I just got home from seeing a marathon of Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight films, including the new one, and I have to work out some thoughts. I kept this spoiler free, but most of these ideas will make more sense after you’ve seen it, which (spoiler alert?) I strongly recommend you do.
- The biggest question, of course, is how good is it? Does The Dark Knight Rises live up to the other films, especially the second? Certainly it’s an excellent work, and I’ll be honest that my preference is for the new film (even though I eventually loved The Dark Knight), but I’m fairly confident that most people will say that they thought The Dark Knight was even better. Most fans of the series will still opt for its darker, more complex vision. Fair enough.
- But consider that they are very different movies. TDK was a dense, episodic thriller. In fact, watching it again during tonight’s marathon, I was struck by just how much ground Nolan covered. TDKR, however, is a more linear narrative, with a single focus, albeit one that constantly crescendos to an emotionally explosive climax. Where TDK packed in as much of everything as possible, TDKR actually goes out of its way to strip down the distractions of excessive characters and subplots so it can develop its primary interests as much as possible.
