A Retrospective on Nolan's
Batman Films
2005 was a crux of a time for Hollywood.
Summer 2005 in particular. It almost felt as if the passing of the torch from
the past into the future was scrunched all into one season of hit or miss films.
The Star Wars prequel trilogy went out with a whimper, scoring a treasure trove
at the box office but not with critics or fans. Spielberg started to show signs
of age, almost losing himself in a flurry of self satisfaction over a career
string of hits (and a few hiccups) that culminated with the less than enticing
War of the Worlds.
Although quietly at the time, we did see the future,
and it came from an old friend that was laughed off the screen years before:
Batman. That's right, the caped crusader was about to teach us all that
superheroes weren't only limited to play in the minds of children, but could be
taken seriously as both an art in the form of film and social commentary.
We'll get to the social commentary part later, but first
let's begin with...well, Begins. Up until that point, superhero movies
weren't entirely new. In fact, an entire series of Batman films had come and
gone, successfully I might add, legitimizing that studios could spend millions
on frivolous comic book properties and receive dividends in return. Though it
had been almost 8 years since the last of these 'old school' Batman movies had
screened in theaters, some, including myself, had the most recent of those
movies still burned into memory.
Batman and Robin was a laughing stock, simply put.
When Michael Keaton decided to hang up the cowl after Batman Returns in
1992 along with director Tim Burton, the millions of dollars in box office
receipts, action figure sales and happy meal toys could not be ignored so
Warner Bros. decided to continue the franchise with a slew of new faces. Val
Kilmer replaced Keaton in the title role, Tommy Lee Jones and Nicole Kidman
brought welcomed vetted reputation and sex appeal respectively, and Jim Carrey
stole the show as a likeable villain that brought the new school Hollywood
edge that audiences wanted. In the director's chair, we had Joel Schumacher, the one who would be hailed
as "history's greatest villain" that undoubtedly killed Batman.
But that's not what happened at first. In fact, in 1995 this
opinion was seen as quite the opposite. The movie grossed $185 million
domestically, a full $22 million more than it's predecessor, Batman Returns.
This colorful and campy take on the Dark Knight was apparently what audiences
wanted, so for the next installment Warner Bros. kept Schumacher as director
and let him take the movie's campiness to the nth degree.
....and, here's where things get sticky. Bat nipples.
(shudder) Bat nipples. That's really all I have to say, but for the sake of
regurgitating your repressed memories of this bucket of cinematic spittle let's
delve into it a little deeper, shall we? Nearly the entire cast was replaced,
with George Clooney taking the helm as Bats and delivering the driest and least
memorable performance as Bruce Wayne that we've ever seen. (and this is almost
contrary to the atmosphere of the film, as nearly everything else is bright and
vivid and bursting out of it's shell) Arnold Schwarzenegger's cartoonish
portrayal of Mr. Freeze left us with more ice puns than we could handle, and
speaking of puns, I'm pretty sure that every spoken line of dialogue is a pun
of some kind...even if it wasn't meant to be. I will however defend this film
on one front, claiming that it's the 1960's Batman reinvented with the modern glitz
and spectacle of the 90's. Regardless, Batman's box office take fell and so
warranted a rest for the Caped Crusader on the silver screen.
Then comes the 8 years of dormancy. In that time, the
superhero genre exploded. Fox's X-Men kicked off the fervor in 2000, and
Sony's Spider-Man continued the successful trend in 2002. Even more
successful sequels followed, along with takes on known and unknown comic book
properties to varying degrees of success. Sitting on arguably the most popular
and well known comic book property in Batman, Warner Bros. decided to get back
into the game. This is when an exciting up and comer in Christopher Nolan pled
to them to reboot the Batman franchise using a gritty, realistic take on the
popular character.
At the time, it was considered a risk to bring realism into
the normally unrealistic genre, but there could not have been a better
character to play out this experiment with. Batman, after all, has no super
powers. The property was in good hands, even if at the time many of us didn't
think so.
Batman and Robin left such a sour taste in so many
mouths that many people, myself included, brushed off Batman's return as simply
another attempt at raking in action figure sales. This however could not be further
from the truth. Nolan's realistic take on Batman provided few opportunities to
turn aspects of the movie into toys, even though we all secretly admit we had a
Rachel Dawes action figure in the visage of Katie Holmes if only to melt away
under the light of a burning candle.
So the summer of 2005 came and went, without my tiny brain
having witnessed the genius that Nolan put on screen. (genius in the sense that
this new take on superheroes felt so fresh in a genre that was quickly becoming
stagnant after only just being born) Then the fall came, and Batman Begins
triumphantly came to DVD. I can still remember
how much the movie was lauded over that fall. Praise was sung to the League of
Shadows, Michael Caine and Ra's al Ghul. Wait, who? Ra's al Ghul? Who the heck is
that? Where's the Joker? The League of Shadows...? This movie sounded gay!
But gay it was not. In fact, it was very cool. So cool that
I felt it was the most fun I had watching a movie all that year. Batman was
back, and he was shot against a backdrop that looked very familiar to me: Gotham
as a modern city, not some 1950'sesque metropolis built as a model and draped
in dreary colors with atmospheric smoke rising from the sewers. (although I do
want to make a point here not to detract from Burton's
1989 classic, but to state that it's genius belongs in another class and time
of movies aside from what we generally see today)
For the first time Batman was believable, gritty and real.
Although glimpses of this were felt in Tim Burton's 1989 Batman, 2005's Batman
Begins was the first time that we truly believed that an idealistic rich
man could buy his way into the superhero game after years of intense training.
And I think that's what makes Begins so believable:
Bruce Wayne's training. In all other incantations of Batman, we kind of just
jump into the narrative with Batman's prerogative already in place. From the
get go, criminals are running around doing bad things and this costumed
vigilante jumps in to save the day with all of his wonderful toys. (certainly
familiarity with the character also helped, as by the late 80's Batman had
already been around for a couple of decades)
But now in this new version of the character, we get to know
him from the ground up. Meeting him as a child, we see how fear gives him an
element of humanity that wasn't seen in previous versions on film. He turns on
his aristocratic heritage to sulk in his anger, blindly letting it out on anybody
who dares to challenge him...even if that means taking on multiple opponents at
once! Through the guidance of Liam Neeson's Ducard (SPOILER! He's actually Ra's
Al Ghul!) Bruce is pushed to his physical limitations and taught new things not
only about the nature of justice, but about himself. It is in these vulnerable
moments of training that we connect with Bruce: as he learns, so do we. Batman
is created from the ground up as Ra's teaches Bruce both the nature of idealism
and the ability to sharpen and hone one's strength, not just blindly unleash it
to smother his anger and guilt.
Most importantly of all, Ra's teaches Bruce how to overcome
his fear. It is in this key moment that fear no longer controls him, and he is
able to take that fear and turn it against his enemies, those that would prey
upon the fearful. (side note: what is Bruce's fear? BATS! who would've thought
that at first Batman was afraid of bats?! Genius!)
As Bruce's training is completed, he turns his back on the
League of Shadows by refusing to kill. This is the key element that makes
Batman who he is: he will never kill. He will punch, pummel, beat, and ka-pow!
criminals until the cows come home, but he will never do what Ra's calls, 'what
is necessary'. One of the themes of Batman Begins is the difference
between justice and revenge. Justice is restoring balance, and revenge is
making yourself feel better. Bruce's idealism is skewed in comparison to Ra's
and the League's. Whereas the League will kill as many people as they need to restore
what they see as balance, Bruce sees killing as an injustice in and of itself,
making them no better than the criminals they are trying to suppress.
This difference in ideals between Bruce and Ra's is our main
source of conflict in the film. Who was once the teacher is now the enemy, and
Bruce must take all that he's learned (and add in his own flair) to overcome
what would otherwise be the downfall of Gotham, all that his family and father
built. A somewhat cliché plan involving Ra's spreading fear toxin throughout
the city to make Gotham tear itself apart is the climax of the film,
culminating in a showdown between Batman and Ra's: a classic tale of the
teacher VS his best student.
So Batman saves the day (with a little help from Sergeant
Gordon) and Gotham is safe for now, but what Bruce
didn't take into consideration before donning the cowl was escalation. As
Gordon explains at the end of the film, escalation is the criminal element
constantly one upping law enforcement to get the upper hand. If the cops use
semi-automatics, the criminals use automatics. If they start wearing Kevlar,
the criminals will buy armor piercing rounds. Even the notion of Batman's
theatrics, one of the techniques taught to him by Ra's and the League, is a
dangerous thing to put into the mind of the criminal element. And that's where
things get interesting. A sly nod, a wink, to Batman's greatest villain, the
Joker, is seen briefly at the end of Batman Begins, giving us a glimpse
of what's to come in the next installment of Nolan's Batman saga.
So Batman Begins opened to not only critical success
and general positive reaction from fans, (even though all the action scenes
were a little muddled, but we'll forgive that) but it had a generous box office
take and audiences were hungry for more, cementing that Batman was back to
stay. We all cautiously looked to the sequel, waiting for our first look at
Nolan's pseudo realistic take on the Joker. In early 2007 we got word that
Heath Ledger would be interpreting the Clown Prince of Crime in the follow up
to Batman Begins titled The Dark Knight, and some reaction
involved head cocking and thought bubbles that appeared over our heads with
little question marks in them.
This wasn't my reaction at all. In fact, I lauded Nolan's
choice in Heath Ledger, realizing that this kid had the acting chops to fit
this villainous role and then some. And boy was I right! (a common theme I've
noticed that happens all too often...) Early word from on set and inside the
editing room had our minds buzzing over how Ledger made this role his own,
promising to deliver something that we had never seen before. But in early
2008, the unthinkable happened: saddening news of Heath Ledger's untimely death
at the hands of OD spread like wildfire, leading some to believe that the role
that he had been inhabiting for the past year was so dark and twisted that it
lead to his demise. Heath Ledger had literally acted himself to death.
So let's move to summer 2008. Jon Favreu's Iron Man came
out of the gate running, getting what hoped to be an exciting summer of films
off to a surprising and audacious start. Robert Downey Jr. ran away with the
role of Tony Stark, turning audiences attention to Marvel's new and upcoming
slate of superhero films. But what of DC? There was another Batman movie coming
out later this summer, right? I can remember driving to see Iron Man,
gabbing with friends over the summer's upcoming films including The Dark
Knight. At this point there was talk circulating of Ledger receiving the
very first posthumous Oscar for his portrayal of the Joker. 'Hah!' somebody in
the back seat had said. 'He'll never be as good as Jack Nicholson!' I thought
about that statement, thinking it over for a second. Those were indeed some big
shoes to fill. At that point Nicholson was the only iteration of the Joker we
had seen on film, so he was the quintessential reference to be compared to. Indeed,
everybody knows that Nicholson is Hollywood royalty, a
living legend in a time where there are so few.
But I argued the point. It was difficult to say whether or
not Ledger would live up to all the hype that I was reading online. Perhaps he
wasn't going to be as revolutionary as we thought, and all that talk of
posthumous Oscars were simply inflated over the fact that he had tragically
died earlier that year? "We'll see" is where we ended that little
argument, myself feeling justified in defending an actor's performance I hadn't
yet seen.
2 months had quickly passed and indeed we did see. We saw so
hard that our eyes dilated to the point where they formed little black holes
and gravity drew all nearby objects crashing into our heads. Okay, so maybe I'm
stretching the truth here a little bit but can you see the point I'm trying to
make? Ledger's performance was a big deal. Like, a really big deal. We hadn't
yet seen a villainous role in a comic book movie break the mold to the point
where we seriously had to reconsider the genre as legitimate.
The Dark Knight was released in July 2008, taking an
already dark narrative into even darker territory. If the theme of Batman
Begins was overcoming fear, the theme of The Dark Knight is sticking
to your principles in the face of adversity. The dueling ideologies of Batman
and the Joker swirled into a perfect storm of chaos, sending Gotham
into bedlam and mirroring our own archaic societal fears and distress.
And audiences agreed. The tune of over a billion
dollars in worldwide box office is nothing to scoff at, and much of that is due
to the stellar performance from Ledger as the catalyst that drove the movie's
narrative. He got the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor that year as some had
speculated.
After The Dark Knight, Bat-fever waned a tad, but
Batfans and non-Batfans alike wanted the series to conclude with the obligatory
closing chapter of the Nolan Bat Trilogy. But there was one problem: Nolan
wanted Ledger to return. Before filming Batman Begins, a trilogy was
envisioned. One that would continue the path that was laid out in The Dark
Knight. As the Joker says at the end of the film, "I think you and
I...are destined to do this forever." Indeed, in the comics that's how it
goes down: the Joker creates chaos, Batman refuses to kill him and locks him
up, the Joker breaks free and the cycle starts all over again. This is how
Batman and the Joker work.
Kudos needs to be given to Nolan for not changing the ending
of his film. Ledger died in the middle of editing. The Joker could have easily
been killed off, closing that chapter. But that's not how it works. The
original vision was stuck to, but it was clear that anything that was made from
this point forward couldn't proceed as planned. The only options were to change
things up, or end the series. But with pressure to return for the finale coming
from the masses, critical acclaim and box office returns, Nolan had to think
things through for a while.
Ledger couldn't be recast. The right choice was made to not
include or even mention the Joker in the final chapter of the trilogy. Word
went around that there was unused footage of Ledger in Arkham Asylum and that
it may have been used in part three, but out of respect for Ledger and his
amazing performance this wasn't the right thing to do. So the question then
became: what do you do? The source material has plenty of characters and
plotlines to choose from. Batman has the best rogues gallery in comics, hands
down. The Penguin, The Riddler, Catwoman...it's like a veritable cornucopia of
strange characters that would fit very well in the pseudo-realistic Gotham
Nolan established in the first two films.
Some extra time went into the development of the final
chapter of the modern Batman saga, The Dark Knight Rises...and this is
where the seas start to become choppy.
What we got was Nolan's Plan B. The contingency plan that
was put in place to give the masses what they wanted: closure. This was done to
varying success. I'm sure that some of what was originally planned made the
final film. Catwoman is Batman's ultimate love interest, and with his on again
off again girlfriend Rachel killed off in The Dark Knight, this was the
perfect time to introduce Selina Kyle. Robin needed to be regarded to some
degree, and even though he was only touched upon, much like Selina Kyle he fit
right into the narrative. (even though Nolan gave us his own, brand new take on
the character)
But what about the villain? This is where things got
interesting. Classics like The Penguin and Riddler were moved aside in favor of
a more modern villain: Bane. Tom Hardy had some big shoes to fill, but I'm sure
that hiding behind a mask for the entire movie certainly helped in delivering
his performance. After all, why show your face when you can have your muscles
play the part for you?
Hans Zimmer provides another electrifying score. The main
theme kicks off the movie from the get go, and doesn't let up until the credits
roll. Fittingly, it feels like rising anxiety. The toccata feeling presented in
many of the musical cues throughout the film distinguish Rises from the
previous two entries in the series. If The Dark Knight expanded upon the
score of Batman Begins and gave Bruce Wayne a complete musical theme
that he had to earn after the events of the first film, Rises gives us
familiar tones while mixing in new music that stresses the severity of Gotham's
precarious situation. The musical accompaniment to Bane's plan for Gotham's
reckoning helps flesh out both Bane's mystery and muscle.
There's a lot to like about The Dark Knight Rises. On
a technical level, the movie is a jaw dropper. I don't think the crinkles on
actor's faces have ever stood out to me more plainly. Sweeping shots of Gotham
filmed with IMAX cameras look beautiful.
Action scenes are finally tuned to the point where you can actually tell what's
going on and you don't have to discern what might be happening from
blurry close ups that do more to mask action shots than give them away. The
scale on which the movie is shot feels like a real throwback to old school Hollywood.
Crowds of hundreds aren't placed into shots with a computer. Costumed extras
wage war on the streets. It's like a breath of fresh air when compared to
bogged down CGI epics.
Performances are standout, especially from the newcomers. Anne
Hathaway does a great job as Selina Kyle. Tom Hardy plays Bane with
intimidation, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays original character detective John
Blake with honesty. Usual series mainstays Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Gary
Oldman and Christian Bale welcome viewers back into Nolan's world with gusto.
But unfortunately, Rises is the weakest film in the
series. I believe this can be directly attributed to changing things up and
going with Plan B. But don't misjudge me: The Dark Knight Rises is still
much better than 70% of the bile that's churned out from studios nowadays, but
when compared to the gold and silver that were Batman Begins and The
Dark Knight, the bronze that is The Dark Knight Rises doesn't seem
as lustrous.
But where exactly did it go wrong? Was it the narrative? The
setting? The cast? Let's start from the beginning. When the movie opens, it
takes place eight years after the events of The Dark Knight. That's a
lot of fictional time for things to happen. But unfortunately, it seems as
though nothing at all happens in between movies. Really? The streets of Gotham
go quiet for that long, and the silence coincides in Batman as well?
Some exposition explains this in The Dent Act, a piece of
legislation that apparently completely killed organized crime. After the
debacle of doing business with The Joker, it would make sense that the mob
would want to remain silent. But the Batman? Surely he would sniff out some
semblance of crime. Even in The Dark Knight, he goes overseas to China
to settle his disputes.
But he's retired. Well, sort of. Bruce Wayne has
retired. Up through the reverie that was the atmosphere surrounding The Dark
Knight, I really thought that Nolan and his brother Jonathan really had a
great understanding of Batman and his universe. I don't profess to be an expert
myself, but I know enough to see that the Nolan brothers really dropped the
ball here when getting to the roots of the character's psyche.
Right from the get go, something smelled fishy. I could buy
the fact that the streets of Gotham are clean thanks to
the tag team tandem of Batman and Gordon. What I cannot buy, though, is the
fact that Bruce Wayne hung up his cape and cowl to become a Howard Hughes type
shut in...over his dead ex-semi not so girlfriend.
Sigh...what truly makes Batman great is utterly shattered
here in the opening 15 minutes of this movie. His capacity for taking what angers
him and turning it around toward the underbelly of criminality is what makes
Bruce Wayne become Batman. This is chief and central to the character. The
death of Rachel should not have retired Batman; it should have made him even
angrier and stronger, fueling him to bust heads and stop crime even harder than
he did before.
But in The Dark Knight Rises, exactly the opposite
happens. Bruce shuts himself up in the east end of Wayne Manor for eight
years and wallows in guilt. The fact that his flame for fighting crime is
extinguished over what should have fanned it is incredibly baffling to me. I
imagined that after Batman stops the Joker and settles the events of The
Dark Knight, he would go and do push-ups to make himself stronger, getting
the overwhelming loss out of his system by stopping small crime syndicates that
might still be active throughout Gotham.
Also, the fact that his relationship with Rachel (which
really wasn't even elaborated upon aside from the fact that she's the girl in
the Batman movie) supersedes the feelings that he had over the death of his
parents is equally as baffling to me.
"Do you still feel responsible for your parents'
death?" Ra's asks Bruce in Batman Begins. "My anger outweighs
my guilt." Bruce responds.
By this point in the series, my disbelief is suspended. I
was sold on the idea of a movie about a guy dressing up as a bat and fighting
crime long ago. At this point, there are things that I would buy (such as Bruce
healing both his leg and his back almost immediately without the aid of an
actual doctor) before washing down the fact that he decided to just mope around
for nearly a decade for reasons that contradict the most basic nature of the
character.
Technical plot holes I can swallow. Narrative plot holes I
cannot.
But it is inevitably this plot point that opens up one of
the more appealing aspects of this movie: Selina Kyle. Anne Hathaway plays
great against Christian Bale, Bruce and Selina having great chemistry one
upping each other both in and out of superhero spandex.
But let's move onto Bane. The catalyst in this entire piece,
Bane is a character that has me torn in two directions. Batman conquered the
Joker, a match for his wits. It only makes sense that they would next move onto
a villain that is a match for his muscle. And that's where I'm torn.
Tom Hardy does a great job making Bane formidable. The
problem is, Nolan's Bane is one note. He's supposed to come off as being this
brilliant strategist, setting up a scenario where the entire world waits on his
monotone villain speeches. And then he just goes beating up people. (more
approximately, twisting people's necks off camera) You can't be both the brains
and the brawn. And yeah, his voice does get to be a little silly.
Pacing issues and plot holes are abound. The entire police
force (the entire police force) is trapped in the sewers of Gotham
while the whole city is held hostage for three months. Wait, what? The flying
tumbler tank just sits on top of a building for all that time? Really? Nobody finds
it and tries to mess with it? Bane's cronies didn't care it was up there or
something?
The entire city is on lockdown from the rest of the world
while Bruce...sigh...re-trains in a hole out in the desert. They make it a
point to state the fact that nobody can get in or out of Gotham,
and then Bruce just shows up? Without any prior access to his Batman stuff?
Really? Its dumb little things like this that just have me scratching my head.
But don't misjudge me here, I only hold this movie up to the
high standards of its predecessors. Almost like we kind of deserved and
expected a little bit better. But there's still a lot to like about this movie.
The entire dramatic ending sequence gives the series a
proper sendoff. I like the fact that the mobile nuclear device isn't as much as
a macguffin as it could have been. It leads up to and plays directly in the climax,
but it wasn't really the central plot device. The movie wasn't about Batman
having to disarm a bomb.
And with a fantastic finish, The Dark Knight Rises ultimately
does what it came here to do: give us an ending. It stumbles here and there,
but then sticks the landing with a satisfying conclusion to a near perfect
trilogy. (although I'll just forget about the fact that millions of people in Gotham
would probably die of radiation poisoning after that big bomb goes off within
such a close proximity to the city)
Nolan gave us the best series of comic book movies on film. From
reflecting our own societal fears to diving into the most archaic prototypical
fear within each of us, Nolan has set the standard for comic book adaptations
unbearably high. Both wildly entertaining and multi-layered, the modern Batman
films not only proved that the caped crusader was worth revisiting on film, but
that comic book films can be taken seriously as a major contender among the
highest profile films Hollywood has to offer.
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