The Dark Knight Rises was much awaited movie of this year
and being a Christopher Nolan fan, I was eagerly waiting for this movie since
the last two months. I booked my tickets
as soon as bookings opened on Wednesday.
I reached the multiplex early, picked up popcorn and settled down to feel
the thrill. Let me put a
disclaimer. After watching The Dark
Knight, I had very high expectations form the movie and trailers of The Dark
Knight Rises (TDKR) also paved way to the lots of excitement and high
expectations.
Well, movie started with a brilliant sequence of Bane (antagonist)
getting escaped through a plane jacking and towing. This scene was very well executed and eye
catchy. Now that the tone of movie was
set, adrenaline started rushing to my body too :)
I must say that Bane has been shown very menacing, both
mentally and physically. He is shown in
the movie as a person without any emotions.
He occupied lots of screen space in the movie (either through dialogues or
visuals). The built up with Bane coming
over to Gotham and Wayne living a secluded life was good. However, I didn’t like the feeble end of Bane
in the movie considering that he was the meanest character. I was expecting more faceoff of Bane with
Batman.
Even though visuals and special effects were brilliant, somewhere
in the middle I felt like I am not watching Nolan’s movie. I could have watched all these action
sequences in any other movie. But one
has to be foolish to doubt the sensibilities and creativity of Christopher
Nolan. He surprised and shook me with the
suspense and twist in the plot. The ending,
as usual, has been in a way that leaves scope for sequels :). Yeah I know that this was the last one by
Nolan and even Bale has declared it as his last Batman movie.
No review of the movie can be complete without a mention of
Christian Bale. His character as Bruce
Wayne goes through lots of emotions and Bale was able to emote them on screen
with finesse. His portrayal of pain,
grief, anger and romance was as smooth as silk.
His gadgets were more or less similar except new Batmobile, which is
actually an aircraft (I found it heavily inspired from the one in Spider Man). I didn’t find it anything out of the world. I realized in TDKR, Batman was trying a lot
to brand himself. There were number of scenes
where Batman is showcasing to people of Gotham city about his arrival. I found it little odd considering that Batman
generally completes his work in background and disappears. On the contrary, it might have been required
in the context of movie. With people of
Gotham losing hope and having branded Batman as criminal in The Dark Knight, he
had to return with a bang.
The introduction of Marion Cotillard as Miranda Tate was
good. The portrayal of Selina Kyle
(Catwoman!) was pleasing and smooth. Rest
of the cast; Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman and Joseph Gordon; was decent.
One of the best scenes in the movie is prison under well. I liked the way Bane explains why it is the
most dreaded prison in world. You can
see the sky and live in a hope of getting escaped but for that you need to
climb up the well. Having the hope and
still not able to escape makes this the most dreaded prison in the world.
For the first time I saw a movie in cinema hall with
substitles. I found it a big letdown as it
distracted me from the action sequence. All
in all it is a good one time watch. I
still like the second movie of the series the best. I will wait for collector edition of this series
to buy.