The Dark Knight Returns: The Dark Knight Rises Review

Manhattan (Google Images)

Sunday prior to viewing the third instalment of the Batman/Dark Knight Trilogy a good friend from church informed me he had viewed the film, that it was decent but he would not care to view it again. He thought it kind of 'cultic'.

Soon while viewing the movie my deduction was that this understanding would be the case because the Batman villains were from the same organization as in the first Dark Night Trilogy film which was 'Batman Begins' 2005. That being the organization of Ra's al Ghul whom supposedly died at the end of the 2005 film, but his criminal group survived.

Ra's al Ghul-Wiki

Ra's al Ghul is an international criminal whose goal is world domination through what he views as perfect environmental balance. In his view this could be best done by eliminating most of humanity perhaps through a biological weapon.

A leader with this type of worldview could be seen as a cultic type leader perhaps, and in one of the opening scenes in The Dark Knight Rises one of the group members appears to obey Bane and sacrifice his own life and go down with a hijacked airplane for the sake of appearances. Again that would seem cultic. There is also a twist near end of the film with a betrayal of supposed love that could be deemed cultic.

Philosophically, in fiction or reality such a radical, blinding political devotion to a cause is indeed in my mind, even without necessarily a notion of any divine or supernatural being, quite extreme and could be compared philosophically to religious devotion that is cultic, so my friend has a reasonable point.

Screenrant

Screenrant states:

'...we pick up eight years after the events of The Dark Knight and are re-introduced to a Gotham City where organized crime has been effectively curtailed – thanks to the strict mandates of the “Harvey Dent Act.”'

'...The Batman, is no longer needed (or wanted) on the streets.'

Time Review

From Time:

'The form of the storm is a creature called Bane, an immense hulk with an air of courtly menace and, to reduce his pain, a tubular mask that looks like a small creature from the original Alien permanently leeched onto his face. Long ago, Bane escaped from a deep Asian pit where tough men were left to wither and die. Now he is the muscle, and possibly the brains, of the League of Shadows from Batman Begins.'

In all honesty I was going to write an 'Alien' comment about Bane in this article but I see Time beat me to it. That part of his costume is a joke as DC and the film producers should have done better. It also looks like a mouth piece designed on a college campus by students as a prank, as if made for a fellow student when guzzling beer, wine and other alcoholic beverages. Not that I ever lived on a college campus but I have seen enough American and British television to make the deduction. The League of Shadows is the Ra's al Ghul organization.

Empire

Empire online states

'Eight years after Batman disappeared, blamed for murder, Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) is a wounded recluse, but Gotham is vibrant — until masked maniac Bane (Tom Hardy) decides it’s high time to bring the city down. Facing this new threat and mysterious cat burglar Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway), Wayne decides the Dark Knight must rise, once again.'

In the end potential nuclear annihilation of Gotham is the threat. Scientifically nuclear weapons are designed to cause when detonated an explosion in which nuclear fission (splitting) or nuclear fusion occurs, or combination of both. Oxford Dictionary of Science (2010: 567, 568, 572).

Now, I hope with the end of the Dark Night Trilogy, as this is not likely the end of Batman films as they have been financially successful, that there is not another 'origin' film five to ten years from now. Enough already.

The previous Spider-Man series just came out a few years ago and that was redone with a new origin film this year. I do think it is an improvement but I reason that superheroes like Batman (1930s) and Spider-Man (1960s) have been in the media and in culture (s) in comics, television, theatres and other long enough that the entire first film of a franchise, sometimes more than one franchise does not need to be dedicated to origins. Origins could be handled in five minutes, for example. To me it just strikes me as intellectually lazy to do origin films when the Western society, to some extent, knows the origins of two of the three most famous superheroes. Superman being the other. I see there is a new 'Man of Steel' film for 2013, it was previewed at the theatre. From the preview and some reading, it looks like another origin film.

Lazy.

As expected, I still prefer the DC Batman franchise to the new Marvel Spider-Man franchise. Although I do think Marvel's Iron Man and Avengers films do rival Batman for quality in regard to writing, special effects and action. In the 2010s, especially, with computers it is amazing what technology can produce on film and comic books can be largely duplicated which was not as true, at least in the 20th century. Batman films do tend to be more serious film making than their Spider-Man counterparts, sadly, yet both are still true enough to the comics although I admit with my limited comic collection and reading I am no expert. Just a casual observer.

Oxford Dictionary of Science, (2010), Sixth Edition, Oxford, Oxford University Press.


Bane versus Batman round II (DC Comics)


The Amazing Spider-Man (Marvel Comics)

Demotivational.com posters






Batman with Star Wars and Jaws? (Google Images)