My Response to Entertainment Weekly’s Review of The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises
On February 17, Entertainment Weekly treated us to a dizzyingly poor retrospective review of Batman Begins, courtesy of critic Darren Franich. After debunking many of his misinterpretations of Batman Begins and condescending double-talk, now we have his double bill on The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises that tops the absurdity of their last review.
“There is no good way to write this next sentence, so I’ll just pick a bad way. The Dark Knight would have been way less awesome if Heath Ledger lived.”
Heath Ledger’s passing had an undeniable impact on The Dark Knight, from its marketing to eventual release and legacy. Despite Ledger’s posthumous triumphs and becoming one of the most treasured actors of the 21st century, one of the worst, if not the worst, aspects of his newfound immortality is the constant need for writers and fans to trivialize his death for monetary gain or a desire to have seen him return in The Dark Knight Rises. But at least Franich here is transparent about the fact that he’s doing it here. Then again, this is also one of the same writers who gave a negative review to the first season of The Witcher without viewing the entire season.
“Obviously, no superhero movie is worth a human life. He should have been there at the world premiere on July 14, 2008. See Ledger on the red carpet, Ledger on the late night circuit, amusing crowds with tales of psycho clown prep. He would have hosted the season premiere of Saturday Night Live, and the monologue gag would’ve been the whole cast in Jokerface doing their own “Why so serious?” impression. (Imagine Amy Poehler, pregnant, in murder mascara.) Today, you’d see rumors about a Ledger cameo in The Flash. He’d be around, and his Joker would be “iconic” in a safe way, something he would laugh about on Instagram every couple years. Instead, we lost him. So in The Dark Knight he is unfathomable. You went to the theater three or four times that summer to watch a dead man light your world on fire.”
Nice try, but you don’t receive a pass for playing devil’s advocate on his life. Newsflash for you: if he hadn’t passed away, audiences would’ve still seen the film and have been receptive to his performance regardless. Certain detractors of The Dark Knight have fed the myth that the film was only acclaimed then and canonized as it is now merely due to the Joker, and the sentiment Franich reiterates here only feeds that sentiment. This blatantly dismisses every other reason why the majority of critics and moviegoers watched it and had their outlook on the superhero genre due for reevaluation.
“Maggie Gyllenhaal gives Rachel some personality until she’s sacrificed to the altar of male sorrow.”
Regardless of Katie Holmes having the weakest performance in Batman Begins (after all, she was acting on a tall order alongside heavyweights like Michael Caine), she still gave a committed performance as Rachel Dawes and embedded her with urgency and sensitivity. Rachel spends all of her two films in a position of authority, without a mask, and stands up to the corrupt society of Gotham City. Unlike other genre love interests (Vicky Vale in Batman), Rachel isn’t fodder; she’s vital to the core of the entire trilogy’s themes, Bruce Wayne’s arc, and has a personality of her own. (Not to mention her setting aside a relationship with Bruce in favor of her career and marrying Harvey Dent, a man who had his life in order.) Bruce Wayne briefly mourned for Rachel before setting aside his pain for the benefit of Gotham; this would continue in The Dark Knight Rises as he spent five years as a philanthropist investing in Gotham’s welfare. Bruce’s grief over Rachel returns to haunt him during the events of The Dark Knight Rises, but this doesn't permanently destroy him. He harnessed his grief to save those who needed it most. Rachel’s death conveys the tragedy of fighting evil, and the casualties that come with justice. Whether or not the means justify the ends is a supreme question surging throughout The Dark Knight.
Harvey’s transformation into villainy is built up throughout with his frustration towards the justice system, which includes him nearly killing Thomas Schiff. Despite the warnings of Mayor Garcia and Batman, Harvey gave into his worst since the Joker convinced him to kill everyone responsible for his reckoning and Rachel’s death, except for the Joker himself.
“The most crucial plot point — shaky on reflection, absurdly overplayed in the sequel — is Batman’s belief that one effective District Attorney will turn his nightmare city into statistical Singapore.”
You must be joking harder than the Joker’s pencil trick. Bruce Wayne never stated that Gotham would become a utopia, even after the collaborative efforts of him and Harvey Dent among others who weren’t bought by the Falcone crime family. The key factor, a factor that continues to be misunderstood by certain viewers to this day, is that Bruce knew that his mission as Batman would only be a phase. He had to fight hard enough as Batman to inspire the good citizens of Gotham to stand up to the mafia so that the city could eventually move on. After the Dent Act was enacted and removed the need for Batman, by Bruce’s intention, Gotham wasn’t without crime but there was no longer the stranglehold of any mafia. Mayor Anthony Garcia stated in the opening of The Dark Knight Rises that “No city is without crime. But this city is without organized crime because the Dent Act gave law enforcement teeth in its fight against the mob.” It’s absurd to expect that The Dark Knight Rises should’ve abandoned all ties to Harvey Dent’s actions, especially since that film contained new characters and themes aplenty to stand apart from The Dark Knight.
“Even true believers might have plot questions about the last hour. A lifeboat climax requires you to believe Nolan and his co-writers have solved an unanswerable philosophical conundrum with the triumph of the human spirit.”
The majority of alleged plot holes and questions are either solvable using in-film evidence, although that must be overdoing it for Franich as his writing aligns with the type of bloggers and YouTube critics that’ve corrupted the idea of what plot holes actually are.
The climax involving the opposing boats isn’t a be-all-end-all, nor meant to represent what every person in real life would do. This was a setpiece that served as the first of several narrative thresholds that concludes The Dark Knight and ties intrinsically into The Dark Knight Rises. Contrary to what some of Christopher Nolan’s detractors would lead you to believe, the majority of his filmography represents people at their best, more often than their worst. The former is exemplified with the good citizens of Gotham’s boat not giving in to the Joker’s demands and an unlikely redemption from a prisoner.
“Cell phones give Batman sonar, it looks jank.”
What’s your point? Or you just enjoy some Buzzfeed lingo here and there.
“Every Joker plan demands fifth-dimensional logic, but the Joker is there to remind you logic doesn’t matter. He invents Two-Face out of thin air by putting on nurse’s scrubs to prattle about dogs chasing cars.”
My rebuttal of his point involving Rachel involved me laying out many of the cards on the table regarding Harvey Dent’s transformation into Two-Face. Bear in mind that when the Joker visits Dent, he’s in an unprecedented amount of physical and mental agony from his scarring. While the Dark Knight trilogy’s comic book logic applies to Dent surviving his burning and operating as Two-Face, him letting go of the Joker is logical. A fundamental theme of The Dark Knight, like The Killing Joke that inspired the film, is the brink of insanity. Dent wasn’t in the right position to make morally sound decisions when the Joker proposes their fates, so Dent logically turned to his coin to make a decision. Dent could’ve killed the Joker there and ended a majority of the film’s threat, but even then his sanity would diminish and the prosecutions he shepherded would collapse. His transformation as Two-Face was never manna from heaven as Fannich or the film’s detractors have stated over the years since its release.
“This villain has a nominal mission. He wants to corrupt the incorruptible, and reveal that common civility is a mask. “I’m not a monster,” he says. “I’m just ahead of the curve.” If you believe that line — there’s no reason to believe anything he says — then this is the second straight Batman baddie whose motivations are purely (and totally) destructive. These are characters unadorned by any personal life, and their henchmen have no personality. (Back in 1989, the Joker had a girlfriend, a boss, and a best pal — all people he wound up killing, sure, but that’s still a character arc.)”
After more rambling, Fanich finally states a semi-coherent, albeit false, point in this. Fannich states the Joker’s ultimate motivations, which ricochet between senseless ruin and the collapse of the good in Gotham’s common people, then he rejects this in favor of denialism over the Joker’s story arc in order to prop up the Joker from Batman (1989). The personal lives of Heath Ledger’s Joker and his henchmen are irrelevant in the grand scheme of the film, but it’s undeniably fascinating that, unlike the League of Shadows in this trilogy’s surrounding installments, they’re only loyal to the Joker out of fear and being traded off to him after the deaths of Gambol and the Chechen.
“There are Bat-stories where everyone is fun, freaky, and unknowable — not just one Joker in a sea of grim faces. Dark Knight doesn’t hit me anymore, and I don’t want it not to hit me. I only care when I remember.”
This is simply more implicit bias towards Tim Burton’s Batman wrapped up alongside the misinformed notion that the Joker defines the entire identity of The Dark Knight (and by extension its trilogy as a whole).
“Multiple blockbusters copied the Joker’s whole I-meant-to-get-captured prison gambit: Skyfall, Avengers, Star Trek Into Darkness. Nolan even xeroxed himself. “Was getting caught part of your plan?” asks the baffled good guy. “Of course!” says the villain. That dialogue comes early in Dark Knight’s sequel, one of the worst movies ever made.”
The opening sequence of The Dark Knight Rises, aside from a superficial similarity to the Joker’s, doesn’t resemble The Dark Knight’s opening in the least and should be evaluated on its own merits. Aside from introducing Bane and the inside mechanisms of his new League of Shadows, his capture of Dr. Pavel is crucial towards Gotham’s eventual near-annihilation.
“Where to begin with 2012’s The Dark Knight Rises? Batman is a public enemy, except all the good cops love him and the nice children worship him.”
You must not be familiar with the concept of outlaws being idolized by common folk (John Dillinger and Che Guevara to name a few). The Dark Knight trilogy was careful in its strides concerning Batman’s public reputation; instead of lavish street parades like in Spider-Man 3 or the Marvel Cinematic Universe, something as simple as his legend being passed down through the years by orphans at St. Switins Home For Boys speaks volumes. The visual motif of the chalk bat symbol drawn by Mark, a fellow orphan, and John Blake is one of the film’s most enduring visual leitmotifs. “Nice children worship him” is conundrum because these orphans don’t account for all of Gotham’s children, and their purpose is woefully ignored. After all, Bruce spent years after The Dark Knight investing in their home and other charities in Gotham; you know, deeds that certain people believe that Bruce Wayne doesn’t do in favor of “beating up poor people” (which is a near-complete falsehood on its own). It’s unknown whether all police officers condemn Batman, but John Blake is the only one who identifies with him and gives him the drive to investigate Bane and care about Gotham, beyond his interests.
“Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway) thinks her apartment is economically dire, but we clearly see it’s a hip boho studio.”
There is such thing as having an adequate house or apartment and struggling economically. Selina Kyle loves fashion, and the stylistic leanings of her and her partner Jen lend their apartment some character; that’s peripheral to their economic suffering. You probably would’ve complained if their apartment was a stereotypically gross and shoddy setting that you’re used to seeing in movies and second-rate TV shows.
“Instead of just killing Batman, Bane (Tom Hardy) sends him to an underground prison. It is referred to as “hell,” “hell on earth,” and “the worst hell on earth.” In this horrible place, Batman must survive the ferocious advances of a helpful chiropractor, an informative blind seer, and the supportive community of inmates who cheer each other on during escape attempts. Hell is Positive Reinforcement.”
Bane and Talia al Ghul’s decision to not kill Batman is not a plot hole. Striking Bruce Wayne after eight years of inactivity in his lycra, crippling him, and sending him to a deep underground prison (viewers can underestimate how deep the prison is just from our TV screens) is reasonable enough since he hypothetically wouldn’t have much left to stand on. Many of the prisoners are older and unable to escape with ease, let alone have the courage to climb the wall without the rope. Bruce’s physical and mental plight is made abundantly clear without the need to excruciatingly profile each prisoner; let’s also not forget that a component of his arc in prevailing again is discovering his need to embrace his fear rather than overcoming it. His inability to do this is what holds him back from escaping despite retraining. Logically, his fellow prisoners are supportive of Bruce since they were unjustly imprisoned by Bane and want to escape. Bane is an international terrorist who took ownership of The Pit after the Warlord’s reign ended, so nobody would dare try and release the prisoners; they have to escape themselves.
That “helpful chiropractor”, Bruce’s caretaker, might’ve helped him heal physically (a grueling process that took many days) and provided him hints of Bane’s backstory, but he’s discouraging of Bruce’s desire to escape The Pit and doubts his inability to do so. He patronizes Bruce on several occasions, and the last time he does is when he sarcastically comments on Bruce packing up his supplies before escaping. As for Bruce Wayne’s injury, his back was not broken, it was dislocated. Misaligned vertebrae heal fast since no bones were broken (Bruce’s caretaker told him, “You have protruding vertebrae… I’m going to force it back…”), and despite the fact that ligaments take over a year to fully recover, Bruce’s three-and-a-half-months in The Pit are enough to stabilize him enough so he can escape.
“Bane himself is totally invulnerable, except for the face tubes he wears on the most accessible part of his face. Don’t you dare tickle those face tubes.”
There’s never any evidence or claim that Bane is “invulnerable” (remember his death at the hands of Catwoman?). Since knowledge of Bane was limited before The Pit, Batman had none concerning the anesthetic gas that feeds Bane, hence him focusing on his mask more in their second fight. He attempted to punch it a few times during their first duel, which Bane tauntingly accepts. But, each time he did that, Bane would grab his fist after a hit or two to prevent him from punching it more.
“A big swing for topicality is the much-discussed Dent Act, which has created some kind of local Guantanamo. A complicated portrayal of post-9/11 overreach? The only inmates we see are gun-hoisting bad dudes, while the entire Gotham P.D. winds up in a self-sacrificing battle to stop an actual nuclear blast. You’re getting the general pointless mood here, so many important things turning irrelevant. Batman gets stabbed, it doesn’t matter. Batman sacrifices himself, he doesn’t.”
Given the extension for Gotham’s corruption in much of Batman media up to The Dark Knight, The Dent Act is a logical conclusion to this. It only fixed Gotham City superficially by having Gothamites sacrifice many of their rights for peace, and given the abuse of power by local governments in America, this is an essential allegory. The “gun-hoisting bad dudes” don’t represent all of those loyal to Bane and Talia’s cause, but they’re important since they represent many of the people who are unfortunately exploited by these antagonists to serve justification for destroying Gotham City (to which they came closer than the first two films’ antagonists to fulfilling).
Batman’s stabbing at the hands of Talia al Ghul does matter, literally and figuratively, and his ability to survive this is because he was stabbed between the rib by the liver area, in which stab wounds, including liver wounds, are known to be non-fatal if no major artery is hit. Considering Talia told Bane not to shoot him after she stabbed him because she wanted Batman to live and “Feel the fire of twelve-million souls (he) failed”, we can assume it isn’t fatal. Batman was also wearing the same type of body armor that allowed him to survive Harvey Dent’s gunshot and evade Gordon’s police officers.
Batman’s alleged sacrifice is important because, upon first viewing, people who didn’t foresee the twist feel this through the eyes of John Blake and Gothamites. Bruce’s escape and ultimate salvation are rewarding, not flippant according to Fanich’s standards.
“Hathaway’s attempts at theatrical impudence get swatted down by thinkpiece-y dialogue. “Everything we do is collated and quantified,” she has to explain, “Everything sticks.””
By this logic, then the Joker’s theatrical antics and intellectual dialogue in The Dark Knight are hokum, but Hathaway’s Selina Kyle works because she juxtaposes her street-smart, flamboyant identity as Catwoman with intellectual superiority as Selina Kyle, hence her lines to Bruce at Miranda Tate’s charity ball.
“Marion Cotillard has to be boring for 140 minutes until it turns out she is the daughter of Ra’s al Ghul (Liam Neeson, whose spooooky cameo is the single worst scene in Nolan’s filmography.)”
Despite Marion Cotillard’s weak death scene as Talia al Ghul, many critics have commended her performance (including award nominations and a win from the Hollywood Film Awards; yes they count). Cotillard lends Miranda Tate/Talia her brand of intellectualism and sensitivity in early scenes; she is important to the prosperity of Gotham, her manipulations of Bruce are clever and provide him with false hope for a better future, and we’re given hints to her past in poverty through her tender time by the firepit with Bruce. Not boring in the least. Contrary to what Fanich here implies, there were plenty of hints to the film’s reveal of her as Talia: her talk of restoring balance to Gotham, her initiation scar which looked suspicious to Bruce at first glance, and her being present when the resistance movements in Gotham City are stopped by Bane’s mercenaries.
Ra’s al Ghul’s cameo is worthy of this film for several reasons: symbolizing Ras’ immortality from the comics to film by means of his mission being enacted beyond the grave, and exemplifying Bruce’s mental trauma in the “worst hell on Earth”. It’s logical that this occurs due to the combination of said mental trauma in addition to enduring physical distress without painkillers and his knowledge of Ra’s al Ghul being compounded by what he was told by his Caretaker. Bruce falsely piecing together that Ras’s child was Bane was visualized by his hallucination.
“The weirdest thing about the Talia twist is the obvious point missed. She is avenging her dead father. If Bruce had saved him in that Batman Begins train crash, would she have bothered spending a near-decade plotting slow-knife vengeance? Don’t expect self-awareness.”
Taking plot points and character arcs out of context is the nature of Fanich’s game. Talia isn’t merely avenging her father’s death; it’s about cleansing Gotham in the vision of the League of Shadows, thus making an ultimate statement to the world of what civilization needs to not become. Playing whataboutism with Batman saving Ra’s al Ghul or not is irrelevant. It’s implied that Talia, as Miranda Tate, wanted to heal Gotham financially, which is a pivotal reason for investing in the fusion reactor. Because of Dr. Pavel’s paper that warned of how fusion energy can be harnessed for warfare, Bruce mothballed the clean energy project out of paranoia and enraged her. This motivated her and Bane, as their desires were mutual, to destroy Gotham and Bruce once and for all. Since the bomb is fusion energy, it doesn’t leave behind radioactive waste. This is consistent with the League of Shadows’ goals to eradicate Gotham City without hell to pay for the environment. The truth about the Dent Act also validated Bane and Talia’s overarching plans.
“Rises exudes hysterical confidence, even as it regurgitates fan service in place of inspiration. “Yes, Mr. Wayne,” says Lucius (Morgan Freeman), “It does come in black.” Gag. Robin, gag gag gag.”
The Dark Knight Rises has inspiration in abundance that originates from the film’s individual identity rather than the rabid fanservice of other IP films and video games like Ghostbusters: Afterlife or Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. Lucius Fox saying “Yes Mr. Wayne, it does come in black.” is not merely a reference to that famous quote from Batman Begins, it’s the type of cheeky humor commonly exchanged between Bruce and Lucius throughout this trilogy. John Blake being Robin is organic as he’s a composite of three Robins from Batman’s mythos: Tim Drake, Dick Grayson, and Jason Todd. His reveal as Robin is offputting for certain viewers, but to others, it was rightfully cathartic for this trilogy-capper and rewarded investment for casual viewers of Batman and Robin in film.
“In the Dark Knight Rises chapter of his book The Nolan Variations, the (generally wonderful) film writer Tom Shone references Edmund Burke, Thomas Carlyle, and Marlon Brando’s role in Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now. Nolan and his collaborators, we learn, examined Fritz Lang’s Metropolis and Gillo Pontecorvo’s The Battle of Algiers for inspiration. Hahahahahahaha! All this for a movie starring Tom Hardy as a steroidal big toe who sounds like a James Mason wind turbine.”
Good golly, if there was more hard proof required that you need to trade your Entertainment Weekly credentials for a room at a clickbait webzine, then this is it.
“Seemingly every major genre saga of the last couple decades built to some final act equivalent to The Dark Knight Rises, with a final rally-the-troops showdown against ultimate evil. I used to think this was a metaphorical reaction to real-world events: The “Voldemort is [fill in your political villain]” theory of culture. You constantly heard some variation of the same line, There’s a war coming. “You’ve given me an army,” says Batman in Rises.”
The Dark Knight Rises’ spectacle and coincidental similarities with a rallying climax are superficial similarities to these other pop culture events referenced. The spectacle is primarily a byproduct of the plot, themes, and characters at hand. It explores the long-prophecized collapse of Gotham’s society being hauled to its most bitter conclusion, and how many of the common people rise above it (not just Bruce Wayne and his allies). What separates this film from many blockbusters of the end-of-days type (The Matrix Revolutions, Alice in Wonderland) are how legitimate the stakes are, the progression of familiar characters, and the agency of new ones amidst all of the anarchy surrounding them. The Dark Knight Rises is a rare superhero venture to transcend its pulp roots as a timeless epic; this route back to the influences that were written about by Tom Shone in his novel, and Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities was the primary influence above all. There will be more Batman films, but likely never another one, let alone a blockbuster, like The Dark Knight Rises. Will there ever be another mainstream epic with the scope of Dickens and Eisenstein that dares even to risk alienating its audience, and serve as a definitive stand-alone film? Time will tell.
