Better late than never - The Dark Knight Rises comments.
So. Some thoughts typed out over the past few days after I finally managed to see the entire film.
Ye gods, the plot holes and the issues. For instance:
1. The film establishes that Bruce Wayne is a very famous man, immediately recognized by everyone and a subject of immense and intense gossip.
Not five minutes later we are expected to believe that a car valet is not aware that Bruce Wayne is single.
Yes, it's a funny moment. But it falls apart the second you look at it, and was the first of many moments where I was thrown out of the film - because you can't have it both ways. Either Bruce Wayne is immediately, instantly, incredibly famous, so well known that everybody knows his marital status, or, well, he isn't. If the first, then no way does a car valet allow a strange woman who claims to be Wayne's wife to drive off with a valuable car. If the second, the entire previous scene makes no sense.
2. Midway through the film, Bane engages in what might be called "overkill" in a thoroughly complicated plan complete with admittedly awesome car chase to launch an app that will essentially make it look as if Bruce Wayne has done a lot of quick trading and lost. (I summarize.) Bruce Wayne wakes up to find out that he's broke. (More on this in plot hole 3.)
The next day, Lucius Fox says, "Now, we might be able to prove fraud...."
Might be able to prove fraud? You have CAMERA FOOTAGE of various people breaking into Wall Street, several prominent witnesses and presumably more cameras showing Bane and minions plugging in computers, video coverage of a car chase major enough to pull Batman out of hiding, a Wall Street honcho correctly pointing out that Bane and minions can steal trillions and/or completely crash the entire banking system, and you only think you "might" be able to prove fraud? All Fox and Wayne have to do is to point out what happened the same day these supposed "trades" were done, note that the trades were done under various shell accounts, and yes, fraud, or at least some major questions.
(It's also not at all clear why anyone had to break into Wall Street to do this other than allow for a really cool car chase that would bring Batman into the spotlight, or why, once in Wall Street, with the ability to destroy the banking computers of the world, they didn't just do so, given that their stated purpose later is too, well, destroy the banking computers of the world. But I think I've spent enough time on this plot.)
3. I'm hardly alone in noting this one, but, you know, good to know that major back injuries can be cured by just pushing the vertebrae back in. If only spinal surgeons had Learned This Earlier.
4. Something others saw as a plot problem but I didn't - just how did Bruce Wayne make it all the way back from India to Gotham without a cent in his pocket, and end up in decent clothes once in Gotham?
Simple: he just used one of his many, many, secret bank accounts.
After all, this is Bruce Wayne, deeply paranoid billionaire with a habit of concealing some major purchases and who spent years in the criminal underworld. And while yes, some millionaires and even multimillionaires keep all of their money in one location, by the time you reach the serious multimillionaire level you don't. You can't. See: Paul Allen and Mitt Romney. Given that Bruce Wayne has been shown to be even more paranoid and secretive than either, I guarantee he had millions in various accounts throughout the world, and ways of accessing them.
Indeed, I identified this as a sorta plot problem during the "Bruce Wayne Completely Broke" bit - I thought, er, no - the guy has other accounts. I say, sorta, because the press would obviously not know about those and their depiction of Bruce Wayne as broke was fine as far as it went. The electricity was shut down relatively quickly, I admit, but, you know, fireside scene.
So, that was fine.
5. What was less fine was assuming that absolutely no one could get off Gotham Island, or do so unseen.
Sure, swimming in the Hudson/East River or whatever the Gotham equivalent was would have been difficult to deeply unpleasant. But you are not going to tell me that not a single piece of scuba equipment was left on the island, or that a city of 3 million people (or whatever the number was), containing numerous wealthy people, did not have a couple of trained divers and/or long distance swimmers.
I grant that the bits of sending people out on the not exactly frozen river were pretty awesome, but the river didn't freeze up immediately, so, yes, something could have been done.
6. On a related note, yes, yes, getting little kids across a bridge and to the city on the other side just six miles away from the nuclear detonation will keep them safe.
Or, you know, not.
7. On a related note, er, let's not celebrate too loudly, Gotham. That nuclear bomb didn't detonate that far away from the city. Enjoy your upcoming cancers!
Anyway.
Other comments:
8. I've mentioned before that Christopher Nolan is an easy director to admire, but not necessarily like, in part because of his habit of peopling movies with protagonists and even secondary characters who are just very, very hard to like, and his ability to tone down or in some cases completely remove the charisma of his lead actors. (See, Hugh Jackman, Prestige.)
His three Batman movies have been particularly odd in this respect since for the most part the likeable, on in one case the compulsively watchable characters have been the secondary characters or the bad guys, but not his leads or heroes. This was particularly true in the second movie, where both Jim Gordon and Batman pulled some definitely questionable moral moves, and Bruce Wayne often came across as distinctly unlikeable. (And I am just going to skip over the entire Rachel Dawes question.) Leaving only Alfred, Lucius Fox, the prisoner on the barge, and to a considerably lesser extent the Mayor and Mrs. Gordon, as the good guys we could cheer for.
Here he initially does it again. It's particularly striking since later on in the film, after Bruce Wayne returns to Gotham and runs into Selina Kyle, he suddenly shows all of us Christian Bale's very considerable charm and star power. It's a deliberate choice: we're meant to be reminded both that Wayne lost his allies and friends through his own actions, and that he, like pretty much everyone, really finds Selina Kyle hot.
But in the meantime, this makes it very difficult to cheer for anyone earlier in the film, given that we know Gordon has been lying through his teeth, giving his triumphs a decidedly questionable ethical basis (and breaking up his marriage in the bargain - a touch I really enjoyed); Alfred has also been lying and not informing Bruce of just how bad the finances are; Lucius Fox has been letting Wayne Enterprises more or less go to hell, and for all of the "Hey, Bruce, this was your decision to divert resources this way," Wayne Enterprises was previously portrayed as a huge multi-conglomerate company, on the size of, say, General Electric; Lucius Fox was previously portrayed as knowing more or less what he was doing in finance, and, well, the movie's statement that Wayne Enterprises no longer had any profitable divisions did not speak well of Fox.
That leaves us only with new characters John Blake and bad girl Catwoman - which makes Nolan's later decision to more or less sideline John Blake, our major hero throughout most of the film, during the climatic moments just, well, a bit odd, even though the whole redemptive thing worked quite well for Batman, Catwoman, and Gordon. Though it did help to have that charm back on when Batman did return.
9. The film is also more than a bit - how do I put this - ideologically muddled. On the one hand, the film wants us to think that the rich, except for Bruce Wayne and Lucius Fox, are all awful, corrupt people, and we get various scenes of people manipulating the stock market and failing to support charities and so on, and we sense some real anger towards the rich from others in Gotham. Which might explain why the presumably working class car valet allows Selina Kyle to steal Bruce Wayne's car, but I digress. We also learn that the criminals have been jailed thanks to a law based on a complete lie, and that for the third film in a row, seemingly half the cops are corrupt or incompetent or both. And even the good guy unilaterally decides to keep a system that could potentially solve the world's energy needs offline because he thinks it's too dangerous for the planet. Even though apparently only one other person in the world knows how to weaponize it, and the only way you can get the weaponizing guy is by capturing him in air with the use of a cargo plane, so exactly how great is this danger, and, on a related note, given that the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Russia and China have all done a pretty decent job of safeguarding their nuclear weapons, even during times of political chaos, and other countries have done a pretty decent job of safeguarding nuclear power plants from humans, if not tsunamis, why can't Wayne Enterprises safeguard this nuclear system in the same way?
On the other hand, the only people fighting to tear down this system are the bad guys. John Blake, providing the moral core of the film, watches, and comments, and in the end, quits. Alfred quits. Bruce Wayne, after saving the city, quits. Lucius Fox and Commissioner Gordon support the system.
It rather reminds me of X-Men, First Class, which had a similar problem: the characters fighting racism, sexism and Nazis were portrayed as the villains, while the privileged, sexist and clueless Xavier was portrayed as the hero. I suspect this is all saying something deep (or shallow) about the muddled nature of contemporary society, and probably deserves a deep (or shallow) essay from me, but I've been more or less typing this thing up for a few days now, and am recovering from a bad bout of first severe headache followed by insomnia, which does not bode well for Deep Thoughts, so I shall pause now.
Ye gods, the plot holes and the issues. For instance:
1. The film establishes that Bruce Wayne is a very famous man, immediately recognized by everyone and a subject of immense and intense gossip.
Not five minutes later we are expected to believe that a car valet is not aware that Bruce Wayne is single.
Yes, it's a funny moment. But it falls apart the second you look at it, and was the first of many moments where I was thrown out of the film - because you can't have it both ways. Either Bruce Wayne is immediately, instantly, incredibly famous, so well known that everybody knows his marital status, or, well, he isn't. If the first, then no way does a car valet allow a strange woman who claims to be Wayne's wife to drive off with a valuable car. If the second, the entire previous scene makes no sense.
2. Midway through the film, Bane engages in what might be called "overkill" in a thoroughly complicated plan complete with admittedly awesome car chase to launch an app that will essentially make it look as if Bruce Wayne has done a lot of quick trading and lost. (I summarize.) Bruce Wayne wakes up to find out that he's broke. (More on this in plot hole 3.)
The next day, Lucius Fox says, "Now, we might be able to prove fraud...."
Might be able to prove fraud? You have CAMERA FOOTAGE of various people breaking into Wall Street, several prominent witnesses and presumably more cameras showing Bane and minions plugging in computers, video coverage of a car chase major enough to pull Batman out of hiding, a Wall Street honcho correctly pointing out that Bane and minions can steal trillions and/or completely crash the entire banking system, and you only think you "might" be able to prove fraud? All Fox and Wayne have to do is to point out what happened the same day these supposed "trades" were done, note that the trades were done under various shell accounts, and yes, fraud, or at least some major questions.
(It's also not at all clear why anyone had to break into Wall Street to do this other than allow for a really cool car chase that would bring Batman into the spotlight, or why, once in Wall Street, with the ability to destroy the banking computers of the world, they didn't just do so, given that their stated purpose later is too, well, destroy the banking computers of the world. But I think I've spent enough time on this plot.)
3. I'm hardly alone in noting this one, but, you know, good to know that major back injuries can be cured by just pushing the vertebrae back in. If only spinal surgeons had Learned This Earlier.
4. Something others saw as a plot problem but I didn't - just how did Bruce Wayne make it all the way back from India to Gotham without a cent in his pocket, and end up in decent clothes once in Gotham?
Simple: he just used one of his many, many, secret bank accounts.
After all, this is Bruce Wayne, deeply paranoid billionaire with a habit of concealing some major purchases and who spent years in the criminal underworld. And while yes, some millionaires and even multimillionaires keep all of their money in one location, by the time you reach the serious multimillionaire level you don't. You can't. See: Paul Allen and Mitt Romney. Given that Bruce Wayne has been shown to be even more paranoid and secretive than either, I guarantee he had millions in various accounts throughout the world, and ways of accessing them.
Indeed, I identified this as a sorta plot problem during the "Bruce Wayne Completely Broke" bit - I thought, er, no - the guy has other accounts. I say, sorta, because the press would obviously not know about those and their depiction of Bruce Wayne as broke was fine as far as it went. The electricity was shut down relatively quickly, I admit, but, you know, fireside scene.
So, that was fine.
5. What was less fine was assuming that absolutely no one could get off Gotham Island, or do so unseen.
Sure, swimming in the Hudson/East River or whatever the Gotham equivalent was would have been difficult to deeply unpleasant. But you are not going to tell me that not a single piece of scuba equipment was left on the island, or that a city of 3 million people (or whatever the number was), containing numerous wealthy people, did not have a couple of trained divers and/or long distance swimmers.
I grant that the bits of sending people out on the not exactly frozen river were pretty awesome, but the river didn't freeze up immediately, so, yes, something could have been done.
6. On a related note, yes, yes, getting little kids across a bridge and to the city on the other side just six miles away from the nuclear detonation will keep them safe.
Or, you know, not.
7. On a related note, er, let's not celebrate too loudly, Gotham. That nuclear bomb didn't detonate that far away from the city. Enjoy your upcoming cancers!
Anyway.
Other comments:
8. I've mentioned before that Christopher Nolan is an easy director to admire, but not necessarily like, in part because of his habit of peopling movies with protagonists and even secondary characters who are just very, very hard to like, and his ability to tone down or in some cases completely remove the charisma of his lead actors. (See, Hugh Jackman, Prestige.)
His three Batman movies have been particularly odd in this respect since for the most part the likeable, on in one case the compulsively watchable characters have been the secondary characters or the bad guys, but not his leads or heroes. This was particularly true in the second movie, where both Jim Gordon and Batman pulled some definitely questionable moral moves, and Bruce Wayne often came across as distinctly unlikeable. (And I am just going to skip over the entire Rachel Dawes question.) Leaving only Alfred, Lucius Fox, the prisoner on the barge, and to a considerably lesser extent the Mayor and Mrs. Gordon, as the good guys we could cheer for.
Here he initially does it again. It's particularly striking since later on in the film, after Bruce Wayne returns to Gotham and runs into Selina Kyle, he suddenly shows all of us Christian Bale's very considerable charm and star power. It's a deliberate choice: we're meant to be reminded both that Wayne lost his allies and friends through his own actions, and that he, like pretty much everyone, really finds Selina Kyle hot.
But in the meantime, this makes it very difficult to cheer for anyone earlier in the film, given that we know Gordon has been lying through his teeth, giving his triumphs a decidedly questionable ethical basis (and breaking up his marriage in the bargain - a touch I really enjoyed); Alfred has also been lying and not informing Bruce of just how bad the finances are; Lucius Fox has been letting Wayne Enterprises more or less go to hell, and for all of the "Hey, Bruce, this was your decision to divert resources this way," Wayne Enterprises was previously portrayed as a huge multi-conglomerate company, on the size of, say, General Electric; Lucius Fox was previously portrayed as knowing more or less what he was doing in finance, and, well, the movie's statement that Wayne Enterprises no longer had any profitable divisions did not speak well of Fox.
That leaves us only with new characters John Blake and bad girl Catwoman - which makes Nolan's later decision to more or less sideline John Blake, our major hero throughout most of the film, during the climatic moments just, well, a bit odd, even though the whole redemptive thing worked quite well for Batman, Catwoman, and Gordon. Though it did help to have that charm back on when Batman did return.
9. The film is also more than a bit - how do I put this - ideologically muddled. On the one hand, the film wants us to think that the rich, except for Bruce Wayne and Lucius Fox, are all awful, corrupt people, and we get various scenes of people manipulating the stock market and failing to support charities and so on, and we sense some real anger towards the rich from others in Gotham. Which might explain why the presumably working class car valet allows Selina Kyle to steal Bruce Wayne's car, but I digress. We also learn that the criminals have been jailed thanks to a law based on a complete lie, and that for the third film in a row, seemingly half the cops are corrupt or incompetent or both. And even the good guy unilaterally decides to keep a system that could potentially solve the world's energy needs offline because he thinks it's too dangerous for the planet. Even though apparently only one other person in the world knows how to weaponize it, and the only way you can get the weaponizing guy is by capturing him in air with the use of a cargo plane, so exactly how great is this danger, and, on a related note, given that the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Russia and China have all done a pretty decent job of safeguarding their nuclear weapons, even during times of political chaos, and other countries have done a pretty decent job of safeguarding nuclear power plants from humans, if not tsunamis, why can't Wayne Enterprises safeguard this nuclear system in the same way?
On the other hand, the only people fighting to tear down this system are the bad guys. John Blake, providing the moral core of the film, watches, and comments, and in the end, quits. Alfred quits. Bruce Wayne, after saving the city, quits. Lucius Fox and Commissioner Gordon support the system.
It rather reminds me of X-Men, First Class, which had a similar problem: the characters fighting racism, sexism and Nazis were portrayed as the villains, while the privileged, sexist and clueless Xavier was portrayed as the hero. I suspect this is all saying something deep (or shallow) about the muddled nature of contemporary society, and probably deserves a deep (or shallow) essay from me, but I've been more or less typing this thing up for a few days now, and am recovering from a bad bout of first severe headache followed by insomnia, which does not bode well for Deep Thoughts, so I shall pause now.