Once I did
a post on why The Dark Knight was a masterpiece, stating that it was epic, better than BB, and a mixture of the entertaining and the serious. Elsewhere,
I stated that BB was great too
Now I will write on why I think
The Dark Knight Rises is a great movie too, maybe even a masterpiece from Nolan.
1.
The Dark Knight Rises Is Emotionally Resonant For A Comic Book Movie.
The Dark Knight Rises, when it is praised by people, is known for one thing: emotional power and resonance. When we see Bruce Wayne broken from his experiences in TDK, we feel for him and are sad to see him come to this. And when he puts back on the cape, only to have his back broken by Bane, we are shocked and disturbed to see our hero being beaten by his enemy. When we see Bruce fail many times in getting out of the pit, we are saddened and yet our blood boils, looking for him to succeed. And when he succeeds in escaping the pit, we cheer for him, especially when he throws that rope out for the other prisoners to escape. That scene is emotionally powerful and uplifting, where Bruce faces his fears and becomes a born-again Batman. And moments like these are what make
The Dark Knight Rises a great film.
2.
The Dark Knight Rises Is Epic And Grand. Like its predecessor
The Dark Knight, Nolan gives TDKR an epic aura of grandness, from the shots of Gotham City to the shots of the football field before Bane blows it up and to the big epic scenes at the ending of the film. The film just screams EPIC, giving us beautiful scenes of Gotham City (which is not the same city from
Batman Begins), but is still grand nonetheless.
Mark Hughes's
exhaustive and lengthy review of The Dark Knight Rises says so perfectly:
It turns out that the increased amount of IMAX footage adds further to the grandoise of this film, while the screenwriting from the Nolan brothers manages to stay together quite well for the 160 minutes of run time this movie takes up. The story remains together and doesn't fall apart, and while it isn't as tight as
The Dark Knight, the movie still manages to hold together under its epic scale. Nolan's direction also does the epic scale of this movie justice, keeping the acting greatness consistent and the tone consistent too; even with the twists, the epic scale is done well by Nolan, whose mighty hand keeps this film from crumbling. And Bane's towering muscles and villainy also help with the epicness of the movie, as well as the brooding Batman who becomes a hero again and saves his city from destruction.
3.
The Dark Knight Rises Is An Excellent Closure to A Great Trilogy. Last but not least, I would also note that
The Dark Knight Rises is a great closure to a brilliant trilogy, simiarly like how
The Return of the King was a masterpiece of a closure to the
Lord of the Rings trilogy. It beautifully weaves the untied threads from
Batman Begins and
The Dark Knight to knit together a fantastic and satisfying finale to one of the most definining phenomenon of 21st century cinema. Christian Bale's performance is fabulous as usual, with other great performances from Gary Oldman, Tom Hardy, Anne Hathaway, Marion Cottillard, and Michael Caine as the butler Alfred. Many great reviews have given testament to the greatness of
The Dark Knight Rises, so I will not get too deep into this as of now. And not only that, the brilliant screenplay delves further into the idea of who a hero is, and why Batman is a hero despite his lack of supernatural abilites. While
The Dark Knight was superior as a
movie,
The Dark Knight Rises is emotionally resonant and superior as
a grand finale. Not to mention all the great cinematography, special effects, music from Hans Zimmer, and the other wonderful things that were the result of diligence.
I could go further and further into why I love TDK Trilogy, but these are the three central reasons why I love TDKR and consider it to be a truly great movie.
(Source of OP)
As to my overall, while I did prefer TDK to TDKR and consider it to be superior to TDKR, I overall loved TDKR, even though it did have its problems (somewhat rushed pacing near the end, Talia's death scene, some plot holes), but I thought it was better than BB, not only because it developed the story into new territory but also because unlike BB it had better women characters (Catwoman and Talia beat Rachel Dawes any day of the week), better stunts, a more menacing villain with an actual threat (a nuclear bomb and a muscular dictator named Bane). And while BB was great too with regards to Bruce Wayne's arc, TDKR completes it in satisfying, if flawed, manner, with Bruce living happy after saving Gotham and passing on this incorruptible symbol to a trustworthy cop.
As to my ranking, here it is:
1. TDK
2. TDKR
3. BB
So I overall loved the movie.
t:
