Riseswas an amazing film. This review has spoilers- no way around it, I’m afraid. There are a lot of reviews online- I felt the one here was particularly good (and spoiler-free). If you care about being surprised, do not read past this paragraph. There are a lot of twists and turns in the movie, which make it really good, but at times confusing. In that light, I set out below to explain the plot of the movie, interweaving themes and thoughts into it. Think of this more as a critical analysis of the film- best read after viewing. There’s a lot of depth in this movie, and I explore that a bit here.
Plot (with explanations)
At the end of the last movie, The Dark Knight, Batman becomes a hunted felon as he takes the fall for Harvey Dent’s crimes, allowing people to continue holding Harvey up as an ideal of what man can be. That’s where we left off. Now, for The Dark Knight Rises, fast forward eight years- the city is at peace, the streets have remained relatively clean, and Batman hasn’t been seen since the night of Harvey’s death. Bruce Wayne was seen, for a time, as he invested heavily in a fusion reactor (promising clean energy to the city), but the project failed, the reactor was mothballed, his company is floundering, and he’s now, like Batman, a recluse- never seen outside of Wayne Manor. He has health problems (due to his crime-fighting escapades, no doubt), and has given up on life.
Bruce Wayne/Batman’s condition needs more exploring. He’s hung up the cape, but never moved on. Why? Alfred believes it’s because there’s nothing except pain and tragedy for him in Gotham. His parents, and his love Rachel, died there. If he’s not channeling his efforts on fighting crime, or fighting for better society, he has nothing. He tried fighting crime- he succeeded, in a sense, but turned the city against him. He tried making life better with his reactor- and that failed. What is left? He’s just wasting away at home. Why? Is he hoping things go bad again, so that he can put the mask back on? Alfred thinks so, when a new threat arises, is against him coming back as Batman, because Alfred believes Bruce wants to die, and is looking for an opportunity to throw his life away. Alfred and he have a heated confrontation about this, and it ends with Alfred revealing that he lied to Bruce about Rachel’s love for him- Rachel wanted to marry Dent, but Alfred hid that, allowing Wayne to believe that she never moved on from loving him. Alfred told the lie to spare Bruce pain, but it’s time to “let truth have its day,” he says. Bruce & Alfred have a falling out over this, with Alfred leaving. Alfred is gone, but Batman is back- Bane has brought him out of the shadows.
That’s Batman; what about the city? Gotham has experienced eight years of relatively clean streets, but “there’s a storm coming.” Bane, the primary villain, is planning to finish what Ra’s Al Ghul attempted in Batman Begins- to destroy the city. Why? Because, as they stated in the first movie, Gotham has fallen into corruption (at every level) and beyond saving. So, the League of Shadows is back to finish the job- to cleanse the city through destruction. The obvious question is “I thought the city was clean- the mob was beaten, good has the upper hand- so why destroy it? What corruption still exists?” Bane provides the answer- the city was galvanized into action, inspired by Harvey Dent and his stand against crime, but their action is based on a lie. Harvey Dent wasn’t good, he wasn’t pure- he was fallen. Bane says the leaders of the city- Commissioner Gordon, Batman, and the rest, “Supplied you [Gotham] with false idol to keep you from tearing down the city.” They gave the city hope through deception- so, in Bane’s mind, the good that’s come of the last eight years is nullified, and the city deserves destruction every bit as much as it did in Batman Begins.
Can Bane “finish the job?” He has several things going for him. First, his mask- he wears a mask which is constantly medicating him, masking pain from earlier injuries in life (in the comics, this medicine also gives him tremendous strength- and while it isn’t explicitly stated in the movie, it is implied that this is the case here). He’s the first villain Batman faces who’s more physically imposing than the caped crusader. Second, being in the League of Shadows, he knows who Batman really is- not only his identity, but his fighting techniques and training. How does Bane prevent Batman from destroying the plan this time around? He does two things- he takes his resources and his health.
First, Bane takes his resources. He uses Catwoman to break into Wayne Manor and lift Bruce’s fingerprints; he, in turn, uses those prints to break into Wayne’s stock portfolio and drain his resources. Wayne’s wealth is gone; he is financially neutralized. Control of Wayne Enterprises passes to Miranda Tate, Wayne’s financial partner in the aforementioned failed reactor attempt. Batman’s access to wealth is gone. In the process, Bane also takes Batman’s arsenal- the “Applied Sciences” division of Wayne Enterprises.
Second, Bane takes his body. Bane knows how Batman fights, and he knows that Batman is physically weakened by years of fighting followed by years of inactivity and attrition. He fights Batman to the point where Batman is crippled, and casts him into a prison pit in the middle of the third world. Why not just kill him? “Your punishment must be more severe,” Bane says, and adds “When Gotham is in ashes, you have my permission to die.” The prison pit can be escaped- one person has done it- by making a nearly impossible climb. Why? Because Bane says there’s “No true despair without hope.” That’s an interesting concept.
With Batman neutralized, Bane puts his plan into action. The police know he’s running things out of the underground system in town, so they send most of their resources underground to find him. Bane realizes this, and has planned for it- he buries them underground by blowing up the tunnel exits. He also destroys the bridges leaving the city (save for one). No cops, no batman, no way in or out- the city is his. Should the military think of intervening, Bane has a trump card- a nuclear weapon. If the military intervenes, he blows up the city.
Where did Bane get the weapon? Remember, Bruce Wayne had built a fusion generator that failed- supposedly. In reality, it worked, but before a public revelation of success, a Russian scientist published a paper on how to turn such generators into weapons. Wayne read the report, realized that the great good he intended to bestow on the city could be used for evil, and so he falsely reports the generator as a failure. When Bane takes the city, he gets Wayne Enterprises board members to take him to the generator, and brings with him the Russian scientist to weaponize the reactor. The scientist does, and voila, a nuke.
How does Bane keep control of the city? This is a city of millions- even with the cops, military, and Batman out of sight, that’s a lot of people to corral. Bane does so through a lie. When he takes the city, he reveals the deception city leadership has given to the people. He reads a letter Commissioner Gordon himself has written, admitting the plot. The people riot in reaction, and Bane tells them to take the city back- take it back from corruption, take it back and rule. He thus keeps the city in check, while he plots to kill them all. A lot of this aspect of the movie is drawn straight out of A Tale of Two Cities.
With Bane in total control, the obvious next step is to use the weapon immediately, but he doesn’t. why not just blow up the city and be done? The nuclear weapon he has will only go off when it destabilizes; it destabilizes slowly, when it’s disconnected from its main power source. It’s disconnected almost immediately after Bane takes control, but will take months to fully wind down.
In those months, Batman is languishing in prison, but is aided by the prisoners to heal and strengthen. He makes several escape attempts, with a safety rope on should he fail. He does fail- twice- and is starting to despair. Advised by a prisoner that success may lie in removing the safety rope so that he fully understands fear (“no fear inhibits success,” he claims), Batman makes a third attempt and succeeds- a concept along the lines of a leap of faith, with failure no option. Batman escapes and gets back to Gotham- back to his old hideout, and is in the city once more.
Once back in the city, Batman enlists the help of Catwoman, Gordon, and a loyal cop named John Blake to take on Bane, find the bomb, and defuse it. They accomplish the first two, but there’s no way to defuse it, so Batman flies the bomb out over the water, where it explodes. The city is saved; Batman/Bruce Wayne is gone. A statue to Batman is erected in (what I presume is) city hall. The city has a hero again; just a dark one. He died a hero . . . or did he? The answer is both yes and no.
Early in the film, Alfred tells Bruce that he didn’t really want him to return to Gotham- because he knew only pain lied there. He wanted Bruce to go away somewhere, and start over new. At the end of this film, he does. Bruce faked his own death- the aircraft he flew was on autopilot- and left Batman and Gotham behind forever. He passed the mantle of Batman- which is, after all, a symbol more than a man- to John Blake, leaving him instructions on locating the bat-cave. So Batman (the symbol) lived, but Batman (as Bruce Wayne) died, in the sense that Bruce Wayne is no longer the Caped Crusader. That’s the film in a nutshell.
Impressions
This movie has a lot of lying, or discussions about lying, in it. From the last movie, Batman & Gordon lied to the city to preserve their hero, and Alfred lied to Batman to preserve Wayne’s hope that Rachel loved him. Both were in the vein of lying to protect others from pain. This movie, Bane lies to the people to keep them in check while he awaits their destruction, and Batman lies to everyone by faking his death. So, is it okay to lie, if you’re protecting people? The subject is touched on but not resolved. The people riot when they learn the truth of Harvey Dent, but the movie doesn’t discuss how they are calmed down- it implies they settle when Batman saves the city, but why? Is their hope back in man? Should it be? I wish they would have discussed that more.
Another idea explored in the film is “structures become shackles”- several police officers discuss this, and they discuss it in the context of always needing someone like the Batman- someone who can operate outside of society’s rules of conduct to get results. Just three words, but one can discuss the implications of them at length. For example, why can’t we get results by following our structures? Why do they impede us, when they’re meant to bring order? Does that mean our laws (or their enforcement) are deficient? Criminals who have clearly violated the spirit of the law can hide behind legal loopholes and other mechanisms that prevent them from being brought to justice. We should follow the spirit of law, but the spirit is difficult to enforce. Thus it’s fitting that, in the end, Batman is the city’s hero- the dark knight, the one who operates outside of structure, who operates according to the spirit. Commissioner Gordon, when confronted with his lie to make Dent look clean, said you “need someone to plunge hands into filth to keep your hands clean.” That’s the idea here- the city needs police to provide order and structure, but a Batman figure to operate in the spirit of the law, and fully establish justice where the letter of the law fails.
The final main concept was more about Bruce Wayne than the city itself- and his quest to find peace. The message seemed to be, when touched by tragedy, you need a new start- abandon all you know, and start anew. I don’t really agree with that- you can’t keep running forever- but perhaps the abandonment they speak of is abandoning the past- of refusing to move on from tragedy.
This review has been rambling- I fully realize that- but the movie was, too. There were a lot of messages thrown in- as I touch on in the plot section- that I don't review here, because (in part) the movie didn't really, either. It presented a lot of questions and thoughts without a lot of answers. I really enjoyed it- I’ve thought about it through the weekend- and suspect there are layers to peel back here, worthy of much analysis. But, right now, I’m not quite sure how to peel those layers back. I need to watch it a few more times.
Rating: A+
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