The growliest movie you'll see all year

Rating: 7/10 (3 December 2012)

The Dark Knight Rises is very much of a piece with its predecessor, The Dark Knight, with the same dark and gritty atmosphere, the same commitment to possibly unearned gravitas, and the same undeniable power. It does have a bit less of the good things about The Dark Knight and a bit more of the bad things, and is notably absent the two central performances of that film by Heath Ledger and Aaron Eckhart. Instead we have Anne Hathaway, who's surprisingly good as Catwoman, and Tom Hardy as second-tier villain Bane, who mostly sounds like a fop with a sore throat.
It's easy to pick holes in a film with such earnest ambitions, but for the most part The Dark Knight works as a film, drawing you into its story and involving you in its harrowing nightmare world. It certainly deserves credit for having more in its head than the year's other superhero blockbuster, the vapid The Avengers. Nolan still can't direct action sequences, but beyond that the film's images are striking, and as the film approaches its end the narrative momentum ratchets up to an astonishing climax.
It's only under further scrutiny that The Dark Knight Rises starts to look weaker. The plot doesn't really make sense, and the super-serious aesthetic it cultivates is in itself a little silly. A lot of people have rightly criticized the film for its political subtext, which adds onto the usual fascism of superhero stories by villainizing the Occupy Wall Street crowd. To me though, this part of the film actually feels half-hearted, as none of the political elements are developed in much detail -- just the occasional mention of overthrowing oppressors by Bain and a couple scenes of mock trial. There's no real sense of a society beyond heroes, villains and hostages. It feels as though the political plot is just there to add Importance and act as a buffer between stock training montage and action sequences.
In the end, your reaction to the original Dark Knight -- and Batman Begins, which this film draws much more heavily on -- will probably be pretty similar to your reaction to The Dark Knight Rises. Myself, I enjoyed the movie despite myself, but I hope that it brings an end to the era of dark and gritty superheroes. When you can't even call Catwoman Catwoman, it shows not maturity but a kind of pretentious embarrassment with your source material. The question is how to move forward with superhero movies that are genuinely fun, embracing the camp aspect of comics, but are more than just braindead summer blockbusters. I hope that the next wave of superhero films answers that question, but I'm not counting on it.