 | A very strong finish for Christopher Nolan's trilogy of Batman movies. Bruce Wayne has withdrawn from public life in accordance with this new cinematic genre of "hero-realism" (where heroes are displayed naturalistically). But Bane is just the kind of villain to remedy that. In fact, it seems that the villains are who define Batman films. In that respect, Tom Hardy (Bane) had big shoes to fill, left by Heath Ledger (The Joker) from the previous Dark Knight film. I consider him successful in filling those shoes, even if he did not outgrow them. Like I said, they are big shoes.
Also in keeping with this new "hero-realism" is the movie's depiction of the culture at large, including the now-familiar ungrateful attitudes of people toward heroes and all types of personified "Atlases". Some of the lines of the villains in this movie could have been pulled straight from an Obama speech -- which, itself, has surely been "poll-tested" and "focus-grouped" before being "teleprompter-ized" into another national spectacle. This film says a lot about our current culture and our politics. It says a lot about conflict and growth. It ... it just says a lot. The wealthy capitalist is the hero, the redistributing socialist* is the villain. That's not just a good theme, it's a great one.
My unofficial movie rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Ed
*Bane, like The Joker from the previous film, is actually an existentialist merely masquerading as a utilitarian wealth and property redistributor. In truth, he is ready, able, and willing to burn the whole world down. To get that done, like many existentialists of our time, he pretends that he is operating on a grand moral calculus and asks the public ... scratch that ... forces the public to support (or at least to tolerate) the implementation of his lofty moral calculus. The citizens in this movie are not being told the truth by a self-appointed leader, as their fate is not what Bane claims it will be ...
IMDB link:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1345836/
Amazon link:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Dark-Knight/dp/B001OGWY1W/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1343015736&sr=1-1&keywords=dark+knight+rises
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