After enjoying The Dark Knight mainly for Heath Ledgers performance but also for the refreshingly dark narrative of the film, I had fairly high hopes for The Dark Knight Rises.
The lack of Batman himself is probably what I enjoyed most about this film and the lack of hearing his irritating voice that I can barely understand and sounds somewhat more like his car engine than an actual human voice. But perhaps the fact that Banes voice was really what I had not expected it to be and was rather humorous made up for Batman’s terrible voice, which for some reason he can’t seem to find a gadget to help him change his voice with all that money he throws around and does a hideous job of changing it himself. Although I guess I didn’t really intend on writing a review on the voices of The Dark Knight Rises. A great disappointment was that of Anne Hathaway joining the cast as Catwoman, not only was I disappointed when I saw she was to play the role, I was disappointed when watching her actually portray it. Whilst Hathaway’s performance failed to interest me, Christian Bale was on par once again with another solid performance of Batman.
The Dark Knight was easy enough to follow despite not seeing Batman Begins which made it surprising when I was watching and struggling to follow The Dark Knight Rises feeling as if I should have watched Batman begins before hand and as if not doing so I was missing some valuable information.
The visual gritty, dark appearance of the film dramatically adds to the mood of the film and connects with the characters emotions. The narrative was sophisticated and engaging for it developed the character of Batman much greater than The Dark Knight did. The Dark Knight Rises continues to ask whether money gives, or should give you power. With Batman’s money, does it really give him the right to run around the city of Gotham dressed up as a leather bat fighting crime? The theme of heroes and villains is the most noticeable and addresses that neither do heroes or villains win and has a conclusion similar to Japanese block-buster Death Note.
Sacrifice is also a theme within the Batman series and shown through characters such as Batman and Harvey Dent with the self sacrifices they chose to make for the city. But its obvious that justice is a leading theme around the Batman films, justice is served for a final time in this epic conclusion to the Batman series. If you liked The Dark Knight you’ll more than likely enjoy this one as well.