The Dark Knight Rises: In Defence of Christopher Nolan

With filming underway on The Dark Knight Rises it’s becoming increasingly difficult to avoid all of the leaks coming out of the production, with a new set photo or video seemingly cropping up every five minutes.



Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I wasn’t blown away by the spy shots of Tom Hardy as Bane, or by the voice he’s using for the character in the videos we’ve seen, or by the official image of Anne Hathaway as Catwoman, but I have to say that all the negativity that’s swirling around the internet this past week or so has left me a little baffled.



Firstly, let’s hand over to Hitler to get us up to speed with all the complaints that have been doing the rounds lately…









So basically it would appear that Bane is a midget, his voice is atrocious and Anne Hathaway’s Catwoman is going to be dreadful because she doesn’t have a mask. Judging by the comments that have been popping up on various message boards recently, Nolan’s about to follow in Joel Schumacher’s footsteps and deliver a sequel to make Batman & Robin look like a masterpiece… and all this from a few spy photos and videos that really don’t give us any indication of how the final film is likely to turn out.



When Heath Ledger was first announced as the Joker for The Dark Knight, I thought it was a terrible casting choice, and I was even more pissed when I seen the first picture of him in character. Fast-forward a few months and we got a look at Two-Face through some early concept shots; again, I thought it looked horrendous. Now I’m pretty sure I wasn’t in the minority with those opinions, but fast-forward another few months and Nolan blew us all away with the greatest superhero film ever made. All of the negativity was instantly forgotten as fanboys voted in their thousands to take The Dark Knight to the top of the IMDB Top 250 and Nolan was the greatest thing to ever happen to the Batman franchise, if not the world.



I’m not trying to suggest that The Dark Knight Rises will manage to top its predecessor, which quite frankly was always going to be a tall order, and I’m not even suggesting it’s going to be better than Batman Begins. However, I am suggesting that it’s going to better than what a lot of people are expecting at the moment, and I think it’s about time everyone calmed down a little.



So far, the only thing that’s given us any real indication of what the film is going to be like is the teaser trailer, and judging by the brief glimpse we see of Bane squaring up to Batman, he doesn’t look much like a midget to me. He looks fucking huge – and that’s just his shoulder. As for his voice, yeah it doesn’t sound great on a mobile phone video, but is that really how it’s going to sound in the final film? I’d be very surprised if that turns out to be the case. Until we hear him talk in a trailer, we haven’t heard him talk (let’s face it, the guy wears a mask – he could deliver his lines in Swahili on the set and it wouldn’t make the faintest bit of difference once his dialogue is dubbed in post-production). And lest we forget, Christian Bale’s Batman voice is bad, but that didn’t put people off Batman Begins or The Dark Knight. As for Catwoman, we’ve seen one shot of her (which was pretty much obscured by the Batpod) and I imagine the only reason Warner Bros. released that was to beat the spy photos to the punch. So she’s missing a mask, so what? The Joker was missing his white skin, and he still turned out great.



The worst thing about all this criticism is that the people condemning Christopher Nolan these past couple of weeks will be masturbating themselves silly over the next trailer, and there’s a strong chance they’ll be blind by the time the film comes out next July. They’ll also be the first to jump down anyone’s throat who dares to suggest that The Dark Knight Rises isn’t the greatest film of all time.



Nolan is yet to make a bad film and even if The Dark Knight Rises turns out to be his worst, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to be dreadful. The only reason people are so up in arms is because of how good The Dark Knight was, and maybe Batman fans have been a little bit spoilt by that. But the fact of the matter is, Nolan has pulled it off twice before and he doesn’t have anything to prove. The Dark Knight Rises won’t be as bad as Batman & Robin. It won’t be as bad as Batman Forever, or Batman Returns, or Batman. And even if it is, there’s always the reboot…



Gary Collinson