Re: The Dark Knight Rises
Oh that easy eh? For a comic book experience read a comic book?
Although I find it a bit funny to say "for a comic book experience play a video game!"
Nolan had made
good Batman movies. The best so far arguably although many would argue that Burton made something special with his films. It isn't about changing the status quo, Nolan has said that before BB and right after before TDK that his Batman exists in a vacuum, long before the fanboys were creaming all over the Ledger Joker and everything that it brought with it.
By removing the element of a man amongst Gods, Nolan doesn't fully encapulate the character, he removes an important part of the mythos and even waters down a bit of what makes the initial character special. He didn't even play up the detective role until TDK, would people right after BB, who cares why does he need to be a detective? If you want Batman the detective then read a comic book! I don't think so.
What Nolan has done is remove the Superhero from the Superhero film. BB, TDK both are basic archetypes of films outside of the genre. TDK plays more like a Michael Mann drama than a comic book film and the additions of two colorful characters running the show is what makes it unique. That a man dressed as a bat or a clown can exist so nonchalantly is what makes people envious because almost every other superhero film has the characters larger than life and almost jarring.
Nolan's films may go down as the best ones ever done with Batman but as they don't fully explore the character in all aspects, they'll never be the greatest. Look at X-Men: First Class which brought humanity to mutant character who before were cookie cutter fare and made it acceptable for humans and high powered beings to co-exist and even be in awe of each other, something that looking at some of Nolan's other films he could have done amazingly but that he simply chose to ignore.
It's always be a "what if?" scenario that people may choose to ignore but it's still looming in the distance.
