Fails To Rise Above Suspect Politics and Muddle

Rating: 4/10 (22 July 2012)

An impossibly high bar was set. "The Dark Knight" featured, in Heath Ledger, one of the top film performances since Edison started cranking. "Batman Begins" boldly penetrated the psyche of a frightened boy and followed his progress to Gotham's enigmatic crime fighter.
Promised to be the final Nolan Dark Knight film, the stone covering "The Dark Knight Rises" tomb will soon miraculously be moved as resurrection with Robin is assured, though perhaps not with Nolan.
Given the stellar first two installments, there's bound to be quibbling, both major and minor, among the Batman fetishists who threaten Critics with death over the award of less than stellar reviews whether "The Dark Knight Rises" filled their tummies. The best that can be said is it was the end of an arc. And, risking death, to this palate it was more a Rice Krispie treat than sumptuous Last Supper.
"The Dark Knight Rises" lacks conviction. When Bane, the disfigured, masked bad-guy from a shithole prison in an unnamed (Afghanistan, Iraq) country, takes over Gotham he takes everything from the 1 percenters and gives it to the 99%. (Bruce Wayne loses everything, including electricity in the mansion due to non-payment). This hardened criminal Robin Hood then isolates Gotham and lights a five month long fuse on a nuclear bomb ticking down to the big "Fire." These disparate plot elements – Che Guevera meets Bin Laden – mix like 10w40 and water. This leaves the viewer to swim in the resulting oily mess.
William Goldman wrote a self-critique of his script for "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" by stating there were too many reversals. Mr. Goldman, those reversals added charm and surprise and lifted the story. The same can not be said for the over length "The Dark Knight Rises": Mr. Wayne is quickly dispatched by Bane and spends much of the rest of the film getting his ass kicked and re-training; in their ultimate battle, Nolan uses a cheap deus ex machina when Bane is dispatched not by the Knight, but by the Batcycle riding Catwoman (the luscious Anne Hathaway who struggles to find meat on the script bone and just wisecracks); a teary Alfred leaves Bruce; Gordon is hospitalized for a long stretch; all of Gotham's finest are buried alive for three months; ad nauseum.
There is always a problem in unduly complex films because they require so much expository dialogue. (And there is lots of it here.) Conversely, there are elements from the previous films paraded across the screen without explanation, i.e. Liam Neeson taunting Wayne in a ghostly cameo as the life-everlasting Ra's al Ghul. There certainly is no requirement to experience the first two films, but it sure helps.
What's lacking in "The Dark Knight Rises" is the chaos and frenetic energy paired with a walk along the fine line between Wayne's madness and his foe's insanity. That balance made the first films extraordinary. Draining it from "The Dark Knight Rises" is a major disappointment. This Bruce Wayne also needs a 'scrip for Viagra.
While the cast is generally fine, Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Officer Blake (and the soon to be Robin) is a most unfortunate casting mistake. He's flat, and in way over his head. Thomas Hardy as Bane is an actor's nightmare – masked throughout nearly the entire film, voice filtered. That leaves just his eyes which conveyed little about the character.
The tech credits are top notch, and 2D served this gritty film well (one of the only smart moves Nolan made).
"The Dark Knight Rises" is overripe. Its politics are confused and suspect – at once Far Left, then Far Right (though parts should be extracted as a recruiting tool for the Occupy Wall Street movement). It serves as a fair Actioner, but it fails to cut to the chase and deliver a knockout punch.