The Dark Knight Rises: My Predictions Revisited.

Greetings fellow Gothamites!

"Suck it, Trebek!"

Well, I did it. I saw The Dark Knight Rises at a midnight show in Lorain, and it rocked! I’ll check in on my predictions and probably mix in a bit of a personal review, as I’m an overly-opinionated chick with a blog.

First, I should take a minute to comment on yet another tragedy that will haunt this amazing trilogy. In Aurora, Colorado, at a midnight showing, some sick, twisted asshole opened fire on waiting Batman fans, killing twelve and injuring more. I was in tears when I heard about it. What could be a safer place to go out than a movie theatre? Like most mass shootings, these people were so innocent, completely random victims of a sick mind. Nolan cancelled the Paris premier of the movie immediately upon hearing of this and released a statement expressing the cast’s mourning of the tragedy, a seriously stand up thing to do. So as gun control arguments and obnoxious statements like ‘He said he was inspired by the Joker’ run rampant, try not to lose sight of what happened in political media bullshit. It was a terrible day for Batman fans everywhere.

Now I’m going to swallow my tears (yes, I’m a giant wuss) and focus on the film itself. Needless to say, if you haven’t seen TDKR, You probably won’t want to read this. SPOILERS are abound.

Let’s check the scoreboard, shall we?

The beginning is going to blow us the fuck away. Uh…kinda? It was obvious that Nolan tried, hard, to replicate the long gasp that was the beginning of TDK, down to Bane ending up being one of the anonymous henchmen that had been apprehended. There was a plane, then a plan on top of another plane, then people coming into the little plane…yeah. He tried. For me, personally, it didn’t blow me away, but that was probably because Bane had started speaking at that point.

Oh, my God, can we please talk about Bane’s voice?  Okay, you know how everyone made fun of Bale’s Batman voice in TDK? Well, nobody’s going to be talking about that. Bane…what. The. Fuck? His voice was absolutely, completely ridiculous. His look was awesome. He was big, he was bald, he was scary. But when you sound like a blend of Sean Connery and Shredder, it doesn’t matter how scary you look. I seriously couldn’t get past that freaking ridiculous voice. Every time Bane opened his…er, mouth…I started giggling. Especially when he slipped out of the Sean Connery voice and into some weird higher pitched warble that was somewhere between a leprechaun and a tottering old man. I’m sorry. Bane could break as many necks as he likes (and he seems to like that), but that won’t save him from sounding hilarious.

Anyway, the beginning was good, but not the nail-biter I was expecting it to be.

The movie is going to be dark. Dark, dark, darkity dark. Um…kind of? It was dark. There was a bit of hopelessness there, but the films path was formulaic enough for us to predict exactly what was going to happen. Yes, Bane threw Wayne (ha, that rhymes!) down into an inescapable prison pit…but we all knew he was going to escape. And we all knew once the bomb didn’t go off that he was going to sacrifice himself. Yes, there was darkness, but it was predictable, seen-it-before darkness, so it didn’t bring us down too much.

There will be a teensy reference to/cameo of the Joker.  Nope. None. Zilch. With the exception of Harvey Dent and dead Rachel mourning, the entire film was a sequel to Batman Begins. Even Dr. Crane made an appearance—which made absolutely no sense to me except fan service—but no word of the Joker…even though everybody had let everyone out of prison and, given the presence of Crane, Arkham…you’d think he would’ve been having a fucking field day in a lawless, chaotic Gotham. But no, nothing. I understand that they probably didn’t want to throw anything in there due to Ledger’s death, but come on…a Joker face spray painted on a dumpster would’ve been enough.

Don't worry, Puddin. WE'LL never forget you.

Bane will be formidable, complex, and scary…but he won’t make it to Joker caliber. Nope, not even near Joker caliber, and why? Sean Connery Shredder Leprechaun. Okay, not just that. Bane just wasn’t that scary to me. He was a step backward as far as Nolanverse villains go. He was basically just Roz Al Ghul on steroids. He had big supervillain plans (I’m going to destroy the entire city! The day of reckoning has come! I must make all suffer! Rawr!), a swarm of anonymous henchmen coming out of nowhere (did he create another League of Shadows? Were they all from that inescapable prison that at least three people we know of have escaped from?), and a giant bomb. Yes, he was strong and ruthless. Yes…they made insinuations that he was very intelligent. But he was just another supervillain, complete with monologuing. And by the way, even if you break Batman’s back, if you sit silently crying while your mistress pets you like a good little dog, you lose all credibility as a badass.

Catwoman is going to be one of those overly witty clever hot chick criminal types we’ve seen a thousand times since the 90s. Yep. I was totally right. And I didn’t really like her at all. She was a stereotypical character in all ways, in a universe that tries very hard to create complex characters. Though her goggles were a really cute idea, she bored me.

Yawn.

The movie will lean heavily on physical violence. When the focus was on Batman and Bane, yes. Though I will say this, the very first fight between the two was great. You could see Batman struggling, and every one of Bane’s movements had thought behind it. You could see his brain working (though he did practically narrate the thing, he wouldn’t shut the fuck up) through the fight. But after that, they became pretty every day. Punch, block, punch, punch, block, block, hit, stumble, block, punch, yawn.

Bane will break Batman’s Back. Totally did, though all it took was a prison doctor to shove the vertebrae back in place.

Joseph Gordon Levitt finds out Batman’s identity and just might become a Robin-type figure—Yep, and I am so totally proud of myself for calling that! Though it did lead to the most infuriating let down of the movie, other than Bane’s voice. Levitt’s character, an orphan as well, didn’t actually figure out Batman was Bruce Wayne during the film; he already knew, apparently. How, do you ask? Did he come across the evidence that the wormy Reese guy maybe tried to report to the authorities or something? Or did he do some good old fashioned detective work? Uh, no. This is literally what he says: I’m an orphan, too. I saw it in your eyes.

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            WHAT KIND OF MOTHERFUCKING COP OUT IS THAT! FUCK YOU, NOLAN!

            Also, when the name Robin came up, I threw up my hands in victory because I had predicted, but I’m not actually thrilled about it. I hope the Levitt discovering the Batcave and the bat signal being remade and all of that is just a “and the symbol Batman never died in Gotham…not really.” Rather than Nolan breaking down and making sequels with Levitt as Batman or Robin or Nightwing. I’m really leaning toward the former. And hoping for it.

We’ll Lose Alfred. I was right. But he just left. Just said “I’m not going to bury you like I buried your parents” and fucking left. And it was kind of glossed over. It could’ve…should’ve been a much bigger thing. I mean, it’s Alfred, for God’s sake…Bruce’s only family! And the thunder of this scene is stolen by completely random and unnecessary sex with Thalia Al Ghul. What the fuck?

Bruce’s parents’ deaths will be mentioned. Check.

Hans Zimmer is going to drum his little heart (and our ears) out. Check. I will have that damned drrum sequence stuck in my head forever. Da-da-DUM. DUM. Da-da-DUM. DUM. Da-da-DUM. DUM.

The ending will be EPIC! But formulaic. And check. Big bomb, Batman sacrifices himself, his symbol lives on. It was beautiful, it really was, and I cried, as usual, but it was formulaic.

Batman will die-no he won’t-yes he will-no he won’t…fuck! Bruce Wayne died, Batman probably lives on; not in sequels, I hope, but in Gotham. Nolan went the predictable route.

The movie will be great, fantastic, even…but it will fall short of The Dark Knight. Honestly, I very much enjoyed the movie, was entertained and moved by it, and I thought it was definitely epic, but I wouldn’t call it great. I would call it very good. It was a very good moving, and an appropriate and satisfying ending to the trilogy…but it wasn’t great, and it was nowhere near TDK. Though I enjoyed it, it was a teeny bit of a letdown. Bane’s voice sucked, the action and plot were often stock quality, and though the Thalia Al Ghul twist got me, it totally didn’t make sense. This was Thalia’s story: I was dumped in a prison where my mother died and Bane protected me. I escaped. My Dad took Bane and me in (because Bane apparently escaped too after…the prison doctor somehow made a brilliant high tech mask…in a dingy rusty desert prison…apparently he’s Tony Stark) and trained us in the League of Shadows. But Dad couldn’t accept Bane…because…he reminded Dad of…the prison…? And banished him, but only after training him to be a total badass mercenary.  I hated my father. Until Batman killed him. Then suddenly I needed to avenge him by carrying out his plan to destroy Gotham. The audience also has to assume that Dad told Bane and me Batman’s identity…or something…because we knew it. And I slept with my Dad’s killer….because. The end.

            Overall, though, the movie was very good and worth seeing, maybe three or four times, plot holes and unanswered questions and all.