Is the absence of Joker the Bane of 'The Dark Knight Rises'?

New Delhi: What’s common between the new Batman baddie Bane and the old villain Joker? Well, both have been addicted to drugs in their twenties, but Edward Thomas Hardy (Bane) fought hard to leave the habit of alcoholism and crack cocaine addiction. Heath Ledger was not so lucky and a toxic combination of prescription drugs took his life in 2008. Apart from it, there wouldn’t be many similarities between the two.

Joker’s (Heath Ledger) body language had a distinct edginess, he used to look nervous all the time, and he committed most heinous crimes in that state of mind only while Bane (Tom Hardy) is the epitome of confidence.

Joker was seen as a ruthless cunning man and his role didn’t allow him to come up with a profound philosophy. His vulnerable self made him stick to just one theory and that was ‘fear rules the world’.

A storm is coming...Brace yourself for an onslaught on your senses as Bruce Wayne fights to save Gotham from Bane..
Christopher Nolan concludes his Batman trilogy in typically spectacular, ambitious fashion with 'The Dark Knight Rises'.
Nolan's 2008 'The Dark Knight' revolutionized and set the standard for films based on comic books by being both high-minded and crowd-pleasing.
With Christian Bale as his tortured superhero starting from 2005's 'Batman Begins,' Nolan has explored the complicated and conflicting motivations of man as well as the possibility of greatness and redemption within society.
Here, as director and co-writer, he's unrelenting in hammering home the dread, the sorrow, the sense of detachment and futility of a city on the brink of collapse with no savior in sight.
Gotham is under siege in ways that tonally and visually recall 9/11; what is obviously the island of Manhattan gets cut off from the outside world at one point.
'The Dark Knight Rises' features the kind of impeccable production values we've come to expect from Nolan's films.
Many members of his core team are back, including cinematographer Wally Pfister, editor Lee Smith and production designers Nathan Crowley and Kevin Kavanaugh.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt adds a youthful presence as John Blake, an up-and-coming member of the police force who inspires Bruce to revisit his own childhood as an orphan.
Bruce Wayne suffers in self-imposed exile, sulking about Wayne Manor, mourning the loss of his darling Rachel and carrying the burden of blame for the death of District Attorney Harvey Dent.
'The Dark Knight Rises' takes on an even grittier look than its predecessors as Gotham City devolves into desperation and ruin.
The antagonist this time is Bane, a muscular mass of pure evil who orchestrates an elaborate takeover of Gotham City.
Anne Hathaway brings some much needed zest to the proceedings as Selina Kyle, otherwise known as Catwoman in the Batman universe, a slinky thief who punctures Bruce's bubble when she lifts his fingerprints from his safe, along with a beloved pearl necklace.
Morgan Freeman is gadget guru Lucius Fox.
She's selfish and cynical, only looking out for herself, but at least she goes about her crimes with some verve and style.
Tom Hardy plays Bane, as fearsome a figure as a large and hulking one.
Gary Oldman returns as Commissioner Gordon.
Bane wears a cage-like muzzle that covers his nose and mouth and alters his voice.
'The Dark Knight Rises,' a Warner Bros. release, is rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, some sensuality and language.
With a running time of 164 minutes, this epic finale to the Batman trilogy will determine the fate of Bruce Wayne and the city of Gotham.

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$Is absence of Joker the Bane of \'Dark Knight\'?$

Joker was seen as a ruthless cunning man and his role didn\'t allow him to come up with a profound philosophy.

In contrast to the hero’s character in Batman comics, the villains are mostly surreal and Joker fitted into that criteria. He was a maniac with a really sharp mind, a deadly combination, but couldn’t outwit the hero and that’s why he turned towards ruthless methods.

On the other hand, Bane is more of a political leader than a street fighter, but his strength is his muscular body. He contradicts the idea of a sober warlord which Hollywood loves to showcase. Normally, Hollywood films have mafia dons who act on someone else’s instructions, most of the times these directions come from a country having a different political ideology, sometimes they act for capitalistic forces, seldom the villains have a concrete idea based action plan. Bane has a thought process of his own. His training with Ra’s Al Ghul’s the League of Shadows formed the base of his thinking and his early days in jail taught him the basics of a downtrodden life style. This exposure provides Bane the immediate connect with the poor and marginalised sections.

The base of the ultimate fight between Batman and Bane in ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ is actually the class divide which Bane shrewdly uses. Joker remained more or less of a crook than a gangster and that’s why the director Christopher Nolan kept the conflict confined to a certain area.

The case is not the same with Bane. He has mindless followers who believe in his alternate ideology. Bane is the messiah of certain sections of the contemporary society, he couldn’t be fought alone, and here lies the real difference between him and Joker.

As a single villain, Joker is way ahead of Bane but as the driving force behind countless small villains, Bane has no match.