Last night I went to see The Dark Knight Rises (TDKR). It was a fitting end to Christopher Nolan’s reboot of the Batman film franchise. I was so nervous that Nolan would fall into the same trap that BioWare fell into with the Mass Effect series, too epic to conclude satisfactorily. But he avoided that trapped as well as anyone could.
As I was walking out to the car and talking to my girlfriend and the other friends who we went to the movie with, I had to ask myself which film I liked more The Avengers or TDKR. And at the end of the day I had to say the Avengers. This isn’t not any kind of a knock against TDKR as a great film. But if you handed me a copy of Avengers and TDKR and asked me to pick just one. I’d take the Avengers every time.
Now let me say I know that while they are both movies about comic book characters they are not the same kind of the movies. The Avengers embraced being a comic book movie in the most perfect way possible. It was also the best summer blockbuster ever made. TDKR isn’t trying to be a comic book movie and yet still manages to embrace the source material beautifully. It’s not a summer blockbuster and yet still has many of the elements of the blockbuster–and army of prisoners versus an army of cops led by super-villains and caped crusaders.
TDKR showed some flaws early on that pulled me out of the film at the most crucial stage. The first act of the movie felt rushed. Things happened too quickly. The Avengers was a fast-paced movie. But it never moved too quickly. I was never pulled out of the movie by the pace of the film–or more accurately never allowed fully into the movie.
This rushed pace led to other flaws in the movie. There were leaps of faith that Nolan was asking me to make that just didn’t work. And I’m not talking about a microwave emitter that vaporizes water sources without hurting humans or Rachel Dawes surviving a free-fall from the top of Bruce Wayne’s penthouse by landing on Batman’s impact resistant armor. It’s more like how certain characters came to conclusions without any facts, just instincts that can’t account for the conclusions being drawn.
And these leaps lead to another awkward flaw that the Avengers doesn’t really have, bad dialogue. Dialogue becomes just plain goofy at times between Batman/Bruce Wayne and other characters. Joss Whedon is amazing at writing dialogue, much better than David Goyer and Jonathan Nolan. But TDKR had some really bad dialogue exchanges that don’t make sense to me. And it was a flaw I saw in The Dark Knight (TDK).
Another strength the Avengers has over TDKR is the villain. Loki versus Bane. Loki was a much better villain. He was complex and the viewer can never figure him out. And yet he truly presented himself as a threat that required the team to come together to defeat (and did they even win?). Tom Hiddleston gave me chills when he was going back-and-forth with Black Widow. Bane is much more straightforward. He’s a physical challenge, but that’s it. That worked for what Nolan was doing, but he’s not as engaging as Loki. And coming off of the heels of the Joker and Two-Face in TDK he just doesn’t measure up.
Bane’s defeat in the narrative felt forced and unsatisfying, even if they were going for a way to bring back if there were to be any more in Nolan’s universe. Loki’s demise at the hands of Hulk was anything but. Hulk had the strength to tangle with Loki as he did. And Hulk’s line, “Puny gods,” was absolutely perfect.
Then there were technical issues with Bane. By the middle of the movie Bane’s voice had lost me on him. Tom Hardy did the best he could, of that I’m sure. But his voice felt so recorded in a studio that Bane felt, at times, cartoony in a movie that didn’t want to feel cartoony. Loki was able to stay right where Whedon wanted him.
Finally, and this is where subjectivity enters the fray more than anything. My favorite heroes are Captain America and the Winter Soldier/Bucky. Yes, Bucky is going to be the villain in the new Captain America movie. I’m a fan boy for Cap and Bucky. I’ve been faithfully reading Captain America since before the first Iron Man film and TDK came out in theaters. I’m going to naturally like movies that have Cap in them more than those which don’t.
People who are Batman fan-boys are going to be able to look past all of the things I’ve said because they are just that, Batman fan-boys. And that’s okay with me.
