Earlier in the week, I beheld the latest Chris Nolan Batman dissertation, and I want to preface
what should be a meaty rant by incontrovertably stating the following: The Dark Knight Rises
is not unwatchable.
As far as the dregs of modern cinema are concerned, it's a more than passable chapter in a great
big figurative tome entitled 'thoroughly average films'.
I could say the same for other superhero flicks like the most recent Spider-Man, or Iron Man,
or a half-dozen other links in the writhing meat-train that's currently thrusting its
way past all of our TV and computer screens at present.
I love comic books.
An affection, incidentally, that doesn't extend to film.
Regardless, I think we're all hip to the fact that Hollywood is dangling from the superhero
film adaptation teet like the nipple ring of an impossibly obese cunt.
The simple fact is that The Dark Knight Rises - my own anti-cinematic proclivities notwithstanding
- has more problems than an algebra quiz.
Going into the film, after watching almost every trailer available, I recall initially
being struck by just how many characters there are, most of whom presumably had their own
subplot, which immediately triggered my narrative gag reflex: Simply put... too many characters...
in too short a film... is usually cinematic suicide.
Don't doubt me until you've viewed Joel Shumaker's Magnum Opus by the name of 'Batman & Robin'.
Well, it's my grim duty to report that, at the time, I had no idea how right I actually
was.
This film's glut of ancillary, effectively irrelevant supporting characters, from Catwoman
to...
I-Can't-Believe-It's-Not-Robin, necessitates that the central conflict of the film - that
is, Batman vs. Bane - doesn't even materialize until we've nearly eclipsed the one hour mark,
folks!
Don't excuse that as being formed from narrative necessity until also noting the film's full
run-time of just over two hours!
Meaning nearly half the film has elapsed by the time the audience is, at last, generously
provided with a reason to give a drizzling shit!
That's screenwriting 101, Mr. Nolan!
You hook the audience from the opening frame and do not relinquish their balls until the
credits fucking roll.
I happen to be of the opinion that most of the Nolan trilogy is apocalyptically over-fuckin'-rated...
but I'll say this for The Dark Knight: That film's plot was tighter than Jerry Fallwell's
ass in a prison shower.
Not one character could have been dispensed with.
They all served a function, and that function was to further the central conflict of Batman
vs. The Joker.
Conversely, more than a third of this film's opening act is devoted to a Catwoman character
who could have - with relative ease, and to the everlasting benefit of this film and franchise
- been written out of this film entirely.
I'm not sure which was more violently shoehorned into this film...
Catwoman's narrative role?
Or Hathaway into her fuckin' outfit?
Are you ready for one of the first lines she delivers as 'the character who single-handedly
redeems this film', at least according to the bleating fuckin' sheep that have pronounced
this to be as near to a perfect conclusion as it humanly possible?
Are you prepared?
'Is your body ready?'
Yeah... she says, and I quote, 'Cat got your tongue.'
And if that sounds familiar, it's because it's also one of the first lines that comes
pouring from Halle Berry's mouth during the distilled celluloid brilliance that was 2004's
Catwoman film!
Yes, that's right, fanboys!
Your cinematic savior is lifting dialogue from a superhero film that makes the original
Fantastic Four movie look like Gone With the - fuckin' - WIND!
So why did they jimmy-rig the entirety of the plot to better accommodate this... walking,
talking... narrative superfluity?
My working theory is that Chris Nolan needed a female lead, because he really wanted to
have his own counterpart to the 1940s Noir classic 'The Big Sleep'.
He wanted that snappy, acerbic flirtatious dialogue between Humphrey Bogart and Lauren
Bacall that made every frame of that film fucking smolder with sexual chemistry.
The problem?
Christian Bale is no Humphrey Bogart.
Anne Hathaway is no Lauren Bacall.
And Chris Nolan is no Howard - fucking - Hawks.
But I could forgive it... all of it... if the film at least had the gumption... the
buttfuckin' stick-to-it-iveness... to actually see its own central conflict through to its
logical end.
Instead... in the final frames of this film... literally 10 minutes before the final credits
role... we learn that Bane isn't the real bad guy, rendering the last two hours...
effectively immaterial!
And we're then expected to invest fully in the new conflict of the film... merely because
it was alluded to... two buttfucking movies ago!
Knowing full well that the entire, brand new story arc, will have to be wrapped up over
the next ten goddamn minutes!
And if that sounds familiar...
it's because it's the exact same problem that Mass Effect 3's laugh riot of a fucking ending
had.
By abruptly changing the central conflict from Commander Shepard vs. The Reapers to
Commander Shepard vs. The Dichotomy of Organic Existence, and then foisting a choice upon
the player that had all the relevance of a Family Guy flashback...
they kneecapped their own story and drove their entire audience screaming into the fuckin'
hills.
Once again.
It's not an unwatchable film.
It's slick, generates an interesting concept or two, and is occasionally fun to look at...
but it's still an objectively, and deeply flawed film, and even in a franchise as unjustifiably
extolled as this one... it's an unambiguous disappointment on all levels.
One need look no further than the fact that every protagonist in a Chris Nolan film just
happens to dress and wear their hair identically to how Mr. Nolan does to confirm the ageless
adage that it takes the ultimate egotism to form a fucking film director.
But, if Christopher Nolan fancies himself a cult leader, then The Dark Knight Rises
is the closest he will ever come to JonesTown.
But fuck that!
I never liked Kool-Aid anyways.
I'm RazörFist.
God - fuckin' - Speed!