Review (no spoilers) :

It’s great! On the surface its big, bold, certainly the most “comic book-y” of Nolan’s films and raises the stakes. For those who want to know, The Dark Knight is still the best, but as I’ll go into detail below, the trilogy does work best as one full story, but that is because of the bookends Batman Begins and The Dark Knight Rises. Anne Hathaway is PERFECT as Selina Kyle, ripped from the pages of the comic books. Bane was good, but if you’re a fan of him from “Knightfall” you may be a little disappointed as he doesn’t have quite the same presence.

Christopher Nolan has said that he wanted Bane to have a presence like Darth Vader, an ominous feeling of dread whenever he was on screen. This is a nice sentiment, but he and Heath Ledger already achieved this in The Dark Knight. While many have said that it felt like Ledger/Joker was missing in this film they’re not wrong. But I don’t think this has to do with Ledger specifically. This has to do with the lack of ONE strong villain. Bane would have been great had he the time and presence to shine, but he’s not the story’s dominating force so he’s not allowed the strong ominous leader role he has in the “Knightfall” storyline.

The action is spectacular, however. It’s large scale and the cinematography is fantastic. When Gotham City is put to ruins there is that feeling of dread as the city is broken to its knees, but again, without a tie to such a strong villain it feels a little emptier. People give a lot of credit to Ledger, which is due, but Jonathan and Christopher Nolan in writing The Dark Knight were equally responsible for that character, and upon further reflection The Dark Knight Rises is a conclusion of Bruce Wayne’s story, and that has always been Nolan’s concern. Joker was a great villain, but Rises is not a showcase for villains, it’s a showcase for an epic story. Without the assumption that Bane would be anything like Joker or anything like his “Knightfall” incarnation, the film will play better as part of the trilogy and a city-scale disaster epic. See it with that in mind and the film will be brought full circle instead of a run of the mill sequel.

Now, to the recent news:

I was almost ready to write my review for The Dark Knight Rises after seeing the full marathon last night at my local theatre. Really! I was getting all my thoughts together and mulling over what I’d seen on screen. But I caught the news later than most. I woke up to the news that a shooting had taken place at a Colorado theatre screening of The Dark Knight Rises, leaving several dead and wounded. Knowing this, at the time I can’t seem to write a review on the film as I saw it. Why?

This is the interesting point. My thoughts on the film have been affected by these events. Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, and The Dark Knight Rises are influenced by the way our world breeds and reacts to terrorism. To have a screening of The Dark Knight Rises, the finale and a summation of Nolan’s treatise on heroes and villainous terrorists, be clouded by an actual act of terrorism changes the way I think about the film. I’m not accusing the film, filmmakers or the studio for influencing the acts nor will I callously tie the film to these acts of violence. What I’m saying here is the events put the film’s narrative into a clearer perspective and give me a better understanding of the film and it’s goals, and to work through those thoughts I will have to spoil quite a lot, but not everything.

(Warning: spoilers following)

This shooting brings things a bit closer to home. In his trilogy Nolan shows us how “terrorism” is bred and the rhetoric that often surrounds it. From Batman Begins to The Dark Knight Rises the dangerous world shattering rhetoric of Ra’s Al Ghul comes full circle. The League of Shadows is the self-appointed “check” against corruption. When Batman takes the training but abandons the philosophy of the League he sets his sights on saving Gotham City, but Wayne doesn’t count on the persistence of the League of Shadows. Using several puppets, including organized criminals, professionals and public officials, they unleash fear on Gotham in Batman Begins. Batman is able to stop Ra’s and the League, but by the end of Begins Batman learns that he has bred a new breed of criminal: The Joker.

The Joker is chaos and anarchy. Alfred, in an attempt to explain unclear motives to Bruce, says that “some men aren’t looking for anything logical…some men just want to watch the world burn.” The difference between the Joker and The League of Shadows is that the Joker has no endgame. He wants for nothing except to see the world turn to fire. He has no grand vision for changing Gotham as long as he leaves it corrupted, and Harvey Dent is that ultimate corruption. Forcing Batman to take the fall for Harvey’s crime was not part of Joker’s plan, but an agent of chaos is also an agent of convenience and opportunity, and this opportunity offers so much more than Joker could have wanted for.

Dejected, Batman becomes viewed as the very terrorist that he had been fighting. At the conclusion of The Dark Knight he has been abandoned. But he still never learns to “mind his surroundings.” At the beginning of Rises, eight years after Dark Knight Bruce is a shut in, obviously not minding his surroundings. And what are his surroundings? Bane and the League have been operating underneath Gotham city for a very, very long time right under everyone’s nose. Operating with considerable patience, calculated attacks and rarely surfacing they slowly bring Gotham to its knees. They tear down the rich, remove their funds (including Wayne’s) and bury the police force underground, leaving the citizens of Gotham to Bane.

Ra’s was right when he tells Batman that “your compassion is a weakness your enemies will not share.” And while Wayne claims that reason was “why it’s so important,” perhaps he may be wrong? His compassion breeds pain. In The Dark Knight Rises Bruce is constantly hit by reminders of his past pain and suffering: the loss of his parents, the death of Rachel Dawes, the sacrifice of Harvey Dent, and when Bruce won’t abandon Batman as a persona, Alfred has no choice but to abandon the monster Bruce has created and leave. Alfred recognizes that through all the loss and suffering, Bruce has not moved on and has this has let Gotham be taken right from underneath Batman, the police and even its citizens.

Bane understands this far too well and seems to have expected this reaction. Bane is the League of Shadows. Bruce, by abandoning his connection and agency with Gotham City, has allowed the League of Shadows to return. Ra’s made it clear in Batman Begins that the League is strong, resilient, persistent, even immortal. Of course the League would return with a new instrument to buckle the city. Just because Bruce would not lead the League of Shadows into Gotham, and just because Batman stopped Ra’s in Begins, it doesn’t mean someone else couldn’t lead the League.

Bruce’s compassion shut him off from the world and bred a selfishness that was shared with the other Gotham elites. As the wall-street types were shut off from the citizens they shared the streets with they grew ignorant to any concerns but their own. Early on, when Bruce asks why funding has stopped for a certain charitable organization, Alfred says this is due to Bruce Wayne abandoning his obligations to his company, which funds the charity through its profits. This has been a common argument against Batman as a character: if Wayne funnelled the money he used for Batman for the city, wouldn’t Gotham be better off? Alfred says yes. But when Bruce turns to Batman instead he’s forced into a position of unwilling support until he just can’t take his Master’s death wish any longer.

What drives Bruce to change his mind and rally a city to action? What drives Bane? It’s the same thing: social action and social responsibility. If the citizens of Gotham took up their social responsibility and stopped the economists–revealed in Batman Begins to be a weapon introduced by the League of Shadows to cripple Gotham–Bane and the League wouldn’t feel the need to step in, nor would Batman. Because of the citizen’s inaction, Gotham requires “dramatic examples to shake them out of apathy” (Bruce in Batman Begins), symbols and figures to stand in for their struggle. But Batman, The League of Shadows, the Joker, Bane, Ra’s and Talia Al Ghul are merely stand-ins for social positions. They take the city so easily from its political figures and citizens and manipulate it to make an example of them.

Bane easily takes over the city in a well crafted mid-film takeover, calling them to “take back [their] city” in one breath, then instituting martial law in the next. His lie is indicative of his own terrorism. The misguided ideals of terrorists and politicians alike: promising liberation, then taking over for themselves and instituting their own law.

Terrorism is driven by confused ideals, sometimes on purpose, sometimes not. The question that Nolan’s film raises is “how do we counter terrorism?” Do we let our elected officials counter it? Can ordinary citizens counter it? What lies will be put forth by “ordinary citizens” like Miranda Tate/Talia Al Ghul to deceive us. Upon reflection, The Dark Knight Trilogy raises some important questions about agency within our own civilization and our social responsibilities to it.