The Dark Knight Falls...

Rating: 5/10 (7 March 2013)

www.eattheblinds.com
I'm torn. I keep trying to convince myself The Dark Knight Rises was more than just another mediocre summer blockbuster rife with conservative ideals, but that is was actually subversive art depicting a pathetic world condemned to suckle a poisonous teat. Perhaps my False Dilemma is over-simplistic, but isn't the entire plot of TDKR based on a False Dilemma? That the only alternative to a corrupt system is one that's much, much worse? Identical to the American political system, must we be forced to choose between the lesser of two evils? Does Writer/Director Christopher Nolan deserve props for editorializing (the arguably two- faced) Obama's "Hope" and "Change" is as bankrupt as "I Believe in Harvey Dent"?
After restlessly squirming through three hours of TDKR, I'm having a hard time convincing myself TDKR was Nolan's "Fuck Off" to a bankrupt system. I want to give TDKR the benefit of the doubt by believing it was a cynic's portrayal of a hopeless world populated with idiots / necessarily controlled by the wicked and corrupt since this is our world, after all, and we probably don't deserve any better. But without reading too much into TDKR, we bear witness to a world in ruin, one that somehow remains worth fighting for, is in need of the same leaders who led us to the brink, but are the only ones truly capable of putting it back together again. To be the former, the TDKR has to be so exceptionally subtle, its meaning would most likely be lost. If so, this is a film -- arguably -- more bleak than Se7en, so dark and cynical it's careful to not tip its hat to the unsuspecting fools it also hopes to profit off of at the box office. The problem is, TDKR is too carefully constructed, and too perfectly crafted to be anything other than the blockbuster it was destined to be. Regardless, I still want to believe Nolan has pulled the wool over everyone's eyes, and that he truly is mercilessly misanthropic.
Unfortunately what was supposed to be the grand finale of Nolan's series instead comes off as a cliché-ridden setup for a spin-off series the Hollywood machine will inevitably bleed to death. On the record as being finished with the franchise, Nolan certainly had every reason to reduce to rubble what he'd once resurrected. "If I can't have her, then no one will." While the cheesy one-liners peppered through The Dark Knight winked a reminder we were watching a comic book-based movie, they take precedence in TDKR, cementing the reality this franchise has jumped the shark. Catwoman's groan-inducing, and wholly unmotivated climactic kiss is a sucker punch on the nose that tells us the writers aren't interested in reinventing conventions anymore, they're now painting them by numbers. The biggest cheap-out is the gimmicky M. Night-like plot twist that completely undermines the villain Bain, a seemingly immovable force of evil we'd been tricked into believing was so exceptional, he may never be defeated. But the pointless shell game played with villains reduces the once frightening Bain into a castrated, then limply disposed of freak, all in favor of a "eureka" moment of revelation where the true villain is (shocker) Bruce Wayne's love interest. But Nolan's faith in justice ensures the femme fatale meets her demise in one the most satire-worthy death shrugs ever committed to film.
The plot of TDKR centers on how the people of Gotham were duped into believing a big fat lie, a joke not lost on me knowing I was duped into paying $13.50 to see it. Keeping with the theme of art imitating life, TDKR stands tall as a painful reminder I had shed tears of joy in 2008 for a fraud of a similar kind. The Nolan brother's manage to both pander to the trendiness of the Occupy Movement, and dismissively throw it under the bus. In this story where our "Hero" ends up rising to the cause of the Corrupt, the Occupy Movement is painted with one bold brush stroke, as brutal fascists, far worse than the 1% who had 'heroically' sacrificed their ethics to keep peace in a world lacking civility. In TDKR, Batman no longer masquerades as a conflicted hero, he evolves into a full-blown sell-out, both as a vigilante, and -- in the real world -- as a movie franchise. The tacked on ending oh-so-cleverly ties all of our protagonists into one happy fun ball of bullshit. He's alive! Oh thank God we can now continue to worship our resurrected deity by emptying our wallets again, and again. Repent Sinner, for you're too stupid to deserve any better than the fate they've chosen for you.