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Release date in India:
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July 20, 2012
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Director:
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Christopher Nolan
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Cast:
Language:
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Christian
Bale, Anne Hathaway, Marion Cotillard, Tom Hardy, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Gary
Oldman, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Matthew Modine, Liam Neeson
English
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The
Dark Knight Rises is grand in many places. But every 15
minutes or so, it switches from being grand to being a film trying to impress
us with its grandeur ... That’s the over-riding feeling I came away with even after
watching its interesting climax, ridden with several neat twists.
So it’s not that there
is no enjoyment to be had in this film. There are some excellent action
sequences here and there. The art director’s vision of Gotham City is gorgeously
grim. And director Christopher Nolan has roped in some lovely actors for all
the supporting roles. Leading the lot is a certain Ms Anne Hathaway. That Anne
is stunning to look at and can act are already established facts. As Selina
Kyle, the newly introduced character in this instalment of the Batman series, she
also shows us that she fills out a catsuit impeccably and can throw some mean
punches. In fact, there’s not enough where that came from. Selina’s character does
not get sufficient screen time though frankly, she and Miranda Tate (played by
Marion Cotillard) are far more exciting than Christian Bale’s dullard Bruce
Wayne / Batman.
The
Dark Knight Rises takes us to Gotham eight years after
Batman disappeared. Bruce Wayne has retired into Wayne Manor, and Wayne
Enterprises is in bad shape because the company abandoned a clean-energy
project since it could have been misused by evil forces. Enter the malevolent
terrorist Bane (Tom Hardy) who forces Wayne out of his reclusive existence. The
‘collateral damage’ caused by America’s war on terror, Guantanamo Bay, Occupy
Wall Street … the many allusions to the American political, social
and economic scenario are unmistakable.
Our protagonist here is
an older Bruce Wayne, a man whose broken body does not lend itself to street
battles the way it used to. There are few things more poignant than the
discovery that our superheroes have feet of clay and limbs that age. This alone
could have carried the film through. That it does not is a result of the
combination of Christian Bale’s rather uninspiring turn as Wayne / Batman, Bane’s
slightly muddled motivations plus the director and screenplay writers’ too
obvious ambition to create an awe-inspiring film. And so, Gotham is a modern
city but laboured efforts are made to lend a primitive feel to the goings-on.
Why else, when an army of Gotham police clash with a mob of raging citizens,
would just a couple of shots be fired right at the start after which all those
armed men do not bother to use their weapons but instead opt for hand-to-hand
combat? Is it because fisticuffs are more likely to stimulate our hormones? Well,
the clash at that point between Wayne and Bane actually does provide quite an
adrenaline rush … I can understand two men forcing each other to abandon their
sophisticated weapons, but an entire crowd voluntarily seeming to do so just
does not cut ice. Likewise, Bane’s back story feels too apparently designed to
inspire wonderment, especially with its underground prison that’s
not half as ominous as it’s aspiring to be.
So yes, the production
values are top-notch, but the film lacks soul. Most of the cast are top-notch,
but the leading man is not. Nolan’s The
Dark Knight was beset with the very problems that plague The Dark Knight Rises, but it was made
memorable by Heath Ledger’s hair-raisingly, heart-stoppingly, breathtakingly beautiful
performance as the Joker. Perhaps if Team Hathaway & Cotillard had been
allowed to dominate this film in a similar fashion, The Dark Knight Rises would have been a different story. As things
stand, what we get is Tom Hardy working really hard to be a menacing Bane but
weighed down by a leather face mask and the film’s all-consuming ambitions.
I genuinely liked
Christian Bale in 2010’s The Fighter
as the cocaine-addicted former boxing champ, but he does not yet possess the
charisma to hold together a film like The
Dark Knight Rises with its pretensions to being an epic. As for Nolan, he
seems burdened by his own reputation. Wish he had made this a small film with a
large heart. What it is instead is a big big film with little by way of passion.
Except for intermittent scenes of action that enliven the proceedings (in
particular, the escapes from that underground prison) and a delicious ending, The Dark Knight Rises is, for the most
part, a lacklustre film.
Rating
(out of five): **3/4
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Release date in the
US:
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July 20, 2012
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MPAA Rating (US):
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PG-13 (for
intense sequences of violence and action, sensuality and language)
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CBFC Rating (India):
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U/A
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Running time:
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165 minutes
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Language:
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English
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