Last Batman movie: The Legend ends?0

Written by Cheng Hui Jie

The painful 4-year wait is finally over. Inception Director Christopher Nolan brought Christian Bale back for his final instal­ment to his epic Batman tril­ogy – The Dark Knight Rises. Batman lovers look out, for it may just be your best Batman movie yet!

Director Nolan never fails to work his magic and made sure that The Dark Night Rises had a well-thought out plot with an awe­some cast that put every one of his Batman movies on par, if not, bet­ter than the antecedent(s).

A good exam­ple of Nolan’s great choice of actors would be how Australian actor Heath Ledger’s leg­endary por­trayal of the Batman vil­lain, the Joker, left a deep impres­sion on us for the sec­ond Batman movie and many reck­oned that this sequel can never beat that. I was one of those who thought so but I changed my mind and still can­not decide which one I liked more.

How about a refresh from the top on how our Dark Knight came about?

(Skip to the last movie if you are a well-read avid Batman fan)

In the first movie:

Bruce Wayne, the orphan bil­lion­aire, was trained with all the skills he needed (maybe more than needed) to avenge his par­ents’ death by a mys­te­ri­ous organ­i­sa­tion called League of Shadows, which, he later found out, was aimed at ‘restor­ing bal­ance’ by destroy­ing the ‘evil Gotham city’. Hence, Batman was born as Wayne tried to destroy the League by killing their leader, Ra’s al Ghul, but later dis­cov­ered who he killed was only a decoy.

In the sec­ond movie:

Batman con­tin­ued sav­ing Gotham from Harvey Dent, a well-loved dis­trict attor­ney activist, who was crip­pled by the Joker and turned into mur­der­ous lunatic known as ‘Two-face’. Instead of break­ing the cit­i­zens’ hearts with the truth that their ‘White Knight’ became evil, Batman con­vinced com­mis­sioner Jim Gordon (played by Gary Oldman) to tell the peo­ple that he mur­dered their noble hero, Harvey Dent. Batman was hence hated and named the ‘Dark Knight’.

Now, for the last movie:

The Dark Knight Rises was based on the lie the Gotham cit­i­zens lived with, still believ­ing that Harvey Dent was the man who made organ­ised crime impos­si­ble and hat­ing Batman for his mur­der even after 8 years have passed. It was quite dis­ap­point­ing yet refresh­ing to see how Bruce Wayne has become all wasted and shaggy for the period that fugi­tive Batman went miss­ing. It is not every­day that you get to see a super­hero look­ing so weak and help­less! Will he be able to make a come­back as Batman from his self-imposed exile and save Gotham from the real leader of the League of Shadows this time? Hope seems bleak.

For a movie that was sup­posed to wrap things up, it sure brought up quite a few new char­ac­ters to be intro­duced. Firstly, we have the sup­pos­edly new ulti­mate vil­lain, Bane, played by yet another won­der­ful actor –Tom Hardy (Inception). I must applaud how Hardy man­aged to make this fero­cious char­ac­ter work even when he was unen­cum­bered by the mask on his face for the whole time. However, that huge mask cov­ered so much of his face that you could put any other mus­cu­lar dude for the role! I also found it irri­tat­ing how his lines were pretty much inaudi­ble with the mask ampli­fy­ing his muf­fled voice unnecessarily.

We could have seen more of him! Did I men­tion that he is a cutie in real life? 

“ This is the first time Batman has come across any­body that is supe­rior, phys­i­cally.” — Christian Bale

“I remem­ber see­ing Christian in a make-up chair. There was a 3 year-old boy in me that (said) that’s Batman!” Tom Hardy showed his adorable fan boy side in an exten­sive fea­turette released and also warned Batman cheek­ily, “There’s a new kid in town!”

Leave it to Anne Hathaway (The Princess Diaries & The Devil Wears Prada) who plays the slinky and sexy Cat woman to spice things up. To be hon­est, I have never been a huge fan of Cat Woman nor Anne Hathaway’s and I did not expect this great per­for­mance from her this time. Not only did she look purr-fect in her feline suit, she made Cat Woman a dan­ger­ous char­ac­ter that men can­not decide whether to love or fear. As a glammed up les­bian ass-kicking cat bur­glar, she eas­ily caught Wayne’s atten­tion. Do bats and cats go along well? We will have to see about that! Hathaway impressed Director Nolan so much that he might con­sider her for a solo Cat woman spin-off,

“ It’s just a delight to watch her per­form. … She’s an incred­i­ble char­ac­ter and we’re very excited to see her and hope­fully we’ll leave peo­ple want­ing more.”

Sharing the role of femme fatale is Miranda Tate (played by Marion Cotillard), a phil­an­thropist who sup­ported Wayne’s return to soci­ety. The French actress is yet another out­stand­ing cast mem­ber from Inception and I must say, her accent was pretty hard to deci­pher, yet, it was ele­gant. The adorable child actress, Joey King, was cho­sen to play the young Miranda.

We also have Inception eye candy Joseph Gordon Levitt as the hot­headed Detective John Robin Blake. He bedaz­zled us with his boy­ish good looks and was depicted as an ide­al­is­tic orphan who believes in what he does and most impor­tantly, he believes in Bruce Wayne and Batman. He was respon­si­ble for res­cu­ing com­mis­sioner Jim Gordon and putting the cun­ning Selina Kyle (Cat Woman) behind bars. He might just be the next big hero of Gotham City!

Next up, we have Morgan Freeman back as the tech­nol­ogy genius Lucius Fox. And yes, the Bat mobile can now fly! Witty as ever, Fox’s lines include “ I’d pre­fer to call it the Bat. And yes Mr. Wayne, it does come in black,” for the scene that he pre­sented Batman with his new toys. Need I say more?

Gary Oldman reprises his role as com­mis­sioner Jim Gordon. I loved his per­for­mance as Sirius Black in Harry Potter and admired his efforts in mak­ing the bor­ing com­mis­sioner char­ac­ter stand out in this film. Michael Caine is also back as Wayne’s but­ler, Alfred. Both fan­tas­tic actors did not make many appear­ances in the film but for the few scenes that they were in, they cer­tainly wowed audi­ences. Look out for Alfred’s tear-jerking emo­tional scenes with Wayne!

Ever won­dered if Tony Stark or Bruce Wayne is richer? The hand­some Christian Bale suits up once again for Batman in the same suit from the pre­vi­ous instal­ment but this time, with a much frag­ile body and a stronger mind and soul. Blamed for a fraud he never com­mit­ted, Batman turned from Billionaire to Bum. His poor health and shock­ing phys­i­cal appear­ance (he needs a cane now) wor­ries us even more though. Check out this hilar­i­ous con­ver­sa­tion he made with his doctor!

(Cameo by Thomas Lennon)

“I have seen worse car­ti­lage on knees,” says the doctor.

” That’s good!” Batman replied in delight before he was told,

“No, that’s because there is no car­ti­lage in your knee. (With) Scar tis­sue on your kid­neys (and) con­cus­sive dam­age to your brain tis­sue, I can­not rec­om­mend that you go heli-skiing.”

Nonetheless, there were still some tiny loop­holes in this por­ten­tous mas­ter­piece film. Certain areas of the film were quite ridicu­lous and there were romance scenes com­ing out from nowhere. Parts of it were a lit­tle long-winded with slow pro­gres­sion in scenes but did involve many action-packed fast moments that can make your heart skip a beat!

No offence, but I per­son­ally felt that this was more amaz­ing than The Amazing Spider-Man. Let’s hear what our purr-retty and tal­ented Cat woman (Sorry, Halle Berry! ) has to say about this:

“ I’m not say­ing this as a cast mem­ber. I’m say­ing this as a mem­ber of the acad­emy. So far, it’s the best film I’ve seen all year.” — Anne Hathaway

Since the made-to-impress tril­ogy fit­ted per­fectly, here’s an awe­some ulti­mate tril­ogy trailer Nolan released to feast your eyes on.

Catch this incred­i­ble film in cin­e­mas island-wide now! (Not shown in 3D format)