33 Reasons Why THE DARK KNIGHT RISES had to be annoying

[JasonPratt]

0.) PRELUDE

After paying good money to watch The Dark Knight Returns RISES in the theater this summer, I found when I left that (unlike previous entries) I had no desire to see it again. Oh, the movie wasn't exactly bad--obviously there were points of quality about it. But to paraphrase G. K. Chesterton, when I asked myself why I was annoyed with the movie, I so hardly knew where to begin that all I could do was point around vaguely to this absurd characterization, or that unrealistically overconvenient plot point, or... or the other... that thing over there... and that... and, and... AAAARRRGGHHH!!!

How could intelligent people like Nolan and his various co-creators do such foolishly stupid things?!?

By now, anyone who has surfed the web for the past few months will know I wasn't alone in having problems with the trilogy's grand finale. People have been picking at it all this time, and the picking will no doubt pick up once again for a while now that it's out on home video.

As someone who fancies himself an award-winning writer (plug, plug), I like to pick at the problems, too. And for some things, like clunky dialogue, I have to agree there is simply no defense.

But as much as it annoys me to say so (in a couple of different ways), after a few weeks of thought back this summer I came to the reluctant conclusion that there are defenses for why TDKR had to be repeatedly annoying.

I even currently believe this film has more inherent defenses for why it had to be repeatedly annoying than its predecessor The Dark Knight did for its occasional lapses.

I don't mean I think TDK is a worse film than TDKR: on the contrary, I think it's a substantially better film in many ways, despite not having as much defense for its lapses.

And I'm not talking about apparent problems with TDKR which actually aren't problems because the viewer hasn't watched it enough to put pieces together, or at worst because Nolan dropped the ball a bit in tying the pieces together for the audience to see.

No, I'm talking about real problems that, on reflection, I have to concede had to be there in order to tell the story.

So I have put together a list of at least thirty-three reasons why The Dark Knight Rises had to be annoying. Obviously I'll be complaining, but I also wanted to be as fair as possible to Nolan & Co.: I doubt readers will find many articles about the film to be both negative criticisms and apologetic defenses for the film, at the same time on the same points!

I say "at least 33", because after finishing it several more reasons occurred to me, but even I was getting tired of complaining at length about the film. So I will leave those for identification and exploration by any commenters.

I'll break the list up with only a few (sometimes only one) entry per post: it'll still be a 7400 word wall of text, but maybe a little easier on the eyes that way.

(I did mention that THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS NUMEROUS HUGE FREAKING SPOILERS right? Abandon hope all ye who dare to enter after the jump... And order yourself a pizza. This is going to take a while.)

[JasonPratt]

I have sorted the following list by rough narrative and topical order.

1.) WHAT?!--AN EIGHT YEAR JUMP!?

Yes, because the previous film, The Dark Knight, took place only a year in narrative time after Batman Begins. Nolan had to choose whether to set the film in current time, or earlier, or later. Later (i.e. in our future) would not have helped this problem. A little but not substantially earlier than current time might as well have been current (and thus insane to not be current, unless there were definitely good plot reasons). A lot earlier (i.e. soon after TDK) would not have allowed Bane time to infiltrate as far into Gotham as he needed.

So it had to be eight years later (i.e. current day) unless there were strong plot reasons for setting it only a little earlier. Which there weren't.

This factor creates a constraint that subsequently affects the plot in wonky ways. But to plausibly have a sequel to TDK at all, and especially if Bane is going to be used a particular way (as I'll demonstrate later), the timeline needed to be current or even later than current day.


2.) HOW THE HELL IS THERE A DENT ACT AND A HARVEY DENT DAY NOW?!

The ridiculous plan from the end of TDK was to pretend that the heavily scarred and functionally insane Harvey Dent (who would have had doctors from the hospital who recalled his mental instability) was slain by Batman at the site of one of the Joker's bombings (where Dent lost his fiancée) {inhale!}, in order to keep the mobsters previously arrested in the movie from having their cases summarily dismissed on a technicality (despite {inhale!} the presumably non-insane heroic New Commissioner Gordon, and the presumably non-insane mayor, and the presumably non-insane martyred clearly righteous Previous Commissioner Loeb, and a presumably non-insane righteous martyred judge, all agreeing and procedurally thus legally affirming that Dent's strategy had legal merit and validity). {inhaaaaale!}{gasp}{gasp}{gasp}

Great for an interesting thematic twist in TDK, but totally unnecessary for the plot in that movie, as well as wildly implausible in execution.

But for better or for worse, plot points established in earlier films have to be respected and incorporated now--or else ignored on pain of a different kind of annoyance!

So now it saddles the sequel with subtle constraints that will end up generating other goofiness later.

(Sidenote: I said "clearly righteous" about Commissioner Loeb because in the comics he was a biliously corrupt cop; but in Nolan's films he is never portrayed as anything other than an honest if hard-nosed and slightly short-sighted man.)

[JasonPratt]

3.) WHY DID BATMAN OF ALL PEOPLE GIVE UP BEING BATMAN FOR EIGHT YEARS AFTER ONLY ONE YEAR OF BEING BATMAN?!

From a plot perspective this had to happen, even though it runs against one of the standard Batman characterizations--ultra dedication to his mission--which is how the Batman manages to be the Batman at all!!

And even though it runs against another standard Batman characterization of dedicating himself to his mission in honor of loved ones who were slain by criminals.

And even though it runs against the whole theme at the end of TDK: we're told, "He can do this, he can take it, he can be our dark knight." Damn, that's hardcore; that's classic Batman right there. Hell, it isn't just classic Batman, but in a move of pure mindbending genius it's the same strategy as Batman's predecessor Green Hornet! It even fixes, in a backhanded way, a developing problem for Batman in TDK: "Nobody's gonna tell you nothin'! We're wise to your act! You got rules!"

But then he immediately quits.

Well of course: he has to quit long enough for Bane to come in and make a move. If he's on his game there's no way Bane can build up an army to take over the city. In fact, if he's on his game there's no way Bane can beat him period. Batman has to be off his game for Bane to stand a plausible chance of winning. (This will become a further plot constraint later, too.)

Remember, in the original Bane story from the comics, Bane doesn't really "break the Batman". Bane busts a bunch of higher-class villains out of Arkham, and they run Batman ragged. Bane just comes in and kicks around the scraps of Batman after his astounding but costly victories rounding up everyone else. Bane can't even beat Jean-Paul Valley, the dippy temporary successor to Batman. (Bane beats Nightwing, which makes zero real sense, as even Batman acknowledges Dick Grayson is a better fighter than he is. But that was for overarching plot reasons: the writers weren't really getting rid of Bruce Wayne as Batman permanently, and if Nightwing won there would be no conflict when Wayne wanted to regain the cowl.)

Tiring out Batman first (in the comics) was a fine strategy for Bane, especially since Bane had already deduced that Bruce Wayne is Batman (and so could catch him off guard at home base where Wayne would definitely come back to rest)--but it doesn't really involve Bane defeating Batman. (Worth noting: it's also a strategy first attempted by Ra's Al Ghul back in Batman #400! Bane breaks Batman's back in issue #497.)

But if Bane doesn't solidly defeat Batman in the movie (up to and including breaking his back), then why would he be in the movie at all except to be a henchman? (...uh... Oops, turns out he was only a henchman after all!) His only major claims to fame, even all these years later, are being (1) the man who broke the bat; and (2) temporarily being one of Ra's al Ghul's chief bodyguard/lieutenants and a prospective husband for Talia. (.......so check that off, too!)

So, okay, why doesn't Bane just come in and run the same plot as in the comics?

Because that's already been (sort of) done in Batman Begins. Also, it might take too long in one movie to plausibly tire out a Bruce Wayne who was on his game. (It took three in-story months to do it in the comic timeline, and Batman was already running thin when Bane started!) And it would be more expensive to film. And it frankly makes Bane look not so imposing to beat up an already wrecked man. (This will also come back to be its own plot constraint!)

And then what?

In the comics, Bane did it mainly for the ego-stroking challenge (although only the most raging egotist would think there's anything self-aggrandizing about beating up an already wrecked man! Okay technically he did it because he is a man "who conquers fear where fear rules", and in Gotham it is Batman who rules with fear. Whatever.) He didn't have a solid plan afterward, because the writers always intended for Jean-Paul Valley to AzBat him promptly into the ground as validation of JPV claiming the Batman mantle (or armor rather) for a year or so of comic production.

By contrast, there has to be some kind of in-movie reason (assuming an ending to the trilogy here) for Bane to stay around long enough in narrative time for Batman to recover, return and kick his ass.

This introduces another set of plot constraints: the first result being that if Bane is going to stay around for however-many-months until Batman heals (assuming Batman isn't healed by a magical Lazarus Pit or with a magical hangman's noose or by a sassy magical black girlfriend or something {cough}) Bane has to have the force to do so. Or more accurately, he has to have the force to generate movie-plot during that time.

But if Bane has that kind of manpower, he has to (1) build it up slowly enough that the police and/or military don't suspect and/or intercept it; (2) have it out of the way of interference from Batman (or vice versa, which is what happens); and (3) have it protected with some kind of plausible effectiveness from military reprisal until Batman and Co. can deal with it in the final act.

Which of course also generates plot constraints later.

Anyway, what this all adds up to is that Batman has to be off his game for some significant period of time before TDKR starts, which means he might as well be off the whole time between TDK and TDKR.

But then the writers have to come up with in-story reasons for why Batman is out of action for eight years.

And the necessity for this outweighs the necessity of staying true to more subtle plots and themes of TDK. That was last movie. This is this... um... movie. Yeah.

Which leads us to:

[JasonPratt]

4.) BATMAN QUITS FOR EIGHT YEARS BECAUSE HE'S SAD ABOUT HIS DEAD NOT-REALLY-GIRLFRIEND WHOM HE SPENT MOST OF HIS LIFE IGNORING SINCE CHILDHOOD?!?!?

Yes, this makes Wayne look like a sad wimpy person. It also fundamentally violates the point to the end of TDK.

But there has to be some kind of in-story reason for why Bruce is out of action for eight years. Or reasons. (See next annoyance.)

And so an annoyance that was deemed necessary for dramatic oomph in TDK is revived: we've already seen that after only a year Wayne was trying to quit being Batman in a desperate bid to marry a woman who frankly had moved on to someone perfectly suitable for her who truly loved her and whom she truly loved.

Adds drama to TDK? Sure. Makes any kind of sense for Batman as "BATMAN"? Not at all. Allows a fuzzy kind of thematic follow-through here where an excuse is needed? Oh thank God yes, yes, yesssssss!! {panting in relief}

But just in case this doesn't seem solid enough:


5.) BATMAN HAS PHYSICALLY DESTROYED HIMSELF AFTER ONLY ONE YEAR BEING BATMAN?!

After eight years being Batman, sure that might make sense. After only a year or so (plus a few months hard training with the Shadows)? Not at all.

But an extra excuse is needed: not only to help explain why he's out for eight years, but also to help directly (sort of) explain why Bane has some plausible chance at beating Batman the first time.


6.) BATMAN HAD THE TECHNOLOGY TO PUT HIMSELF BACK IN ACTION ALL THIS TIME BUT DIDN'T?!

He has to have something that overcomes the plot reasons for the other plot thingies. With magical plot devices. But being sniffly-hearted over Rachel Dawes (and not in a "I AM VENGEANCE! I AM THE NIGHT! SWEAR TO MEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!" sort of way--you know, the kind of vengeance that got him to fight criminals to ...Begins with) helps offset this problem. In a way. A very crummy and annoying but necessary way.


7.) BATMAN HAS THE TECHNOLOGY TO PUT HIMSELF BACK IN ACTION ALL THIS TIME, BUT HIS TECHNOLOGY SUCKS WHEN USED AGAINST BANE?!--AND/OR HE DOESN'T USE IT AGAINST BANE?!

Then Batman would win. He has to be stupid and inept and out of shape and kind of crippled for Bane to win, remember. This is not optional.


8.) BATMAN CAN PUT HIMSELF BACK AT PAR OR BETTER, MAGICALLY REGROWING MISSING CARTILAGE WITH CRAPPY FOOD IN A LAZARUS PIT OF A PRISON, IN ONLY A FEW MONTHS, WITH PUSHUPS?!

Then Bane would win. Duh. (I did appreciate the silent geeky nod to the Lazarus Pit, though: the chant of the prisoners was also used in the comics by Al Ghul's followers when he would Pit himself back to youth again. It's a Moroccan dialect. Meaning the prison is also almost certainly in Morocco, by the way. Which fits the Middle-Eastern flashback setups.)


9.) BATMAN DIDN'T NEED HIS STUPID TECHNOLOGY TO SMASH BANE AFTER ALL?!--BECAUSE HE SURE DOESN'T HAVE MAGICAL BIONIC LEGBRACES TO HELP HIM GET THE HELL OUT OF THE LAZARUS PIT PRISON AND BACK TO GOTHAM FROM WHEREVER!

I'm not saying it makes a lick of sense. (Although you'll notice I'm being as charitable as possible by silently presuming he decked himself out in magical bionic joint braces again, once he got back to where he could put on the suit.) But that's what the previous plot constraints add up to, so Nolan & Co. had to go there.


10.) BATMAN HAS TO RELY ON SMASHING BANE RATHER THAN FIGHTING SMARTER AND/OR WITH BETTER RELIANCE ON GADGETRY, THE WAY HE LEARNED HIS LESSON AGAINST THE MUTANT LEADER IN THAT OTHER TDKR WHICH NOLAN WAS HEAVILY REFERENCING?!?

There's a collection of necessary plot reasons for this, too. But I'll have to get back to you later on this complaint after I've established some other things first.

Wayne's arrogance at thinking he can take Bane down in the first fight despite being in physically dubious shape and out of practice, makes sense enough once previously mentioned plot points are established, and matches up well enough with Miller's seminal graphic novel The Dark Knight Returns. I'm not complaining about why Batman couldn't defeat Bane to begin with, once those (other annoying) plot points are established as being the narrative background for the first fight. But there are plot-design reasons for why he can't be written as rationally shifting his fight plan later. (I mean reasons not amounting to "Nolan couldn't be arsed to hire an epic fight designer/coordinator, from Hong Kong or wherever, to set up a real climactic Batman fight.")

So renumbering until I can get back to this annoyance later:

[JasonPratt]

10.) WAYNE SPENDS A TON OF MONEY DEVELOPING A WORKING COLD FUSION REACTOR AND THEN IS SURPRISED AND DISAPPOINTED THAT SOMEONE MIGHT BE ABLE TO WEAPONIZE IT!?--BUT DOESN'T BOTHER TO MAKE USE OF IT HIMSELF FOR SECRET DO-GOODING PURPOSES!?!

Bane needs something powerful enough to threaten Gotham with, that can be put on a detonator (to help deter major force reprisals) but can also be put on an automatic detonator (so the manual detonator can't be stopped), and is stable enough that he can safely keep it around until he wants to use it, and can be plausibly hidden yet also be moved around for security purposes so that drama can be yadda yadda, yet also be something that will kill off Batman later plausibly enough that everyone thinks he's dead. But not too sci-fi/fantasy, that's important, too!

In other words, a nuclear bomb.

And no, Wayne can't be using it secretly for do-gooding things. He's in retirement from secret (i.e. Batmannish) things, trying to be a good public doer. Of goodness. Instead.

And Wayne can't be using it publicly when the story starts, or there would be assloads more security. So he has to have some reason not to be using it. But it can't be a reason that amounts to "it doesn't work".

So he suddenly realizes that someone could use a thermonuclear reactor like a thermonuclear bomb. The world's greatest detective everyone! {clap}{clap}{pause}{clap}


11.) BANE HAS TO STEAL A FUSION REACTOR FROM BRUCE WAYNE IN ORDER TO PROCURE A HYDROGEN BOMB, RATHER THAN JUST SMUGGLE IN A MIRV WARHEAD?!

Batman needs to have something to do which is at least partially competent before being crushed by Bane. And Miranda Tate needs to be connected to Wayne somehow for romantic opportunity and also be connected to the plot device that accomplishes her father's last wish. Because she's also Talia Al Ghul, and those are practically her most defining character features. But we aren't supposed to know she's Talia until the right time.


12.) BANE HAS TO GO THROUGH A CONVOLUTED PLOT TO ACCOMPLISH THIS?!

His leadup to the plot can't be obvious, or Batman would stop it in several ways (including "OMG they're after my cold fusion device!")


13.) BUT IT HAS TO BE A CRAZY PLAN THAT WOULDN'T EVER POSSIBLY WORK IN REAL LIFE?!--UP TO AND INCLUDING MEN GIVING BIRTH TO DIRTBIKES?!?

Wayne has to have a plot-dramatic reason to pull out his ace in the hole, reveal its location to Talia (thus to Bane), and prep it for action. But he fears people using it as a weapon.

So he has to be pulling it out to meet some threat to his being able to live his life and/or keep doing good in the city. But he's already a crippled recluse who doesn't even want to investigate things (leaving Alfred to carry on impotently with that). He isn't Batman anymore: his only remaining effectiveness is his money.

This also explains why the cold fusion reactor had to be developed publicly instead of in secret like the other scrappy military spec things he stole from himself to keep out of harm's way and/or use as Batman. Wayne Enterprises has to have had something harsh happen in the past to put it in danger of being ruined by one man's reckless further behavior. But not really quite ruined yet or this part of the plot wouldn't work.

Consequently his money has to be first weakened (before the movie starts) and then threatened. And it has to be threatened in a way that looks like a mistake on his part (instead of some crime) so he'll pull out the reactor instead of being suspicious someone is after the reactor (and so the mistake won't be invalidated as a crime). And it has to be fast enough to plausibly work in movie-time.

So the Wayne corporate fortune has to be raided in a way that threatens Wayne's own remaining money directly; in a way that he will have to work personally (as Wayne, not as Batman) to repair; and in a way that won't look like a theft.

There aren't many solutions other than Wayne supposedly doing something stupidly risky on the stock market with his company stock, and quickly losing gobs of company money. It isn't like Bane's team can just go rob the bank (or even hack the system) where the money is at: then it looks like a crime.

But if someone Impossible Mission Forces the New York (ahem Gotham) Stock Exchange to make it look like Wayne personally did it (meaning they have to get his fingerprints, giving Catwoman a handy introduction into the plot and an introduction to Wayne), and does it in a sneaky fashion, so that no one would know anything was wrong (while it was happening), then no one would know anything was wrong (while it was happening), and we wouldn't have a chance for Wayne to do something at least a little competent as Batman before being broken by Bane.

But if they do it in a flashy attention-getting way, so that it looks like a crime (and thus gets Batman's attention), they'll need some kind of quick escape tools which allow them to take hostages, so that the police won't run them immediately down and/or Batman won't focus on apprehending Bane. But the quick escape tools have to be mobile enough to ride over intervening cop cars at the beginning, and to hide inside the building secure from the cops until the getaway.

So the men have to give birth to motorbikes when they want to leave. Duh.

(I suspect the bikes were supposed to have been brought in from the Bane-team's dump truck parked nearby, doing double-duty as a block for more police cars--even though the police themselves block cars from getting any closer or the truck moving away by raising part of the street nearby. But Nolan couldn't show the audience this or he'd ruin the dramatic surprise of the motorbikes, and/or showing it to the audience would make it look implausible that the dump-truck could be mistaken for an innocent bystander later: witnesses would be pointing to the truck as part of the crew!)


14.) WHY IS ALFRED KEEPING TABS ON BANE EVEN THOUGH HE CAN'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT HIMSELF, AND DOESN'T WANT WAYNE OUT RISKING HIMSELF AS BATMAN?!

If he didn't, Wayne wouldn't know how much of a threat Bane already is, and so would be less plausibly likely to Batman up again and go do something about the hostage situation; and then there wouldn't be an action sequence showing Batman being at least partially competent before Bane thwacks him. For similar reasons neither can Alfred call the cops about his Bane research beforehand--also because they'd be suspicious about why Bruce Wayne's butler is so interested and competent at ferreting out underworld information!

[JasonPratt]

15.) BATMAN'S LITTLE GREEN GUNNY THING SEEMS TO COMPLETELY FAIL!!--AND IT NEVER COMES BACK INTO THE PLOT!!!

I suspect it worked once, but the editing was unclear and I didn't see what it actually accomplished. (Stunning a biker is my guess.)

But of course if it consistently worked then Batman would have been free to chase Bane rather than be distracted with a police/crook chase. And he might have brought it with him to fight Bane. And then Bane would have lost. Also, it wouldn't have been proper for the big burly brawl at the end.

So goodbye, little green gunny thing. We hardly knew ye.


16.) AND THEN SUDDENLY---NIGHT

A dark night, eh? {g}

17.) ALSO SUDDENLY, BATMAN USES HIS BAT-SPACE/TIME VIOLATOR TO SET UP AN AMBUSH WHEN THREE SECONDS AGO HE WAS TRAILING THE LAST BANE GANGER!!

But it has to suddenly turn night. In the daytime the cops would have an easier time catching Batman, and Bane would have (a little more) difficulty escaping while they're chasing Batman, and the final crook would have easily seen Batman crouching on whatever over the road waiting to snag the hostage. And because of other plot-related constraints (some of which I still haven't gotten to yet), Batman doesn't have much opportunity to do much Batmanning in this story later. And lifting the hostage is easier and safer for the hostage than trying to snag him while on the back of a moving bike. Whereas if Batman disappears from behind the guy for a protracted period of time, he might notice and get suspicious and so be on the lookout for problems ahead.

Meanwhile, the stock exchange closes early all year long well before sundown, even at New York/Gotham's latitude; and the raid has to safely happen before closing time, or Wayne's stocks couldn't be successfully manipulated.

So they go into the tunnel and it's day; they come out of the tunnel and it's night. Batman's chasing a guy, and then suddenly he's perched ahead of the guy waiting to ambush him.

You weren't supposed to be paying that much attention to Christopher Nolan's thoughtfully deep realistic psychologically nuanced Batman trilogy, to notice such things. Stop that.

(But seriously, plot point pileups dictated that something like this had to happen.)


18.) BUT BANE'S PLAN WOULD NEVER HAVE HAD THE SLIGHTEST POSSIBILITY OF WORKING LIKE THIS!!

Mental note to self: you're repeating annoyance #12 (BANE HAS TO GO THROUGH A CRAZY PLOT TO ACCOMPLISH THIS?!) Be sure to renumber properly afterward.

True, it makes vastly less than no sense for the market operators to recognize a screwy company-ruining transaction from Wayne that just happened to occur using his own fingerprints (with no security showing his presence in the building) right at the exact time terrorists were doing something vague but overtly threatening at the stock exchange.

In the worst case scenario, Wayne's lawyers would easily win a major punitive settlement against the stock exchange for allowing this travesty to affect Wayne Enterprises; and the case would be so obviously in favor of WE, and a huge settlement in its favor, that the stock price would steadily rise in anticipation of it! His company would (in the long run) actually be ahead by some significant degree! There would be conspiracy theories that insane old Wayne who pees in jars hired mercenaries to do this just so he could sue the stock exchange and make a profit coming and going!

But the plot constraints add up to this freakish result. Nolan just had to hope audiences wouldn't notice.

18.) HOLY CHRIST!!--THIS MOVIE IS A PLOT DISASTER! AND YET IT IS FASCINATING! I CANNOT LOOK AWAY!!

Not a specific annoyance, but I understand the feeling. Try again.

I'VE... I'VE KIND OF LOST TRACK OF WHERE I WAS GOING BEFORE BATPODDING OFF THE RAMP OF THIS CORNER OF THE PLOT!!

The fusion reactor bomb.

[JasonPratt]

18.) THE FUSION REACTOR AUTOMATICALLY DEGRADES TO EXPLOSION OVER TIME?!

There has to be an automatic detonator that can't be stopped by removing the manual detonator, if the story is about Batman ceasing to be Batman. Which it is.


19.) THE FUSION REACTOR IS ALL FUELED UP DESPITE SITTING PARKED FOR YEARS?!

Presumably Wayne (maybe personally so as to keep things secret) was fueling it up before revealing its successful existence to the Enterprises board of directors. Also, one of the great things about fusion reaction (I suppose this is also true of cold fusion, or fusion that can occur at humanly operatable temperatures instead of blowing up in a hydrothermic reaction of bombassity) is that it only needs hydrogen to work. And hydrogen is easily derived from common water.


20.) BANE AND TALIA PLANNED TO DIE IN THE BLAST ALL ALONG? THAT'S BATTY!!

Bane may indeed have intended to, but Bane dearly loves Talia and lives a life of constant pain to serve her every whim. (Meow!)

Talia probably intended to be safely out of the city before it detonated. But then Batman returned and the peasants were revolting and any (relatively) quick and convenient way out of the city past the blockade surrounding the city couldn't have been so convenient anymore.

Or maybe she planned to stay. She's as crazy as a bag full of ferrets anyway, to go this far for vengeance on Bruce and to fulfill her father's last wish.

Besides, maybe she thought she could survive the thermonuclear blast at close range, even sitting right next to it. It isn't like that would be impossible, right?


21.) AAAHHHH! AAAAHHHHHHH!!! AAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!! BATMAN!--HE---THE END----THAT----

I'm convinced that the end involved reshoots so that fans of the series wouldn't riot; and the doors to continuing with more movies without Wayne wouldn't close. (I would be totally in favor of continuing the series with Wayne and Selina globetrotting aand living on the edge, like the sequel to The Thomas Crowne Affair that we all know will never happen. But with Thomas Crowne secretly being Batman.)

And also so Alfred wouldn't look like a sad, mentally broken, deluded old man at the end, instead of Nolan giving us a far more whackadoo version of the Inception ending. After all, that ending could be plausibly ambiguous. Seeing Batman in the Batcopter 3 seconds before detonation?--not remotely ambiguous.

(I refuse on principle to call that thing "The Bat" by the way. Batman is "the Bat"; this is even established in the movies. But it doesn't look anything like a bat, including a batwing, and they had to call it something, so obviously the writers just gave up and moved along.)

[JasonPratt]

22.) ALFRED LEFT!! HE LEFT BRUCE WAYNE!!!

You're going backwards in plot now you know, right?

22.) I DON'T CARE! HE LEFT BRUCE WAYNE!!! WHAT THE HELL!!!

Strictly speaking, Wayne threw him out.

22.) NO, BRUCE WAS ONLY KIDDING!! ALFRED CHOSE TO LEAVE ANYWAY RATHER THAN GIVE BRUCE TIME TO SLEEP EVEN ONE NIGHT TO GET OVER THE SHOCK OF HEARING THAT RACHEL HAD CHOSEN HARVEY DENT INSTEAD AND HIS GRIEF HAD BEEN MISPLACED THE PAST EIGHT YEARS!!! {inhale!}

But for plot design reasons this had to happen, regardless of how stupid it is. Alfred was too old on one hand to plausibly fit into the riot/siege situation that was on the way; and was far too damned competent at being Batman in the past eight years (which was necessary for other plot reasons) to stay around and help Bruce beat Bane. (Besides which Bruce wasn't going to listen to his advice anyway. Which is also excessively stupid and plot convenient, although at least a little in character for Batman since he has an established characterization across multiple media of thinking he knows better than anyone else. But he doesn't usually think he knows better than Alfred. So... yeah.)

What could have happened (but very dumbly didn't) without any plot point collisions I can see, was that Wayne should have been shown getting in touch with Alfred at an emergency contact number after escaping the Pit in Morocco. That would have also tied in very nicely to Batman Begins, and would have explained how he got back to the Gotham area so quickly (if not how he got back into the city. But presumably that was done with Bat-tech from the cave under Wayne Manor.)

[JasonPratt]

23.) THIS FILM FEELS SMALL AND CRAMPED! AND THE BAT-TECH DOESN'T WORK AS WELL AS IN THE LAST FILM!! DID THE GADGETS HE DEVELOPED JUST ALL POOF OUT FROM EXPIRED WARRANTIES?!?

I'm putting the first complaint in that set together with the others because I think they're related.

Maybe I'm the only one who often felt the movie seemed cramped and small--I don't recall seeing this specific complaint from other reviewers, but I do recall reading some things which suggested the feeling.

Anyway, after thinking about it, I decided that the reason is because Batman doesn't use his cape (and grapnel-gun) to glide around anywhere or do anything vertically to amount to anything. This was a huge factor in the first two movies, and especially in the second.

But the plot setup in this movie doesn't give him any real room to do that. Instead, for various plot reasons, he's down in a sewer, or riding around on a bike (by far the most visually expansive scenes of which happen in the day, and are reserved for Catwoman at the end), or riding around in the Batcopter. Now, the Batcopter scenes sometimes could be expansive, but not quite in the same way: gliding with agility around buildings just gives a different feeling from swooshing a huge armored tank around the same buildings with the possibility of colliding in a mess of wreckage. Also, Batman is stuck in the cramped cockpit during those scenes.

If you thus reply with the Batmobile/Tumbler in the prior movies, I will answer further: the Batmobile featured a tactile forward thrust to it which the Batcopter never had (no turbo jets, even when it obviously could have used them!) and the Batmobile was specifically designed to operate outside its expected "envelope" of movement with those crazy rocket-powered leaps. Which there was a whole action scene based on in the first movie. Driving a rocket-powered tank across rooftops is the very illustration of expansiveness. Swooping a helicopter between buildings without crashing is just what any competent pilot would do. (Hell, even the brief copter scene in TDK feels more wide open because the copter is inherently more vulnerable and also somewhat smaller compared to the buildings. Also it's a real practical effect, or at least looked that way, instead of being something our brains inform us is surely CG'd out the wazoo.)

This gets back to the question of missing or strangely dysfunctional or... um... truncatedly used Bat-tech. (I declare "truncatedly" to be a real word. {g})

One of Batman's defining character characteristics is that he wins by being prepared. That's what the mad combat skilz are all about, and the costume, and the tech. That's almost what THE WHOLE TRIUMPHANT FIRST MOVIE WAS ABOUT!! Preparing and winning.

But Batman doesn't seem nearly as prepared as he should be in TDKR; and I've gone into some reasons why a cascading pileup of narrative design points required this kind of constraint in various ways. Shortly summarizing: otherwise Batman would be too competent and the plot couldn't continue. (Or it would be harder for writers to design the plot, providing someone who was actually prepared to fight and defeat the Bat.)

So some of his tech never gets a real chance to be used where we can see it (like the grapnels and the glider wings). And other tech has to be stolen from him when he isn't paying attention. (Insert facewalling here. For when facepalming just doesn't express enough fail.) And some of his tech seems broken. (The green glowy gun, and the shockingly silly little snap-poppers he throws around Bane in the air.) And some tech he uses in a mindblowingly truncated fashion. (Crippling the shoulder cannon on one Tumbler with his Batcopter, but not crippling any of the other Tumblers, nor hovering around to provide "nothing like air superiority" indeed!)


24.) WAIT, WAIT! YEAH, THE CAPTURED TUMBLERS! WHY DIDN'T BANE USE THEM?!

The plot dictated they had to be there (because why wouldn't Bane keep them around as the final countdown counted down), but also that they couldn't really be used. So they just weren't. It wasn't a mistake: the plot design required that this incompetently foolish thing happen. Similarly the plot required that the better-armed Banethugs only be able to kill a handful of charging cops with machine guns before engaging in a hand-to-hand brawl.


25.) WHY WASN'T THERE MORE SHOOTING IN THE HAND-TO-HAND BRAWL?!

Hard to shoot without hitting your own side by accident. Of course this brings up the question of...

26.) A HAND TO HAND BRAWL!? REALLY?!?

Bane has to have a footsoldier army to enforce his will in the city while Batman is healing. So where are the police? They have to be incapacitated but still around for the finale.


27.) WHY SEND AAAALLLLL OFFFF THEMMMM (thanks Gary Oldman!) DOWN INTO THE SEWERS?!

Because the sewers are big and there's an army in the sewers. An army that had to be there for other plot reasons.


28.) WHY FEED THE POLICE IN THE SEWERS?!

No good in-story reason, since killing them off would show Bane means business. But the police have to be there at the end for the big brawl.


29.) BUT WHY DOES IT HAVE TO BE A BIG BRAWL?!?

Because Bane has an army, and Batman doesn't have movie-time remaining to fight or otherwise maneuver around an army to succeed in finding and stopping the bomb. So Batman has to have an army to distract the other army while he fights Bane.

This is also why he has to get out of the Batcopter and fight Bane 1-on-1 rather than providing "nothing like air superiority" (as Lucius Fox puts it): he's running out of movie-time and needs to find the manual detonator. But it would seem weird for the captains of the opposing armies to be fighting hand to hand (and neither Batman nor Bane use guns) while their armies are spreading out for a gunfire battle. So thematically everyone has to be fighting hand-to-hand (or primarily so).

And now we can get back to a previously mentioned annoyance, delayed until now:


30.) BATMAN HAS TO RELY ON SMASHING BANE RATHER THAN FIGHTING SMARTER AND/OR WITH BETTER RELIANCE ON GADGETRY, THE WAY HE LEARNED HIS LESSON AGAINST THE MUTANT LEADER IN THAT OTHER TDKR WHICH NOLAN WAS HEAVILY REFERENCING?!?

Yes, because he's in a big burly brawl where he can't fight in a very Batmannish sort of way. But he has to be in such a brawl. That's what the prior plot points add up to.

As to not fighting with more martial-art skill and going back instead to more BATMAN SMASH tactics--to be fair to the movies, the Batman costume has never lent itself well to live-action martial art skills. (The best martial art fighting in any live-action Batman movie ever made, in my carefully qualified estimation, was Batman Forever of all things, and I'm flatly amazed they were able to do that much with the suit.) Games and comics cheat a lot to make that seem viable. Sure, a cloth suit could kind of work (as occasionally demonstrated in fan films), but it also looks cheap.

If the fight had been staged at night, Nolan would have had an easier time setting up the fight to make Batman look like he was concentrating more on skill rather than looking like he was proving to himself and everyone else he can still smash Bane BECAUSE BATMAN IS STRONGEST ONE THERE ISSSSSS!!!! But it had to be staged during the day.


31.) THE FINAL FIGHT HAPPENS DURING THE DAY! WHY DIDN'T THEY ATTACK AT NIGHT AND GAIN SOME KIND OF STRATEGIC AND TACTICAL ADVANTAGES?!? THEY CLEARLY HAD OPPORTUNITIES TO DO SO, OR ANYWAY THE WRITERS COULD HAVE TWEAKED THE TIMING TO WORK!!!

Because the only way for Batman to plausibly save Robin (ha ha) and the small group of people with Gordon (which yes I know wasn't edited well, but for timing and dramatic sake they had to seem to be happening at about the same time miles apart) is for him to Batninja the hell out of the bad guys. Which of course looks awesome and is largely why WE WENT TO A BATMAN MOVIE to begin with. But for that plot purpose to be served it has to happen at night.

But then Batman (as well as the nuke-truck hunting team) loses any element of surprise if there is much delay between then and the final battle. Early evening to near sunrise might have worked as a time spread (after all, some similar time spread had to have occurred anyway before the final battle), but then there were other plot constraints to consider.

If the story is the conclusion of Wayne as Batman, then Batman  has to sacrifice himself getting rid of the bomb out at sea. (Cue the meme posters with screenshots and that line from the 60s Batman film.) This is also why...


32.) THE BOMB MAGICALLY WARPS OUT OF THE TRUCK IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN IN FOR NO REASON!!! [Edited to add a retraction]

Right. Because Gordon's team has to be doing something, and the bomb has to be located so Batman can go get it eventually in the Batcopter, and it would make zero sense for Gordon's team to not be striking simultaneously with the attempt to find the manual detonator.

Remember, they aren't trying to get rid of the bomb, they're trying to block the signal. But for plot convenience reasons the signal-blocker has to be realllly close (right on top of the bomb) or it won't work.

But if they were actually successful, then they'd just take the bomb back to the Bombcave and hook it up and ding, city saved. But then Batman couldn't dramatically end being Batman in some heroically responsible way. (Although for previously stated reasons he ends up being irresponsible anyway, going off to shag Catwoman in their dashing romantic madcap European adventures happily ever after while Gotham picks itself up and an untrained rookie tries to piece together how to be Batman.)

So Gordon's teams can't be too successful. So they have to fail on the first try for no good in-story reason whatever (otherwise the team would have identified the right truck and gone after it from the start instead of spending convenient amounts of plot time chasing an empty truck after all.)

RETRACTION: on this point of annoyance. They writers quickly established that "Miranda" was contributing to that little operation, so she knew they had found and marked the right vehicle. Once Bane picks her up, she could easily tell them to switch markers.


Going back then to the previous annoyance:

[JasonPratt]

31.) THE FINAL FIGHT HAPPENS DURING THE DAY! WHY DIDN'T THEY ATTACK AT NIGHT AND BLAH BLAH BLAH?!

Aside from plot constraints, some of which could have theoretically been worked around to set up a night battle instead, there was also a technical problem: the Batcopter doesn't look good at long distance at night (for obvious reasons--it's supposed to be stealthy). This is why we rarely (or never?) see the Batcopter at night previously in the movie at long distance, too. But the Batcopter (or something like it, fast strong and super-maneuverable through the city) had to be used to stop the bomb in a way that ends Batman's career as Batman (so that there's an end to the trilogy story arc and they can reboot the series with a new director and producers etc.)

I suspect that the burly brawl between the armies wouldn't have looked as (relatively) good at night as in the early morning either. Similarly, despite the city clearly being modeled on East Coast New York (the bridge detonation scene features a classic long shot of one end of Manhattan Island, for example), the rising morning sun (especially in winter at New York's latitude) would have been in the way of filming the departure of the Batcopter with the bomb out to sea; maybe also in the way of a good clear shot of the nuclear explosion. So, also no sun anywhere in the way.

How can we be absolutely sure it was early morning? Because when Batman gives Catwoman the Batpod, it's still dark outside. He tells her to go prepare to bust the blockade of a tunnel, but instructs her to wait until she hears the action start up at the courthouse. She isn't going to sit there for hours waiting. Notice that this strategic concern (don't blow the element of surprise until we attack) dovetails precisely with the need to attack as soon as feasibly possible with the police army after Batman ninjas the Banegoons to save Drake (er, Blake) and Gordon. Also notice that it's still kind of dark when the police tunnels are breached and they begin coming out.


33.) BATMAN ORDERS CATWOMAN TO GO BREAK OPEN THE TUNNEL OUT OF THE CITY, BUT NEVER ORDERS ANYONE TO USE IT!--NO ONE IS AROUND WAITING FOR HER TO BREAK IT OPEN, AND BLAKE TAKES THE KIDS ON THE BUS TO THE NATIONALLY GUARDED BRIDGE UNDER COMMAND OF THE POLICE INSTEAD OF THE MILITARY!!!

Plot conveniences strike one more time. Catwoman has to have some reason not to join the fight immediately, but also to join it effectively when she does (as well as a dramatic moment of classic Catwoman turnaround--will she be selfish or not?) And Blake has to have a dramatic break with the police (meaning that a civil policeman has to be in charge for no good reason at a military blockade) to set him up as operating on his own as NightRobin happily ever after. (Under the old yet new orphanage he loves, full of Batman fans who are no doubt sad that Batman died saving the city. I like this detail a lot. {g})

But Blake has to have that dramatic break with the police where he and the kids can see Batman leaving the city to die in the bomb blast. Because that's dramatically more appropriate.

Meanwhile, no one can really be ready to run for safety before Selina busts the tunnel barricade, because that would require too much communication of intent and Bane would learn something strange was up.

Besides, it isn't like anyone could survive a nuclear bomb by running into the tunnels anyway, much less run outside the blast radius in time. Unless they're Batman. Because he can do anything. Except when the plot demands he can barely be competent.


What I'm trying to say, is that The Dark Knight Rises isn't as well written as Burn Notice.

So, in conclusion: Matt Nix and his Burn Notice co-creators should write and direct and produce the next series of Batman movies.

That is all.


(Can anyone else think of further ways The Dark Knight Rises had to be annoying? Proceed with further comments below!)

[DoctorQuest]

Man, just tell us how you REALLY feel!

No, seriously....... I was disappointed in the move as well. I bought TDK. I won't buy this one.

I'll go along for your vote for Matt Nix. Burn Notice is GOOD. 

[undercovergeek]

errrr

wow

1 reason why it doesnt matter to me - im an apethetic fool. I work long, hard and shitty hours - i feel it is my esteemable right to give someone £10 for 2 hours not to have to think about working long, hard, shitty hours and a bucket of popcorn. Let your hideously expensive CGI, loud music and half decent story wash over me whilst i stare at the screen - thats all i want. Plot inconsistencies? Pfffft

but respect for the dedication to your disappointment!  :D

[JasonPratt]

Well, I wouldn't be much of a grog without nitpicky criticisms.  ;D

Yeah, I wouldn't bother so much about, for example, Battleship (which I watched for the first time last night and enjoyed), or even any of the other Batman movies--but Nolan's films are marketed as being richly deep and complex and plotty and better and stuff.

You know. "REAL" films.  ;)

[Martok]

I agree The Dark Knight Rises wasn't as good as its predecessor, but I still felt it to be one of the better superhero movies out there.  I'll definitely be getting it now that it's out (although probably as a Christmas gift). 

[JasonPratt]

Watched it again last night with Mom and Dad (Dad wanted to rent it, I wanted to give it another chance).

I'm willing to retract one point, about Gordon's team being plot-conveniently unable to find the bomb after marking it: they quickly established that "Miranda" was contributing to that little operation, so she knew they had found and marked the right vehicle. Once Bane picks her up, she could easily tell them to switch markers.

My other annoyances still stand, including annoyances at things that could have easily been changed or fixed (like Nolan's insistence that Wayne should speak in his "Batman" voice when around people who know for sure who he is. Nolan deserves every bit of mocking about that voice on the internet.) My gripe about the "Bat Space/Time Violator" when he rescues the hostage on the motorcycle was actually worse than I remembered!

I did however notice that Nolan tried to ease us into the sudden summer 'night' fall in that scene by showing a couple of shots outside (as and after Bane's crew left the exchange) with a deepening sky in the background. It still doesn't actually work, but that annoyance wasn't quite as bad as I recalled.