The Dark Knight Rises!!?? Why?? Oh Why??

Finally after a week's delay and under some trepidation I did watch the concluding movie of the Christopher Nolan Batman Trilogy and let me tell you I didn't really get it. I am not trying to go against the tide here, but the fact remains that I didn't really get it.

I am not a comic aficionado, however with whatever little knowledge I possess Batman is the most endearing of all the superheroes. He is not an alien with super natural powers like Superman, neither is he a born genius with a brash attitude like Iron man. Keep the flashy toys aside and on the outside Bruce Wayne seems to be a person just like you and me, battling not only the bad guys tormenting Gotham but also fighting the demons within and trying to get over his numerous tragedies. Batman never single handedly saves the day. Is it as he puts it, "Anyone can be a hero" and it is this inclusiveness which draws me towards him. It is this vulnerability that maybe he might fail or lets say die trying to save the city which makes me look up to the Batman.

'The Dark Knight Rises' didn't work for me. It somehow didn't make sense. No, I am not talking about the sheer brilliance of the cinematography or the special effects employed. In the next few paragraphs I will be enumerating just why this didn't work for me. I hope that my friends who I am aware are Nolan fans and who absolutely dig the Batman can come to my rescue and help me see the light.

The Masked Men:

I have never understood the logic as to why Nolan would change Bale's voice once he dons the Bat-suit. The Batman's voice is downright guttural that at least I have had difficulties in picking up what he says all along. I am not sure if it is this handicap which hampers Batman from giving out monologues. If you notice all that he says is abrupt. At least I felt on quite a few occasions that he wanted to say much more but simply couldn't thanks to the nature of the Bat-suit. It seems to be a speech impediment that anything else. In his verbal encounters with the Catwoman he is woefully short of wit or should I say speech.

Add Bane to the mixture and now you have two masked men on screen talking in rasping, guttural voices which many times I found hard to decipher. I was half hoping that the film will come to my rescue by providing subtitles but to no avail. Bane tone is understandable as the mask is a device which is supposed to keep pain at bay, I am ready to understand that the injuries he suffered may have changed the way he speaks and that the mask also alters it but subtitles would have helped the audience appreciate it a bit more. As for the Batman's voice, I have not been able to find a plausible reason.

Bane v/s Batman

So who is the real villain of the movie, Bane or Ms Tate? Tate's only villainous act for the entire movie apart from stabbing Batman once and maybe sleeping with Bruce Wayne is confusing the audience as to where Bruce Wayne's heart lies. If you ask me, I wouldn't have wanted the Catwoman to be tied down with love. Wasn't it the love-hate relationship between the two which was the recurring themes of the comics where the Catwoman was also featured?

For all the likeliness I am considering Bane to be the villain in the movie. Isn't it amazing the both the hero and his nemesis have woefully less screen time? It is only twice that the two are face to face and the fist fights which ensue are well what can I say not imaginative at all. I mean Sherlock Holmes got into much better fistfights I daresay. 

To top it all, the twist in the climax, reduces Bane from an all powerful nemesis to an accomplice a number two. Not cool I say!!! Also the prison doctor (who talks in the foreign tongue) talks about the kid that escaped but fails to mention that it was a girl. I mean isn't it worth mentioning that it was not only a child but a girl child who did it? Another thing amazes me is that the prison doctor mentions about the protector but curiously Bruce Wayne does not press further to know who the protector might have been. The subtitles would have also helped here rather than having another character translate stuff. It would have been perfectly believable for the Batman to understand the foreign tongue. Isn't he trained by the Ra's al Ghul?

The Nuke and Bruce Wayne

Batman picks up the nuke with the Bat (the chopper which he flies and which doesn't have autopilot) and flies it off to the horizon where it blasts and the city is safe again. Wouldn't it have been more promising for Batman go up in space and let the nuke explode there? Do I hear you say that he isn't Superman to do that feat or that the nuke was a small one with a blast radius of 6 miles? Whatever be the reason I somehow found it lame for the Batman to carry the nuke far off and then have it blast out there over the horizon. Remember a certain Abhishek Bachchan doing the same shit in a Bollywood movie named 'Dus' and how you laughed about it!!! Well this is no different, isn't it??

As if this was not enough, the legend didn't end there. Through different scenes in the post-Bane Gotham we are led to believe that Bruce Wayne isn't dead. It all culminates with Alfred acknowledging Bruce sitting with the Catwoman in a cafe in Florence which he frequents during his summer vacation. So what am I to believe that the nuke got Batman but Bruce lives? Also that shot where Fox discovers that the autopilot was fixed, I didn't really understand. When they check the tag are they sitting in another Bat? Or the Bat which the Batman flew on that ill fated flight had the auto pilot corrected before hand? That was all confusing and outright unbelievable. 

I did start talking about the above points with the folks with whom I watched the movie, but they brushed it aside saying that its only a movie. My retort I am sure most of you will understand, "When its Christopher Nolan its not only a movie"!!!!

I rest my case!!!!