Online Film Critics Society

One of the pleasures of The Dark Knight Rises is the way in which he wraps his story back around, connecting it firmly with the origin story told in Batman Begins and brings the series to a satisfying conclusion. It is a reminder of how few films, even in a series, forget their origins. Second sequels are almost always creative voids, built for profit, not cinema. This is the rare exception.

This is not a perfect film, but it delves more deeply and more thoughtfully into the Batman legend than anyone else might have ever dared. What was told in Batman Begins was the story of a wounded soul whose training and legacy forced him to create a persona that allowed him to be a dark avenger to those who needed him. Nolan allows us to understand that it is also a personal prison, something he is destined to do for the remainder of his life. The Dark Knight Rises questions the need for that persona. In a world of global terrorism and high-tech, what is the need for a two-fisted dark knight?

I was disappointed by that wrap-around approach in many ways. It was too heavy-handed and contributed to the impression that this film was riding on the coat-tails of two much stronger entries. A bit of circularity can be nice, yes, but spare us the twee repeats of earlier material, milking every drop of sentiment from scenes that were, originally, harder-hitting for their spareness.

There were many good things about this film but much of it was incoherent, lacking the tight plotting and strong internal logic at which Nolan usually excels. I'm curious as to whether we'll see an improvement on that in a director's cut, since this was edited down considerably to enable it to be shown in Imax (which has a maximum running time dictated by the weight of the reels!) so it may be that some aspects of it make more sense in their original form.