Rise
As promised, this is my review for Dark Knight Rises. Before I get into this, I want to say that my heart is with the people in Aurora, Colorado right now. It's weird to think about the amount of tragedy that's now connected to these Batman movies. First there was Heath Ledger dying and now there's this incident. Life is never as frightening as it is when it imitates art to the worst possible degree. Be strong, Aurora.
Four years ago, I went to the midnight showing for The Dark Knight. It was actually the first midnight showing I ever went to and I left the theater unable to verbally describe what I had just seen. Less than twelve hours later, I saw it again. In the space of roughly a month, I would see it a total of three times. To this day, I haven't sat down and watched the whole movie again. None of this is a slight against The Dark Knight. I think it's probably the best superhero movie of all time. The problem is that it's also a very brutal movie and I mean that in the best possible way, as morbid as that may sound. Watching Dark Knight requires me to be in a very dark place in my head because it's an emotionally brutal movie to watch. Every time I left the theater after watching it, I felt like I was physically assaulted. I was beaten up just from watching it and I know I wasn't alone.
Let's be honest with ourselves for a moment. For all its haters who still exist somehow, The Dark Knight left an emotional scar on our collective psyche so deep that for the past four years we've been trying to find a superhero movie good enough to ease that pain while we waited for Nolan to shock us again. Think back on the past four years and all the comic book movies we've seen from Thor to Captain America to even the Avengers that just came out a couple of months ago. The number one question we immediately asked ourselves every time we saw one of those movies was: "Is this better than Dark Knight?" For most of them, the resounding answer was "No". Avengers was probably the closest anybody has ever come to beating The Dark Knight and in my book it still came up short. We've spent four years waiting for the closure that only Nolan could bring us and nothing else was going to satisfy us.
Is Dark Knight Rises better than its predecessor? I don't think so, no, but I think it's because you don't have a performance in DKR that is the same caliber as Ledger's in TDK. That being said, Dark Knight Rises is still the best movie I've seen all year. The only thing bad I could say about it right now is that I didn't really like Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character even though he did grow on me as the film went on. Other than that, there's not much criticism I can level at this movie. This movie is everything we wanted and more. As much as The Dark Knight kicks the crap out of you, Dark Knight Rises picks you back up. It gives the audience the sense of closure that we've been waiting four years for and I think at the end it gives us the most emotionally-healthy version of Bruce Wayne that I've ever seen. People are going to have problems with this movie and most of them will probably be concerning its ending. I don't care because the ending is masterfully done. This movie ties a giant, red ribbon around what I think is a trilogy as good as the original Star Wars movies and the Lord of the Rings movies.
To the cast and crew of all these three movies who will probably never read this, I have a brief message. Thank you. Thank you for everything you did small or large that was a part of these movies. This is the trilogy that Batman fans wanted, needed, and deserved. We don't need another Batman movie for a good ten years. I think we will manage to survive without one because in those ten years, we'll be watching these movies over and over again. If I ever have children, they will watch these movies when they're old enough to appreciate and understand them. I hope everybody else my age does the same thing.
In closing, I'm reminded of something Harvey Dent said four years ago in The Dark Knight. He reminded us that the night was darkest just before the dawn and he said that the dawn was coming. Four years ago, we were emotionally assaulted by The Dark Knight and how brutally good it was. We were plunged into the dark and stumbled through that darkness for four years while we waited for the next movie. It's July 20th, 2012 now and the dawn that is Dark Knight Rises is finally here.
Four years ago, I went to the midnight showing for The Dark Knight. It was actually the first midnight showing I ever went to and I left the theater unable to verbally describe what I had just seen. Less than twelve hours later, I saw it again. In the space of roughly a month, I would see it a total of three times. To this day, I haven't sat down and watched the whole movie again. None of this is a slight against The Dark Knight. I think it's probably the best superhero movie of all time. The problem is that it's also a very brutal movie and I mean that in the best possible way, as morbid as that may sound. Watching Dark Knight requires me to be in a very dark place in my head because it's an emotionally brutal movie to watch. Every time I left the theater after watching it, I felt like I was physically assaulted. I was beaten up just from watching it and I know I wasn't alone.
Let's be honest with ourselves for a moment. For all its haters who still exist somehow, The Dark Knight left an emotional scar on our collective psyche so deep that for the past four years we've been trying to find a superhero movie good enough to ease that pain while we waited for Nolan to shock us again. Think back on the past four years and all the comic book movies we've seen from Thor to Captain America to even the Avengers that just came out a couple of months ago. The number one question we immediately asked ourselves every time we saw one of those movies was: "Is this better than Dark Knight?" For most of them, the resounding answer was "No". Avengers was probably the closest anybody has ever come to beating The Dark Knight and in my book it still came up short. We've spent four years waiting for the closure that only Nolan could bring us and nothing else was going to satisfy us.
Is Dark Knight Rises better than its predecessor? I don't think so, no, but I think it's because you don't have a performance in DKR that is the same caliber as Ledger's in TDK. That being said, Dark Knight Rises is still the best movie I've seen all year. The only thing bad I could say about it right now is that I didn't really like Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character even though he did grow on me as the film went on. Other than that, there's not much criticism I can level at this movie. This movie is everything we wanted and more. As much as The Dark Knight kicks the crap out of you, Dark Knight Rises picks you back up. It gives the audience the sense of closure that we've been waiting four years for and I think at the end it gives us the most emotionally-healthy version of Bruce Wayne that I've ever seen. People are going to have problems with this movie and most of them will probably be concerning its ending. I don't care because the ending is masterfully done. This movie ties a giant, red ribbon around what I think is a trilogy as good as the original Star Wars movies and the Lord of the Rings movies.
To the cast and crew of all these three movies who will probably never read this, I have a brief message. Thank you. Thank you for everything you did small or large that was a part of these movies. This is the trilogy that Batman fans wanted, needed, and deserved. We don't need another Batman movie for a good ten years. I think we will manage to survive without one because in those ten years, we'll be watching these movies over and over again. If I ever have children, they will watch these movies when they're old enough to appreciate and understand them. I hope everybody else my age does the same thing.
In closing, I'm reminded of something Harvey Dent said four years ago in The Dark Knight. He reminded us that the night was darkest just before the dawn and he said that the dawn was coming. Four years ago, we were emotionally assaulted by The Dark Knight and how brutally good it was. We were plunged into the dark and stumbled through that darkness for four years while we waited for the next movie. It's July 20th, 2012 now and the dawn that is Dark Knight Rises is finally here.