The Dark Knight rises works. It effectively draws a curtain on Christopher Nolan's hugely popular trio of Batman movies. Confident & assured like all of Nolan's work, it is an entertaining if draining three hours in theaters. Afterward is where all the problems begin. The film not only fails to cohere in your imagination but falls apart rather spectacularly. The area of disappointment (there are many) I am most interested is Nolan abandoning his take on the
eternality of comics. With it's very title, Nolan's Batman Begins announces that we are seeing only the very start of a long story. Commissioner Gordan's escalation speech in Begins lays out the
comic's fans idea that Batman himself transforms the mob thugs & street criminals of Gotham into a Ghoulish rogues galleries of
Riddlers, Penguins & Jokers. In Dark Knight, the captured Joker taunts Batman with how they are "destined to do this forever". Batman's code won't allow him to kill the Joker who finds our Caped Crusader to fun to kill. Nolan is playing around with the endless nature of comics, how Batman will battle The Joker over & over again.
So, imagine my surprise when The Dark Knight Rises opens with Batman 8 years retired (Hands raised for who thought that was what was going to happen at the end of Dark Knight? Yeah, I thought so) and Gotham at peace due to the Patriot actish Dent Act. Wait, I thought Gotham's cops were hopelessly corrupt from Begins & Dark Knight? I guess not. They just needed a tougher civil code. Who knew? It's a disappointment that Nolan has gone here. It diminishes the cleverness of the first films and frankly, makes Batman seem rather ridiculous. All Gotham needed was some tougher laws passed. I thought it needed a symbol to rally itself or at least someone to stop random acts of major violence.
Nolan allows for the possibility of a new Batman at TDKR's end but it can't help but feel a little hollow by then. The film is awash is happy endings and not tantalizing new possibilities. Those tantalizing possibilities are what makes comics so much fun. Nolan seems to have forgotten that.
