The Dark Knight Rises

Of all the actors who have turned me on, I never expected Anne Hathaway to join the list. For me she’s always been the boring one. The girl every boy wants as his girlfriend because she looks the yessir-yessir type. The one who’s always smile-ready. A smile that’s all teeth. And when she isn’t smiling she’s puzzling over why the world is being so mean to her. After all, she’s so nice to everyone right?

Wrong.

Yay.

In a movie where Tom Hardy’s delectable accent is decimated by a mask and Christian Bale spends more time in polyester blends than batman rubber, she was the one who perked me up every time she came onscreen, and by every time I mean every time.

Given how bored I was, she was vital to my survival of those 2hrs:40mins.

First day, second show, and predictably, the seats were writhing with teenage hormones. At 29, I was easily the eldest there. There were claps and encouraging shouts whenever heroes arrived, villains crushed and punchlines staccatoed the proceedings. I think the children had already made up their minds to love it.

And why not? The Dark Knight Rises is tedious in ways that don’t concern the movie-watching public anymore. It has eye-popping action sequences, a plot driven by testosterone, the obligatory smattering of estrogen, and an iconic movie like The Dark Knight to rise from. So who cares about anything else. Not so long ago, the entire world was fidgeting itself crazy trying to understand things about Inception that were already explained in the movie. Not understanding it didn’t stop everyone from gasping out they love love love it and that it’s the best best best, because it’s no longer content that makes the movie, it’s style.

I am of course, in the minority. I can be swept away by thumping music and smashed bridges if the characters are sexy, and only Catwoman obliged me there.

DKR is almost an exact rendition of every superhero movie made. The thing is, it didn’t need to be, and I can only think perhaps Nolan got lazy. I find it strange how having the world at your feet can cut the balls off many filmmakers when logically, it should have the opposite effect (what exactly is Imtiaz Ali making/writing these days??). Chris Nolan was the most original filmmaker I had seen, successfully selling intelligent content all over the world. His Memento was excruciating, The Prestige was flawless, even The Dark Knight was flawless. Liking these films is not the point – each was made perfectly, not a single structural flaw despite complex layers. Inception was the first where I saw his attention-to-detail slip, and now DKR might as well have been made by someone else. Anybody else.

 

With the rise of the Dark Knight, Nolan falls. I cross my fingers for his next.