Saturday, July 28, 2012

The Dark Knight Truly Rises

First, a confession. I am a Bat-freak. When I was a kid, I would fervently wait for Batman cartoons to show up on good 'ol DD Metro on Sunday evenings. I hated the earlier set of criminally-badly made Batman movies (with the Penguin, Mr. Freeze, Poison Ivy et. al), but even then I watched all of them faithfully. When I finally laid eyes on Batman Begins, I thought finally here is a movie that does justice to the most amazing superhero of all time. The Dark Knight was, in my eyes, the best movie ever made.
It was with great expectations, therefore, that I trudged in to watch the last part of Christopher Nolan's trilogy on the Batman. Trepidation, too. For I thought from the trailers that Batman finally meets his comeuppance in Bane.
(Aside: Bane! What a guy! A legend to match every bit of the Batman's own. A hulk who is pure evil. I thought that the Joker was the last word on villains. I still do, but I will always remember Bane with respect and admiration)
The Dark Knight Rises was everything I expected, and much more. A fantastic cast of characters (everyone is here, including Ra's Al Ghul, the Scarecrow, Catwoman, Talia Al Ghul, Robin), epic action set pieces (the first scene is going to live forever in action movie lore), honest and precise explanations for all the back stories (League of Shadows, Bane's origins etc) and contextual, big picture questions (has capitalism gone too far?, do the ends justify the means) take this movie up to the top 5 of all time list. I particularly loved the way the movie ended, on dignity and hope.
The irony is that I would rate the Dark Knight as a grander epic, precisely because it ended without hope, as a gritty and depressing tale of life as we know it.
The Dark Knight Rises, on the other hand, tells us that there is a better life out there. We only have to Rise!

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