The Dark Knight Rises Analysis

 

The Dark Knight Rises is a 2012 action film that is the final chapter in Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy. The film fits into the sub-genre of superhero films, but still has all the normal conventions of an action film. The opening scene begins with an extreme long shot, showing a plane flying around a grassy mountain. The location is definitely eye-catching and makes the shot more visually interesting. Some background music also begins that sounds mysterious and builds tension. In the next shot we are inside the plane, and can see three men on their knees with bags over their heads and their hands tied, clearly being held captive.

The audience are also introduced to a man who we can connote works for the government by the way he mentions "the agency." The way this man fumbles to get his gun out of its holster and the fact this is shown in close-up suggests his inexperience or nerves. He is backed up by several soldiers, all in camo uniform and holding guns, showing the importance of whatever mission they are on. Another man who is a doctor is also in the plane, but the audience are unsure why at this point in the film so this raises questions. The agent then threatens to throw the captives who do not talk out of the plane. After firing the gun out of the plane door and pretending he shot one of the captives and threw him out of the plane, the man begins to interrogate the second captive. He says "tell me about Bane! Why does he wear the mask?" This raises questions for the audience themselves, who are now intrigued as to who Bane is themselves, why he is so important and why he wears a mask?

The third captive speaks up and outsmarts the agent, asking why he would bother to shoot a man before throwing him out of a plane. This shows this mysterious characters intelligence and confidence, as well as his importance as he is the only one out of the three captives to speak. The man speaks with an almost mechanical voice, letting the audience know there is something off about this character before he is revealed. The agent takes the characters head bag off very slowly, showing his cautiousness. When the bag is lifted we see a metal mask with lots of pipes that completely covers the lower half of his face. This makes the character seem more scary and raises more questions. The audience can assume this is the Bane the agent was asking about. Once the mask is off, Bane is always shot through a low angle to reflect his power and the agent is always shot from a high angle highlighting his weakness. Bane tells the agent the next part of his plan is to crash the plane they are on. A second larger plane is shown flying above the first, showing it to be a threat.

The background music has been gradually escalating throughout this scene, hinting at the oncoming action. A team of geared out professional-looking men rappel from the second plane down to the first, and fire machine guns through the windows from the outside, killing the soldiers. Rappelling is featured in the majority of action movies recently and is starting to turn into a cliche. The rappel men then use high-tech equipment to link the first plane to the second with wires, allowing them to tilt the first plane vertical. Banes strength is displayed as he prevents himself from falling down the plane aisle by pushing down on the plane seats, a shot that is taken from a very low-angle to highlight this strength. This subverts action stereotypes of making the villain less muscular and more inclined to fight with his brain.

After the men rappel into the plane and perform a blood transfusion between the doctor and a random man in a body bag, Bane and the doctor are hooked up to a wire and dragged out of the plane and towards the second plane. The first plane is shown slowly falling to the ground, guaranteed to kill anyone on board that is still alive. The large-scale action set-piece is a great film-opener, as it lets the audience know what to expect from the rest of the film. The villain is also introduced and the audience is shown the threat he imposes early on.