Action Figure Planet: February 2014

The Dark Knight Rises

Christopher Nolan's blockbuster Batman film franchise finally ends in this third film called The Dark Knight Rises. After building up his Batman franchise to show realism with fear (Batman Begins) and anarchy (The Dark Knight) as the recurrent themes, The Dark Knight Rises finally descends our beloved film characters into utter chaos as a terrorist named Bane inspires Gotham's masses to rise up against the oligarchs and the rich and famous Gothamites. The movie in a way parallels the current social uprising in the U.S. Stock Exchange center, the Occupy Wall Street Movement. This third film of the trilogy finally puts Batman in full circle as he finally understands all of the madness that he has created since donning the cape and cowl as well as coming to terms with his parents' death. Christian Bale is joined in in this movie by Anne Hathaway (who plays the role of Selina Kyle/Catwoman), Tom Hardy (who plays the role of Bane), Marion Cotillard (who plays the role of Talia Al Ghul), Joseph Gordon-Levitt (who plays the role of Police Officer John Blake), as well as the returning stars Gary Oldman (Jim Gordon), Michael Caine (Alfred Pennyworth), Morgan Freeman (Lucius Fox), Cillian Murphy (Dr. Jonathan Crane), and Liam Neeson (Ra's Al Ghul), who appeared in flashback scenes and dream sequence.

Bane

The movie opens with Jim Gordon about to make a confession for covering up Harvey Dent's crimes in The Dark Knight. It has been 8 long years since Dent's death and Gotham now enjoys a low crime rate after the Gotham Police Department were granted special powers to eradicate crime in the city. This scene was followed by Bane's smashing airplane escape. This formally introduces Bane as Batman's main antagonist in the movie. For 8 years Batman had mysteriously disappeared and Bruce Wayne has went into reclusion as Gotham had appeared to finally rid itself of the crimes that made Bruce Wayne turn into Batman. Bruce has a chance encounter with a cat burglar named Selina Kyle, who attempted to rob Bruce's safe but was actually after Bruce's fingerprints. Selina wanted to sell the fingerprints to Bruce's business rival John Daggett. Selina was double crossed and went into hiding but not before alerting the police. Commissioner Gordon and his men chased Daggett's assistant into the sewers where they encountered Bane. Bane captures Gordon but Gordon manages to escape captivity and was rescued by a young police officer by the name of John Blake. This made way for Blake to earn Gordon's trust and had him promoted as detective under the auspices of Gordon.

Breaking of the Bat

Bane attacks the Gotham stocks exchange in an effort to bankrupt Wayne Industries and drive other elitist businesses to the ground. Meanwhile, Bruce's loyal butler and father figure Alfred Pennyworth, tries to dissuade Bruce from donning his Batman persona again, revealing to him that Rachel Dawes (who died in the last movie) was set to marry Harvey Dent whether Bruce gives up his Batman persona or not. Alfred resigns as Bruce's butler as he could no longer bear watching Bruce hurting himself. Bruce turns to Wayne Enterprises board member Miranda Tate to help him take control of Wayne Enterprises after finding out that some board members are conspiring to run the company to the ground. Batman seeks out Selina Kyle (Catwoman) to know the whereabouts of Bane in exchange of cleansing her criminal records. Selina instead leads Batman into a trap and a physical confrontation with Bane occurs. Bane reveals to Batman that he is here to fulfill Ra's Al Ghul's plans of destroying Gotham using the remnants of Al Ghul's League of Shadows. Bane successfully cripples Batman by breaking his back and imprison him deep inside a well-like fortress where escape is not a possibility. Bruce's inmates however revealed to him that there was one inmate in the past who was able to escape. And from their stories, Bruce deduces that Bane was that inmate.

John Blake

With Batman eliminated from the equation, Bane and his forces made their move to hold Gotham City hostage by first luring the Gotham City police underground and set off an explosion that buried them and trapped them. Fortunately however, Blake and Gordon were spared from this trap. Bane also takes hold of a nuclear reactor and turns it into a bomb, announcing his grand entrance to the Gotham City public by taking hostage a football field with a very important football match going on in front of a capacity crowd. Bane releases the prison inmates (Jonathan Crane among them) from Blackgate Penitentiary, inciting a revolution, while revealing to Gotham City the truth behind the death Harvey Dent and how Police Commissioner Gordon covered up Dent's crimes. The inmates and disoriented masses seizes the wealthy and famous Gothamites and held a public trial presided by Dr. Jonathan Crane for their social crimes. Gotham descended into chaos where ordinary citizens hid in their homes, while others trying to conceal their identities as part of the Gotham elite. Bane cordons off Gotham City and warns the world that any attempt of trying to free up Gotham would result into him detonating a Nuclear Bomb deep beneath Gotham City, which in effect would kill many Gotham citizens.

Batman confronted by the ghost of Ra's Al Ghul

Selina Kyle/Catwoman

By then months had already passed by since Batman's captivity and within that month, Bruce was finally able to recuperate and escape from the prison (after being visited by Ra's Al Ghul in a dream). Being the only second person to do so. He returns to Gotham and enlists the services of Selina, Blake, Gordon, Tate, and Lucius Fox in an effort to thwart Bane's plans. Batman and his allies manages to free up the captive police officers and leads them in a final confrontation with Bane and his forces. Batman battles Bane and this time he manages to beat Bane but was betrayed by Tate. It was revealed that Tate was actually Talia Al Ghul, the daughter of Ra's Al Ghul. Bane was the one who took care of Talia when she was still a baby and it was Talia's desire to fulfill his father's plans for the destruction of Gotham City. Talia tries to detonate the bomb but Gordon manages to block the detonating device's signal. Talia heads her way towards the bomb while Bane tries to finish off Batman. In the nick of time, Selina arrives and uses the Batpod to kill Bane and save Batman's life. Meanwhile, Talia/Tate manages to find the bomb and successfully sets it to detonate before dying. Batman with no other recourse left uses The Bat (Batplane) to haul the bomb off Gotham. The bomb explodes midair along with Batman. Gotham is left with a mystery. Is Batman dead or alive?

Alfred catches a glimpse of Bruce Wayne in Florence

In the closing moments of the film, it was presumed that Batman is dead. In the aftermath of the trilogy, Bruce's mansion was turned into an orphanage, Alfred inherits Bruce's estate, Lucius Fox finds out that Bruce has fixed The Bat's autopilot feature (leaving the possibility that he did not die), Gordon finds the Bat Signal fixed, and John Blake resigns from Gotham City police department where his complete name was revealed as Robin John Blake. He also inherits the Batcave. Giving us a cliffhanger ending that he would succeed Bruce Wayne as Batman or create his own identity as Robin or Nightwing. In the final scene of the trilogy, we see Alfred visiting Florence and we see him catching a glimpse of Bruce and Selina on a lunch date. Bruce is still alive after all.

John Blake is Robin?

Christopher Nolan clearly set his ending of the Trilogy with a possibility for Warner to extend the franchise. Though for most part of the Trilogy he denied the use of Batman's sidekick Robin, but in The Dark Knight Rises, he very much utilized the Robin character but made him his own. In the comic books, there were four prominent Robin characters that took turns playing Batman's sidekick. The first Robin was Dick Grayson, who moved on from Batman's shadows and created his own persona as Nightwing. The second Robin was Jason Todd, whose career as Robin ended briefly when Joker brutalized and killed him. Jason would return from the dead and created his own anti-hero persona as The Red Hood. The third Robin was Tim Drake, who clearly was the longest tenured Robin during DC Comic's Modern Age era. He graduated from the role of Robin and created his own persona as The Red Robin. Of all the Robins, he was the most loyal one. The fourth Robin was Bruce's own son from Talia Al Ghul, Damian Wayne. He is the most skilled but brutal Robin of them all. Nolan skipped the four of them and created his own Robin. I think it's only a matter of time before DC would bring the John Blake character in their comic books now that Damian has died. But as far as Nolan's Batman Trilogy, where do we go from here? Personally, I think Nolan's Batman tale is at a dead end from here. It would be hard pressed to continue the story with John Blake. Although I'm sure Bat fans are giddy with the prospect of having John Blake turn into Batman, Robin, or Nightwing, but I think Nolan had already given us all of the possibilities that his version of Batman could give. In the larger scheme of things, his Batman could never share a world inhabited by immortals and meta humans. Nolan's polarizing Man of Steel is a good start for Warner/DC's cinematic universe, but we just can't see this Batman stand side by side with Superman and the rest of the Justice League. In the DC comic books, all those stories that does not fit in their regular continuity are segregated as stand alone stories in their DC Elseworlds label. Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy can be put in that category as Man of Steel has finally began to jettison a DC Cinematic Universe that will open up their movies to the more fantastical side of things. I am happy though that Nolan's Batman had finally established DC's Cinematic Universe's tone in contrast to Disney/Marvel's less serious movies. Successful or not, at least Warner/DC is not out there to simply recreate what Disney/Marvel did, but they are willing to gamble enough to create their own cinematic universe that will be in contrast to Disney/Marvel's tone. But despite the non inclusion of this Batman in their upcoming cinematic universe, I can firmly say that these are the Batman movies that we all deserve.

The Casts of The Dark Knight Trilogy in Toy Form

From left to right: John Blake, Alfred Pennyworth, Batman, Bruce Wayne, and Selina Kyle (I missed out Jim Gordon)

From left to right: Scarecrow, Two Face, Ra's Al Ghul, Joker, Bane, Ra's Al Ghul (decoy)

The Toy Line: Mattel's Movie Masters

Comparison shots for the Basic and Movie Masters figures

I did save the best for last. In my Batman Begins entry, I reviewed Revoltech's Batman Begins, as well as Mattel's basic Batman Begins action figures. In my The Dark Knight entry, I reviewed Mattel's basic The Dark Knight action figures as well as a couple of vehicles that I could grab. For this entry, it's going to be Mattel's highly successful Movie Masters toy line. The sculpt and likeness of these figures are spot on compared to the other toy lines. They are also superior in articulation. The figures' articulation are the same as those from DCSH and DCUC (though some figures lack the torso articulation). They are also bigger compared to the basic figures but smaller when compared with DCSH/DCUC. Another advantage of Movie Masters is that they have a wider assortment of characters compared to the basic figures. I'm not a huge Batman collector so my collections for this movie series varies. I only opted for the cheaper basic ones while borrowing my brother's Movie Masters collection for the sole purpose of this blog entry. I only got Batman with Sonar eyes (not pictured here), Selina Kyle and Bane for the Movie Masters because they were the only major figures not produced in Mattel's basic series. This actually got me disappointed because Mattel nixed the 5 inch basic series (which they released in the previous two movies) in favor of the smaller scale 4 inch basic series. I would have loved to complete the basic series if only Mattel finished it up for The Dark Knight Rises. (More Photos Below)