The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Synopsis:
The Dark Knight Rises (2012) is a sequel to Batman Begins (2005) and The Dark Knight (2008). In this movie two characters are introduced who inspire Batman to change his decision about retirement.
Eight years after the events of The Dark Knight, Gotham City is in a state of peace. Under powers granted by the Dent Act (legislation inspired by the perceived heroism of the late Harvey Dent), Commissioner James Gordon and the Gotham City Police Department have nearly eradicated violent and organized crime. Gordon feels guilty about the cover-up of Harvey Dent's crimes, but decides that the city is not ready to hear the truth. While following a lead in the abduction of a congressional representative, Gordon's speech falls into the hands of the villain Bane, who discovers the truth about Dent. Gordon is shot in the process of escaping and promotes patrol officer John Blake to detective, allowing Blake to report directly to him in the hospital.
As Batman has disappeared from Gotham, so too has Bruce Wayne, locking himself inside Wayne Manor. Wayne Enterprises is crumbling after he invested in board member Miranda Tate's clean energy project, designed to harness fusion power, and shut it down after learning that the core could be modified to become a nuclear weapon. Both Blake—who has deduced Batman's identity—and Gordon implore Batman to return. Bane attacks the stock exchange and bankrupts Bruce, forcing him to relinquish control of Wayne Enterprises. Correctly suspecting that his business rival, John Daggett, employed Bane to aid in this aggressive takeover of his company, Bruce entrusts Tate to keep full control out of Daggett's hands. However, Bane has other plans, and kills Daggett to take control of his construction empire.
Following a trail left by cat burglar Selina Kyle, Batman locates Bane, who says that he took over the League of Shadows following Ra's al Ghul's death. In the following confrontation, Bane physically cripples Batman and places him in a foreign prison from which escape is virtually impossible. The other inmates relate the story of how Ra's al Ghul's child was the only person, through necessity and the sheer force of will, to ever escape the prison. Batman believes that the child grew up to become Bane. Meanwhile, Bane lures most of Gotham's police force underground and sets off explosions across the city, trapping the officers. Using weapons and artillery stolen from Wayne Enterprises' Applied Sciences Division, he turns Gotham into an isolated city-state. Any attempt to leave the city will result in the detonation of the Wayne Enterprises fusion core, now converted into a bomb. Bane publicly reveals the cover-up of Dent's death and releases the prisoners in Blackgate Prison who were prosecuted under the Dent Act. The rich and powerful are forcibly brought before a show trial presided over by Jonathan Crane and
given the choice between death and exile.
Over the course of several months, Bruce recovers from his injuries and retrains himself physically. He successfully escapes the foreign prison and returns to Gotham, enlisting Selina, Blake, Tate, Gordon and Lucius Fox to help liberate the city and stop the fusion bomb. As Batman, he subdues Bane, but Tate intervenes and reveals herself to be Ra's al Ghul's daughter Talia. It was she who escaped the prison as a child, returning with her father and the League of Shadows to rescue Bane, the one person who aided her in prison. She plans to complete her father's work by destroying Gotham while avenging his death at Wayne's hands. Gordon blocks the bomb's ability to be remotely detonated while Selina saves Batman by shooting Bane. Batman tries to force Talia to take the bomb to the fusion chamber where it can be stabilized, but she remotely floods the chamber. Talia dies when her truck crashes off the road, but remains confident that the bomb cannot be stopped. Using an aircraft developed by Fox, Batman hauls the bomb beyond the city limits, where it detonates over the ocean and apparently kills him.
Batman is later praised as a hero, while Bruce is presumed killed in the riots. After Bruce's funeral, Blake wants to reveal Batman's identity to the world as a tribute to Bruce, but Gordon reminds him that it is best left as a mystery to the uninformed. Gordon later finds that the Bat-Signal has been repaired. The Wayne estate is divided up to cover any debts, with the manor left in the city's possession to become an orphanage and the rest going to Alfred Pennyworth. Fox discovers that Bruce programmed the autopilot on the aircraft six months ago. Alfred witnesses Bruce and Selina alive together at a café in Italy, while Blake inherits the Batcave.
Music:
In an interview in October 2010, composer Hans Zimmer confirmed that he would be returning to score The Dark Knight Rises. James Newton Howard was offered to return and write the score with Zimmer as he did for Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, but he chose not to because he noted that the chemistry established between Zimmer and Nolan during the making of Inception would make him seem like a "third wheel".
In November 2011, Zimmer crowdsourced online audio recordings of a chant to be used in the film's score. When asked about the chant for clarification, Zimmer said, "The chant became a very complicated thing because I wanted hundreds of thousands of voices, and it's not so easy to get hundreds of thousands of voices. So, we Twittered and we posted on the internet, for people who wanted to be part of it. It seemed like an interesting thing. We've created this world, over these last two movies, and somehow I think the audience and the fans have been part of this world. We do keep them in mind." The two-word chant deshi basara translates to "he rises" in Moroccan, exhibiting Ra's al Ghul's Arabian ethnicity as well as coinciding with the title of the film, The Dark Knight Rises.
Zimmer included several cues from the earlier scores, but explains that he wanted to go in a "completely different direction" for Bane's theme. While the theme accompanying Selina Kyle is deliberately ambiguous, the musical thread spanning throughout the trilogy was composed exclusively for Bruce Wayne.
Release:
On July 6, 2012, Warner Bros. held a special IMAX screening of the film for more than one hundred reporters and critics. However, technical issues with the computer device synchronising the sound and picture forced the studio to postpone the screening by a day. The Dark Knight Rises premiered on July 16 at the AMC Lincoln Square Theater in New York City, New York. The film was released in Australia and New Zealand on July 19, and was later released in North America and the United Kingdom on July 20.
Box office:
The film earned an estimated $30.6 million in midnight showings, which was the second-highest midnight gross of all time behind Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 ($43.5 million). It did, however, break Deathly Hallows – Part 2's record ($2 million) for the highest midnight gross in IMAX with $2.3 million. Hours before the midnight release, several box office analysts suggested as much as a $198 million opening weekend.
In the wake of the mass shooting occurred during a midnight screening of the film, Warner Bros. decided to not report further box office figures for the movie until Monday July 23, 2012. As a result, other distributors also delayed the release of their official estimates as well. The shooting is also speculated to have hurt the ticket sales as E! Online reported that a North Carolina audience member had stated that "this theater was kinda empty". Some reports released on July 21, 2012 said that rival studios estimated that the film grossed $75 million to $77 million on its opening day. Warner Brothers shortly after released a statement to ABC News stating that they delayed the release of their estimates for the opening day total of the film "out of respect for the victims and their families," and added "Warner Bros. Pictures will not be reporting box office numbers for The Dark Knight Rises throughout the weekend. Box office numbers will be released on Monday." Later, it was revealed that the film made $75.8 million during its opening day, which is the third-highest single day tally of all-time behind Deathly Hallows - Part 2 ($91.1 million) and The Avengers ($80.8 million). On July 23, 2012, it was announced that the film grossed $160.9 million, which is the third-highest opening weekend of all-time behind The Avengers ($207.4 million) and Deathly Hallows - Part 2 ($169.2 million). However, it did break The Dark Knight's record ($158.4 million) for the highest opening weekend for a 2D film.
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Reception:
The Dark Knight Rises received an 86% approval rating from critics and 93% from the audience on aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes, an average rating of 8/10 from 250 critics. Metacritic, another review aggregator, assigned the film a weighted average score of 78 (out of 100) based on 45 reviews from mainstream critics, considered to be "generally favorable reviews". The Telegraph granted the film a maximum score of five stars, stating that it is "a superhero film without a superhero," comparing it with The Godfather Part II and praising Hardy's performance as well as the film's intricate plot and narrative. IGN gave it a 9 out of 10, noting similarities in tone and theme to Batman Begins over the trilogy's second installment The Dark Knight, but also describing Bane as "that bit less interesting to watch" than Ledger's Joker, despite praising his "menacing voice" and "body language-driven performance". The Guardian scored the film four out of five stars, calling it a film of "granite, monolithic intensity", yet also calling it a "hammy, portentous affair". Andrew O'Hehir of Salon writes "if The Dark Knight Rises is a fascist film, it's a great fascist film, and arguably the biggest, darkest, most thrilling and disturbing and utterly balls-out spectacle ever
created for the screen". Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three out of four stars, stating "the film begins slowly with a murky plot and too many new characters, but builds to a sensational climax."
The Daily Mail's Chris Tookey said that the film was bloated and overly long as well as criticizing the sombre tone and lack of humor, despite praising the film's visually impressive set pieces. CNN's Tom Charity called this a "disappointingly clunky and bombastic conclusion to a superior series". Mike Sharkey of GameSpy claimed that "there are a handful of plot holes in TDK Rises that can't be ignored." The film failed to impress oscar judges for example Brret Easton Ellis said "There was zero love for The Dark Knight Rises at the packed screening." Another said "People were kind of disappointed", and "That there was nothing remarkable about the acting."
In reaction to fan backlash to negative reviews, Rotten Tomatoes had to disable user commentary for the film leading up to its release. Some fans had threatened violence against critics while others threatened to take down the websites of movie critics who had given the film a negative review.
Directed by Christopher Nolan
Produced by Emma Thomas
Christopher Nolan
Charles Roven
Screenplay by Jonathan Nolan
Christopher Nolan
Story by Christopher Nolan
David S. Goyer
Based on Characters created by Bob Kane
Starring:
Christian Bale
Michael Caine
Gary Oldman
Anne Hathaway
Tom Hardy
Marion Cotillard
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Morgan Freeman
Music by Hans Zimmer
Cinematography Wally Pfister
Editing by Lee Smith
Studio: Legendary Pictures
Syncopy Films
DC Comics
Distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures
Release date: July 16, 2012 (world premiere)
July 20, 2012 (United States)
Running time: 165 minutes
Language: English
Budget: $250 million
Box office: $337,108,988
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