Saturday Rant Fever: The Best and Worst of Bane...

Bane, Bane, Bane, Bane, Bane, Bane...  Before the current Batman movie starts to fizzle from our short term pop culture memories, I just wanted to bring up some of my impressions of the character, Bane, from the 'The Dark Knight Rises'.  This will be a list of both things that I loved and also didn't love so much about the Christopher Nolan interpretation of the character.  Now, before I get any haters, I personally really liked the movie.  It was no 'Dark Knight', but I felt is was as fun as 'Batman Begins'--solid, but still enough room open for critique.  Anyway, let's start the fun...

What the Hulk and Human Torch would look
like in real life.

1. What I liked:  On a just a physical casting level, I am so frickin' happy with who they got to play Bane.  Hollywood has a bad habit of picking people because they are sexy, and not because they fit the role.   Some examples of really bad comic book movie castings:  Jennifer Garner as, Electra the Assassin (ungh); Ryan Reynolds as, Green Lantern (smacks forehead); Alicia Silverstone as, Batgirl (just hangs his head in shame)... the list could on quite a good bit longer.  But in choosing Tom Hardy to play Bane, it was a small little thing that impressed me: he didn't have super skinny model washboard abs.  Now I know that sounds silly, but hear me out.  I know the actor is obviously really muscled up, but the fact that he was a little thicker in the middle (though still very apparent that he has strong abs), made him that much more believable.  You see, along time ago a friend of mine said one of the most profound things that you can say about superhero comics: If super heroes were ever real, they would look less like the comic books and more like professional wrestlers.  Strong, but thick, and maybe even have a gut (this was based more on the wrestlers of the 80's and 90's as today's wrestlers are just superhuman in build).  This simple physical trait made Bane feel like he was tempered physically by harsh realities, but still had his priorities in life beyond the superficial losing of weight with his personal trainer to look good for a photo shoot in his underwear.  I hope more people were taking notes on this kind of casting like I was.

2.  What I didn't like:  Bane's voice.  Now this isn't a true dislike, as overall I liked his voice.  I understood it easily, I believed him as a character overall, but is it me or did he sound like Darth Vader and Dr. Zoidberg had a lovechild?  I kept waiting for Bane to tell Batman he was his father right before running away with his hands in the air yelling, "Woo, woo, woo, woo, woo!!"  Like I said, I liked his voice and audio fx treatment, but my real complaint comes in the fact that no matter how far away Bane stood from the camera, it sounded like he was in the seat next to you sharing your popcorn (well, except for the stadium scene--he was in the front two rows of the theater I was in).

3.  What I didn't like:  Bane fought Batman a second time using the exact same fighting techniques and strategy, and the results were different (despite a disastrous loss in the first fight).  This isn't the character or the actor's fault.  I know this.  But I don't want to make a second pointless ramble about the movie's fighting (this pointless ramble suits me just fine).  In the first fight Batman fights our muscled bound villain using the old duke 'em, fisticuffs method we've seen him use in the first two movies.  Bane defeated Batman easily.  The villain was just a better, faster, and all around a stronger standing fighter, with the exact same training of fighting techniques as Bruce Wayne.  Why couldn't Bruce Wayne have learned some ground fighting/wrestling skills that would circumvent Bane's strength?  There are wrestling and jujitsu moves that  can absolutely overpower an opponent regardless of the oppenent's strength (I have been a fateful recipient of some).  This change in fighting style wouldn't be out of place either with this series.  Why in the first movie, Bruce Wayne is much more a street fighter using pieces of various martial arts.  Then he joins the League of Shadows and bam!, his fighting style changes--he fights super close up, using elbows to block and disable appendages so the he can easily take out opponents with punches and kicks to vital targets.  This would also be relevant to the story as both Bane and Batman learned to fight in the League of Shadows.  It is only when Bruce Wayne looks past trying to meet Bane with the same exact fighting techniques and strategy that the villain is defeated--or at least Batman gets the upperhand (then Catwoman blasting Bane in the chest could still happen, etc., etc...).  Cause really, what was different in the second fight than the first?  Batman hit Bane's mask?  Seriously, hitting the giant respirator on the front an opponent's face never occurred to the world's greatest detective?

Where do you begin with what is wrong
with this picture?

4.  What I liked:  The overall treatment of the character.  Personally, I really hated the character of Bane when he appeared in the comic.  I mean I HATED Bane when he appeared in the comic.  I read the storyline, Knightfall, in the Batman comics (I mean, I was bored and mostly slept through those comics).  At that time DC Comics wanted to shake up its older comic icons, so they were either killing them off, turning them evil, or breaking them in half... Batman was the latter.  This is when a character named, Azrael, took over for awhile and blah, blah, not important...  What is important is that when Bane showed up, he was this luchador mask wearing hulk on uber horse steroids.  I mean, look at the image on the right, where do you begin to talk about the character on just a visual level.  This issue of the comic was the epitome of the 90's:  Some dude with big muscles (oh yeah, and he's smarter than anyone else too... yeah, that's the ticket) happens to take down a classic hero, making way for a tougher, no-nonsense character to deal his harsh and violent justice...  All in all, I hated the 90's mentality.  Bane only seemingly appeared to be smart in the comic cause all they did was just add a super convenient countermeasure to every action Batman did.  It wasn't until Batman, The Animated Series, that I began to appreciate and like the character of Bane.  He felt smart.  Mainly cause he could be fooled, but he could also adapt his plans accordingly and believably (and the original plans were crafty and smart as well).  Finally, getting to how he was treated in the movie, I felt like he was more like the version in the animated series.  True, I felt like he needed a long Snidely Whiplash mustache to curl at times, but still he was pretty solid for what his role was in the story.  He could be out thought and out maneuvered, but because he had so many people helping him, and time time to plan an epic style takeover, sheer numbers could make him defeat Batman.

5.  What I liked:  He cried.  When you really get down to it, Bane was the Darth Vader to Talia.  But unlike Vader, Bane had a sincere love for his leader.  Granted it turns weird and creepy when you think of the age gap... oh yeah, and that Bane seemingly hasn't aged since Talia was a little girl, but other than that, it was a sweet moment that was handled enough to make the character just a little deeper, but not enough to go down that annoying road some people need to go down with the whole 'but villains are mistunderstood' crap.


6.  What I didn't like:  Bane's cadence.  Again, 'didn't like' is so harsh, but I use it to differentiate my true likes from the 'meh' stuff.  The speech cadence of Bane was always him saying first sentence ending high in tone, then follow up with a sentence ending low in tone.  Not enough to be annoying, but enough to be predictable... he was like something familiar, but I can't put my finger on it...

So I guess that really sums up my whole review on the character of Bane.  He was clearly over the top, but still gripping enough to hold an audience's attention and believability just enough.  He had an underground lair and talked funny.  He monologued and told the main character he was going to kill the main character, all the while leaving the main character in a possibly escapable trap unguarded...

In short, Bane was a great James Bond villain.
(That's why he seemed so familiar!)

Bane wuvs you.