Batman ends: an epic conclusion

Sunday 22 July 2012

IT will now forever be associated with the terrible tragedy of Aurora, Colorado but Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises will also be recognised as the epic conclusion to one of the most satisfying trilogies in the history of cinema.

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FILM OF THE WEEK: The Dark Knight Rises (12A) Reviewed by Demetrios Matheou

Most film franchises are based on repetition: take the successful formula as marked out by the first, then simply repeat it, over and over until the box office takings dry up. This is an altogether richer and more honourable enterprise.

Batman Begins was the perfect "origins" story, shrewdly grounding a character whose previous screen outings had soared way over the top, and offering a feasible vigilante whose complex psychology was very much to the fore. The Dark Knight went further, almost taking the "comic book" out of the equation altogether, playing more as a crime thriller cum pitch-black morality tale that left one chilled to the bone. Nolan continues to mine melancholy and evil to a degree that few mainstream filmmakers are prepared to match. That said, at the start of the new film one feels – perhaps hopes – that the hero's story will move towards the light. There will certainly be a resolution for the troubled Bruce Wayne, whose determination to be his city's saviour has given him nothing but grief. It's eight years since the Joker brought chaos to Gotham and Batman (Christian Bale) took the fall for the death of deranged District Attorney Harvey Dent, fleeing as a villain into the night. In that time, police commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) has presided over falling crime figures, while Bruce himself has become a recluse, a goatee and a limp signifying that the former crime fighter has gone to seed.But this is the quiet before the storm. And before long Batman is dusting off his cowl for a new challenge: Bane (Tom Hardy), a criminal mastermind in the body of a muzzled pit-bull.Nolan and his brother and co-screenwriter Jonathan skilfully blend old and new: no Batman would be complete without his trio of surrogate father figures – Gordon, technical wizard Lucias Fox (Morgan Freeman) and trusty butler Alfred (Michael Caine). Alongside them are introduced a witty, slinky, morally surprising Catwoman (Anne Hathaway), an environmentalist and new love interest (Marion Cotillard) and a young cop (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), whose idealism refreshes that of both Wayne and Gordon.Nolan puts these characters into play with an engrossingly slow- burning plot, which draws creatively on the previous films, and waits until some neat twists in the tail to flesh out Bane's identity and motivation. En route, we're treated to some spectacular set pieces – notably a midair hijack of a plane, and the destruction of an American football field – some saucy sparring between Bruce/Batman and Selina Kyle/Catwoman, a new mode of transport (appropriately named The Bat) and Bale's most accessible and engaging performance in the series. If anything were to characterise this instalment, it would be that a character customarily cast into the shadow of more colourful adversaries finally wins our affection. With an older, frailer Bruce at rock bottom, Bale now softens him; the sadness remains, but the hard edges have given way to wryness. It's also apt, given that Wayne's only superpower is his immense wealth, that the dominant, sober theme of the film is the disparity between rich and poor. I didn't expect the astonishing The Dark Knight to be bettered, and it isn't. But in ways at once epic and intimate, gripping and emotional, Bale and company have given their hero a fitting send-off.

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Batman ends: an epic conclusion

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