Rising Indeed

I always thought Batman was cooler than Superman inasmuch as Bruce Wayne is an Earthling and comes by his powers through intelligence and hard work. Well, that, and loads and loads of money, too. But, he manages to strike fear into the miscreants and malcontents of Gotham City by dint of his high intellect and his dedication.

And The Dark Knight Rises manages to add quite a bit to the mythos of Batman. It reinforces his virtues while managing to kick his ass through a very solid portion of the movie. And lo and behold, there's a plot twist at the end - I don't mean the autopilot scam, I mean the one where we find out that Bane's not the one who "flew" out of that prison in the desert. They handled the origins of Catwoman and Robin superbly, too. And at this point I'm remembering the original Christopher Reeve Superman, where the "Red 'S'" conundrum was handled - maybe a little heavy-handedly, but handled nonetheless. Since the first in the spate of comicbook hero movies, they have spent a lot of thought and resources on the "origin" part of each character's story. Dark Knight raises this to an art form, with its pacing and its seemingly effortless weaving-in of heroic satellite characters. These are nuanced characters, too, as far from cardboard cutouts as you can get.

As with all impressive works, it's hard to tell how they're going to make a better one next time out. I tried to imagine what they would do after the first Pirates of the Caribbean, and it looks like they had as hard a time imagining a successful sequel as I did.  Obviously they have established the foundation where Batman comes back to surprise the next world-class jerk who threatens Gotham, and I look forward to that.

Christian Bale looks like he might be able to avoid the stigma that attached itself to Michael Keaton and Val Kilmer. And Joseph Gordon-Levitt! He's a revelation in this. I may have seen him is something since Third Rock from the Sun, but I don't remember it. What a great choice. And it looks as though Bruce picked him out for a partner. Like I said, the thing is set up very deftly.

Not long ago I saw The Avengers, and I liked it quite a bit. While Knight is a deeper movie, with its gravity coming from the main character's psyche, Avengers is not totally lacking in depth itself. I especially liked their treatment of Bruce Banner and Tony Stark. The revelation that Dr. Banner can turn into the "other guy" whenever he wants was pretty cool. After the Black Widow says, "Hadn't you better get pissed off?" as they're about to face a powerful enemy, he turns to her and says, "Hey, that's my secret. I'm always pissed off!"

I liked The Avengers for the complete mayhem perpetrated by its heroes. It's totally fuckin' loaded with ass-kicking, which is frankly what superhero movies should be about. I'm not faulting Dark Knight with that statement. Both movies are outstanding. Thanks, Dan, for suggesting I push that to the top of my queue.