So, I saw The Dark Knight Rises again. You can read my original review from last week here. I liked it much better this time, but I still have three major problems and one nitpick that threw me out of the movie.
First: The nitpick: The stock market heist. We’re given cues to believe that the trading floor has just opened, we’re given the opening bell and everything. It feels like morning. Even if it were at the closing bell, it’s still 5 at the latest. The cops arrive quickly and Bane is told they’re cutting the fiber and they need 8 more minutes. Outside, it’s overcast, but broad daylight. Inside of those 8 minutes, Bane hatches his scheme to get out of the stock exchange so they can complete their transaction in that 8 minute window. The second they hit the tunnel, it is pitch black and midnight outside. The chase ends moments after that 8 minutes was up.
It was unsettling in the wrong ways that the continuity was out of balance.
The first time I saw it I thought I was imagining it. Looking for it now, it absolutely drove me nuts almost as much as the dumbass kids sitting behind me talking through the film.
Now the major problems:
1) This film still takes itself too seriously. It could have used something to lighten it up slightly.
2) Joseph Gordon-Levitt doesn’t put on a costume during the No-Man’s-Land portion.
3) Bane and his conspirator have no reason to make their plan a suicide mission. Why would they be planning to just die in the bomb? There’s no mention of their plan to escape, there’s nothing. Ra’s al Ghul’s legacy wasn’t to die in a fire, it was to level Gotham and remain a judge for society. It was just a big hole in motivation for them.
Aside from that, the script feels much, much tighter the second time around. There’s even more foreshadowing that I didn’t notice and it builds to a hell of a finale. It’s growing on me. I still think I like Batman Begins better, but this was a helluva bang.
Inconsistencies I had with Bruce Wayne’s character (giving up the suit, his choice for the end) are easily chalked up to the fact that this is Christopher Nolan’s Bruce Wayne, not mine or anyone else’s.
And I was grateful that some of my favorite moments from comics were brought to life on screen.