Rises is a film I could always watch.

Rating: 7/10 (18 February 2020)

I'm always up for it. It's so dense and there's so much going on that I always think about scenes and moments I like, and every time I watch it there are little moments I'd previously missed. It's a blast. Even when it's a bloody mess.
The Dark Knight Rises is rife with clear errors that threaten to destabilise it at every turn; It's highly expositional, has undramatic relationships and unbelievable character choices and arcs that don't feel earned. It's got a terrible Robin payoff that seems to not understand what makes a fan Easter egg at all. It's looooong and it needed a few more drafts to weed out and refine the intersecting ideas. And it's got a crass attempt at shoehorning in Nolan's dropped Howard Hughes biopic and a terrible ending you could see a mile away.
But it does do Catwoman justice. It pays off The Dark Knight and Batman Begins. And it manages to blend comic book stories and its own mythology. Plus a few little Easter eggs work, like Deadshot, and the fantastically realised battle where Bane breaks the Bat's back is furious and impressive, with Bane monologue-ing just like he would in a comic book. This does veer a little too far into the comic visuals eg. Scarecrow building a kangaroo court out of desks, a completely unfathomable burning Bat symbol made specifically for marketing department to run with, to say nothing of the comical looking movie bomb. But little ideas such as the Lazarus Pit merged with the Rise and Fall motifs, some from Batman Begins, some from A Tale of Two Cities, are well realised and incorporated well.
Bale is finally comfortable in the skin of Bruce Wayne, playing a weathered older Wayne much better. And Bane with his unique, memorable voice and his menacing and tremendous mask is easily as good as the Joker before him. I strongly believe that. Had it been his movie, Tom Hardy would have shone, instead of getting swallowed up in the furore of Rises. But he's just as enjoyable and immense as Ledger. He's just as funny and irreverent and quotable, just as nuanced and in many ways, more sympathetic. I've found that since The Godfather onwards, a film where the villain is harder to understand is more frightening; it draws you in, it makes you engage more, and leaning in, you're much closer than you should be. I think Nolan authorised a bold and smart choice. Marion Cotillard is the odd one out, she's palpably awful and borderline unintelligible with Nolan's script and clunky exposition as Miranda Tate and not at all a character you can buy Wayne having an affair with, and yet as Talia she's superb, a wonderful witchy, crazy-eyed zealot, leaning out of moving trucks and yelling things and monologuing like her Father before her and loving it.
In terms of looks, Rises is a beautiful looking film in every regard. The IMAX photography is some of the most stunning, sumptuous work I've ever seen. The film's visuals will stand the test of time, rich, clear, coherent images that feel natural and full of iconography at the same time. But he sound mix this time around, unlike The Dark Knight, is a little aggressive, it's full-Zimmer, less nuanced and more noisy.
So between all of the other things Rises is attempting to do, it's got a decent 99% theme which was nice and present at the time it was made, and the disillusionment of authority figures themes were also en vogue when the film was being made. The episodic middle(ish) is quite fun, the contained, yet global, anarchy has a different feel to second film, yes it's proper comic booky and OTT, but it's undeniably epic. Bane's plan both makes sense and is creative, but it's a little convoluted. It's brave to try for something this complex. I want to think it's too much, too late, that it's too hard to follow, but there's something relatable now more than ever with a mad man yelling for us to take back the world, and pretending it's for us when it's for him, lying to our faces. The 'do what you want' anarchy that is really self-destruction. It all feels very real, and actually very now. I can see it being real, the images I once thought silly at the time. This film has aged the best and was sadly ahead of its time.
TDKR has plenty of flaws and they're all so obvious and yet also so overshadowed by the epicness and the ambition of this film. It's nearly a masterpiece and it tries to be one and even though it fails just as spectacularly, it has to be applauded for that. The set up of Nightwing trumps the special forces that are brought in purely to be exposition and then immediately killed, The use of so many real extras and the choreography of it trumps Alfred's flat and cringey leaving of the film for an hour. And having these two Titans throw down for the final time, Batman and Bane, in the middle of this anarchy in full IMAX, in the snow, trumps the final fight in just about every comic book movie.
But I believe I've realised the secret to fully enjoying this movie: Considering the wealth of material and plotlines and shifting tones and themes and the structure of the movie: Watching up until the Batman/Bane fight, up until Bane breaks Batman's back, and then watching from Batman in the prison the next day. Breaking the movie up into Part 1 and Part 2, allows the second half to breathe, its montages and time jumps and story of Wayne building himself up to rise from the pit, the revelations and the finale, all flow better on its own. In fact if I had the power to I would have done what I imagine Jonathan Nolan was thinking while creating the final entry, something that I'm sure Warner Brothers was thinking as well, I would have actually split the move in to two parts. Yes, for Christopher Nolan it doesn't look good or feel good and there would always be an inferior entry between the two. However, it would have brought both halves of the film into much better pace alone.
This movie is tangible. For a movie about a man dressed as a Bat to feel that way is one hell of an accolade. And when watched in two parts, it's an audacious, epic spectacle.