For the First Time in Forty-seven Years

I did not fall asleep in a movie that had Michael Caine in its cast. Although it was a fantasy, the plot even made sense. First time in 47 years. Wow.

The first movie to headline Michael Caine, 1965's The Ipcress File, was the first and last time I was fully  awake in one of his movies. In The Dark Knight Rises, Mr. Caine only had a supporting role, but I stayed awake the whole time. For that alone it deserves 4 stars. Of late, it's not only Michael Caine movies that put me to sleep.

For those who'd like more of a review from my perspective here goes.

Sustainability is constantly an undercurrent in the film. Renewable energy plays a big role. But it really is an excuse for the villains. I'd ask you to especially take note of that when you discover the secret revealed just prior to the climax. In fact it has played a big role in the entire series if you recall the prime motive of the villain in the first movie, Batman Begins. (It is my opinion that the Sustainability movement has an anti-human element that is the primary reason it so hates God-fearing people (Judeo-Christian, and not the Islamic cult). Whether or not you lend any faith to Revelation, the form of the conflict between Sus worshipers and any remaining faithful who share the fundamental life-respecting precepts in Christianity and Judaism is surely setting up to play out like an Armageddon.) 

The character Bane ploys like an OWS thug, but it's clear from the start he's little more than a nihilist disguised as a bloody bully. Yet there is still a loyalty in him that turns up in the plot twist revealed near the end.

Regular readers know how I refer to the shadows of both Plato and Kant. And it's the League of Shadows in this series that hates mankind for its weaknesses. In our world, the people who worship Sustainability tell themselves they don't really hate people; it's just their large numbers they fear. It's not hate that drives their desires to obliterate billions of people; it's really their far-sightedness and love for mankind which drives them. They're the good guys who are fighting to save the best of mankind from the Riff-Raff.  They really are sorry they must play god. Really.  Too bad they are so disconnected from the truth of what made the Western advance that elevated mankind so much that its "civilization's creations" are worth saving. The Sus worshipers have allowed the haters of mankind to obliterate their memories and ties to their own forebears. Their forebears carried with them an important belief in Judeo-Christian ethics that actually brought on the Age of Reason (when the yoke of the dark and middle-ages were lifted from men's minds) that made all the advances of mankind possible.

I inferred one very good message in this film that recurs from the earlier films. It must be there deliberately and cannot be an accident; "there are no coincidences" is even in the dialogue.  But the filmmaker buried it in the dialogue and I can only guess as to why.  Maybe because he didn't trust Hollywood to let him keep it in there were it written large. But it is there. It came out in Gorden's reference to Harvey Dent; it came along when Blake confronts Gorden; it comes out in Bruce Wayne's true humility. 

It is "do not make a god of any man."  Or mankind either.

I'm sorry. There are sure to be some who won't think much of this "review." So end of the review; let me go into my full-blown "sermonizing." In my professional life, long ago I chose the position that I'd rather be wrong in my assessments and be thought nuts, than be correct and damned for having kept quiet out of fear of dismissive reactions. In this case, my assessment of the misanthropic risk that arises out of despair direly needs more exposure and discussion. We live in a time where rulers have decided that the precautionary principle is the only factor that matters, and so they, in their not so humble opinion, are instituting misanthropic doctrines for which they will hear no challenges, and certainly not ones that derive out of "outdated" morality.

For this reason I think in retrospect, the most important feature of a successful leader is that he remain humble. Humility is absent in so many "leaders" in our world. Our real-world arrogant bastards are too much like the fictional villains in this version of Batman. They're doing it for the children my butt. They do it for power and the thrills they get from forcing people to bend to their will. (It's so pervasive all over the world in all times, I am convinced there is a perverse sexual element to gain from achieving such power: seeking power solely for the sake of having it.)

There is only one thing that can save us from the hell these people would bring to earth with their arrogant visions, whether that vision has been misguided by evil men, or is evil itself. What can save humanity is the concept of the Eternal God, the source of all that is truth and life. No man can match that concept and none will succeed in achieving anything other than long-term despair when they seek it and worship it in other men. If you cannot believe in God, then trust in His Concept: It must be trusted if the evil misanthropic forces — those who have nurtured the demigod Sustainability plotters to think well of their plans — are to be defeated.

Bring the Judeo-Christian ethic, and its trust in God, back to American politics or suffer the consequences. It's not going to be easy given the cacophony that media forces (Left and "Right") from the railing against you, but at the least, you have decency and love on your side. And if you are lucky enough to believe in Him, you have Him on your side. 

For those who lack faith in Him, there is this. Sure you cannot prove He exists. But you sure can prove that these opposites of God, these contemporary Nimrods, are attempting to take His place. It's in their very words. "We are God's partners in matters of life and death." -- Barrack Hussein Obama.

But they do not have the power of creating life -- only of reigning mass deaths. And the most evil amongst them, like the League of Shadows in this movie, think you deserve your demise.