The Dark Knight Trilogy

 

The Dark Knight Trilogy

            Ufffff!!! The series I wanted to review the most. And will be tough not to make it a very long one!!

One of the greatest trilogies and the hottest topic of every movie forum. The series which created such a huge wave that changed the entire style of movie making in Hollywood. And I am not exaggerating it for the below reasons.

A decade after the crushing death of Batman movies, when fans put their hopes down and thought it’s impossible to picturize a man wearing a Bat costume and beating bad guys maintaining the dark gritty grounded world around him. Entered Chris Nolan, a new kid around the block with a promising talent. Who took up a lost character and made him the coolest super hero ever.

The 3 movies under the title - Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises.

Batman Begins: The movie that set a trend of reboots and the most original approach to an origin story. Origins are always predictable when it comes to the flow of the story but that’s where Nolan brought out his best skills, Screenplay and Non-linear story telling.

In a plot where the result of a motivation is easily predictable, Nolan mixed up the story-lines such that the result is shown 1st and made the audience wonder about the motivation. This kept the audience guessing at each and every turn of the movie and along with a much grounded screenplay created a gripping movie which was named the “BEST SUPERHERO MOVIE EVER”!!!

The grounded approach to the story with a strong flow of character development and sub plots, Nolan made the audience believe a Batman can exist in the real world.

It’s not easy to convince the audience that a Billionaire kid would become a Batman just because his parents were killed. Hence Nolan took a very fragile base character as Bruce Wayne and built a motivation in multiple layers piling up on each other. He made him go through series of events where his impulsive characterization just created more hatred and pain around him till he was pushed off the edge to become a completely lost psycho with some misunderstood principles.

Later taken up by his mentor Ra’s Al Ghul to refine his principles and to line up his deranged thoughts to make him what it takes to be a vigilantly. Each of them wanting the same result but different with methodologies turned them against each other. Ra’s Al Ghul’s characterization and principles made him a strong formidable villain who couldn’t be convinced. The thoughts puts by Ra into Bruce Wayne’s head i.e. strike fear in your enemies heart became the theme of the movie and a reason for Bruce Wayne to choose Bat as his symbol and conquer his fear(as a kid he feared bats the most and this fear led to his parent’s death).

The other aspects of the movie which made it feel so grounded were the sub plots involving Gordon, Alfred, Lucius and Rachel. The 1^st kind of super hero movie where the evolution of a man to a super hero was shown in steps distinctly, Nolan went as far as to even bring up the company that made his Bat ears. Also was 1^st super hero movie where the police were not just bunch of guys who showed up at the end with guns and walkie talkies. Nolan made sure the police force acted as they would in a real world to the situations that arose and with a multi layered plot made it look that their actions would have been in total vain if not for Batman.

Unlike other super heroes Batman never targeted petty thieves, bank robbers, saving his girlfriend from thugs etc. Batman’s goal was to remove crime/corruption from the core of the city, while other super heroes focused on the people, Batman focused on the city and to find a permanent solution which just increased the scale of the plot.

The movie had enough characters that made the plot look believable and each character had their importance for the plot. The plot was so well written that each and every element in the movie had a contribution to the plot without which the plot wouldn’t have been complete. Screenplay was packed with new ideas and fast paced. All in all Nolan created a new style of movie making which has inspired looooot of movies and reboots. Action was kept minimal and not the main theme of the movie but yet the few action scenes created enough character development around Batman to show what he is capable of. Of the 3, Batman begins remains Nolan’s best directed effort and created a believable dark gritty world where Batman fits in perfectly.

To add up and upscale the effect of the movie Nolan got in one of the greatest minds and a visionary in the field Hans Zimmer along with talented James Newton Howard. A mixture of fast paced, gloomy, gritty, explosive, slow background themes where each layer of the music provoked different feel and perception was just the perfect icing to the well made cake.

Summing up Batman Begins stands out as the most unique, well thought, a revolutionary, the best super hero movie of its time and one of the best movies made.

Review of The Dark Knight & The Dark Knight Rises coming soon....