What is Necessary

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.

Seriously? Who would've thought that Spielberg working his magic over the Wells classic would result in a less than memorable affair? Even who we thought would be the 'next big thing', Peter Jackson, had his head shoved so far up his own ass after conquering the world with his Rings trilogy that another classic, King Kong, was butchered by a fog of smug.

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.