In a precarious place

Revelations from The Dark Knight Rises: Batman is older, Bane is meaner & Balehangs up his cape

The latest issue of Empire Magazine has revealed some interesting information regarding Christopher Nolan’s final Batman film, The Dark Knight Rises. Along with a few new images, the article contains choice quotes from the film’s lead villain, Bane (played by Tom Hardy), and the director that shed new light on potential plot points and character development.

One tidbit that stands out is Nolan’s revelation that the film takes place eight years after the trilogy’s second film, The Dark Knight. Says the director:

It's really all about finishing Batman and Bruce Wayne's story. We left him in a very precarious place. Perhaps surprisingly for some people, our story picks up quite a bit later, eight years after The Dark Knight. So he’s an older Bruce Wayne — he’s not in a great state.”

This raises more questions about what some have speculated — or more accurately, fantasized — about since Nolan announced this would be his last Batman film: Will the plot or character have any relation to artist Frank Miller’s '90s-era portrayal of the caped crusader? Miller’s comic classic centers around an aging Batman; a slower, angrier, less combative hero who struggles both physically and psychologically with his ability to fight crime.

In the comic, Batman is viewed by Gotham’s people as more of a burden than ever, and when the hero causes clumsy destruction, it becomes something he begins to believes. This notion that Gotham doesn’t need Batman is a motif that Nolan highlighted in The Dark Knight, so it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to expect him to further explore that idea through an older Bruce Wayne.

Empire Magazine reveals some interesting information about Christopher Nolan’s final Batman film, The Dark Knight Rises. One tidbit that stands out is Nolan’s revelation that the film takes place eight years after the trilogy’s second film.

Additionally, Nolan confirmed that the prologue set to play before Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol in IMAX “is basically the first six, seven minutes of the film. It's an introduction to Bane, and a taste of the rest of the film."

Nolan went on to say: “With Bane, we're looking to give Batman a challenge he hasn't had before. With our choice of villain and with our choice of story we're testing Batman both physically as well as mentally." It seems Nolan is referring to two events in the Batman canon: one from the comics and one from his previous film.

In The Dark Knight, Batman fails to save politician Harvey Dent from one of The Joker’s twisted schemes, a misstep The World’s Greatest Detective is blamed for. And in one of the photos released by Empire, Bane is standing on the steps of a Gotham building holding up a picture of Harvey Dent. Is he inciting the citizens of Gotham to rebel against the hero they never needed? This would coincide nicely with the theme that Batman is no longer needed to protect the city, and in his older age feels compelled to hang up the batsuit.

Nolan could also be referring to Batman #497, "The Man Who Broke The Bat," when he says Batman will be tested physically. In this issue, Bane attacks an exhausted Bruce Wayne in the batcave, delivering a back-breaking final blow that leaves the hero paralyzed. Further evidence for this premise comes in a Tom Hardy quote from the same Empire article: “[Bane’s] brutal. He's a big dude who's incredibly clinical... The style is heavy-handed, heavy-footed, it's nasty.

"Anything from small-joint manipulation to crushing skulls, crushing rib cages, stamping on shins and knees and necks and collarbones and snapping heads off and tearing his fists through chests, ripping out spinal columns.” Okay, so the Dark Knight probably won’t have his spine ripped out, but Nolan is notorious for making his Batman films dismally bleak, and what better way to achieve that mood than by making one of the world’s most iconic superheroes paraplegic?

This movie will end arguably the definitive Batman film series. One gives serious depth to what was once confined to the realm of popcorn action flick.

Thanks to Empire, we now have more to speculate about before The Dark Knight Rises' release. And whether or not Nolan’s film will incorporate any of the ideas mentioned is really beside the point; what matters is that this movie will end what's arguably become the definitive Batman film series.

The series has been masterfully crafted as a cohesive whole over a period of seven years, paying careful attention to the nuances of a masked crime fighter protecting a city filled with people that aren’t sure if they want him there, and which gives serious depth to what was once confined to the realm of popcorn action flick.

Nolan’s Batman may not retire come July 20, 2012, but it’s comforting knowing he will bow out gracefully before the audience begins to share some of the disdain Gotham citizens have felt for years.

Also hanging up his cape: Christian Bale. The actor, who portayed Batman in two previous highly-successful movies directed by Nolan (Batman Begins in 2005 and The Dark Knight in 2008), told the Phillipine Daily Inquirer:

I wrapped a few days ago so that will be the last time I'm taking that cowl [Batman hood] off. I believe that the whole production wrapped yesterday, so it's all done. Everything's finished. It's me and Chris - that will be the end of that Batman era."

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Movie Review

Spielberg-inspired movie The End of Oak Street is a dino-snore

Photo by Daniel McFadden

Ewan McGregor and Anne Hathaway in The End of Oak Street.

Steven Spielberg is the iconic director of the last 50 years, so it’s no surprise that many other filmmakers have borrowed from his classic films. But most of the time those come in the form of references or homages, not straight up theft, which is what it feels like watching The End of Oak Street play out in front of your eyes.

Set in the early 1980s in an idyllic suburban neighborhood of an unnamed city, Denise (Anne Hathaway) and Greg (Ewan McGregor) are parents to two teenagers, Audrey (Maisy Stella) and Brian (Christian Convery). They’re also possibly heading toward divorce, as Audrey is secretly writing a novel with a thinly-veiled plot about their life, and Brian is cagey about having to earn extra money with a pizza delivery job.

That all gets put on the backburner when a mysterious event takes their entire neighborhood back to the time of dinosaurs. Armed with little more than a shotgun and sledgehammer, Audrey and Brian do their best to keep the family safe in their house. But the longer the ordeal goes on, circumstances force them out onto the streets and into the increasing danger that’s all around them.

Written and directed by David Robert Mitchell, the film tries immensely hard to be like the Spielberg movies its filmmaker clearly adores, but fails at almost every turn. It never earns the broken family in ‘80s suburbia vibes that were prevalent in E.T., going all in right away in the opening scene with a neighborhood block party that feels forced. Other elements like a bully who has it out for Brian, the family dog that disappears, and an angry neighbor come across as the tropes they are and not as organic parts of the plot.

When it finally gets to its dinosaur sequences, they pale in comparison to those found in Jurassic Park. The strange manner in which the dinosaurs appear is a big part of that, but the action involving them forgoes ominous moments that could build tension for those that play up gore in an unexpected way for a PG-13 movie. Many of the attacks have so little emotional meaning that they come off as comical, which is entertaining but in a hollow way.

As if those weren’t enough, Mitchell — perhaps at the behest of producer J.J. Abrams (who made his own Spielbergian film, Super 8) — tries to honor Spielberg in other ways. Just like in Jaws, he employs the use of a split diopter lens, which keeps characters in both the foreground and background in focus. But instead of using it judiciously, it’s brought out in three separate scenes, including a laughable one with the four family members where it turns into overkill.

Hathaway, coming off of a role in The Odyssey that could earn her an Oscar nomination, is the best part of this film. But even her evident skills are dragged down by the ridiculousness of the story, which requires hysterics that even she can’t sell. McGregor can normally be counted on for a good performance, but he gives several line readings with strange cadences that make his already-underwritten character come off worse. Stella and Convery are okay, but their roles are unmemorable overall.

Mitchell and his team can never settle on exactly what type of film they were trying to make, and so even though The End of Oak Street has a few moments that work, they’re surrounded by many others that don’t. In trying to emulate Spielberg — there’s even a blatant Back to the Future (produced by Spielberg) rip-off towards the end — all Mitchell has done is show how difficult it is to be the master.

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The End of Oak Street opens in theaters on August 14.