StudioBinderdefines a plot hole as an “unexplained gap between the pretense of one plot point and the contradicting result of another,” something that practically every comic book movie will inevitably be guilty of at some point in its narrative. Even the grittier comic book movies of late ask the viewer to suspend disbelief, and most of us are more than willing to do that. It’s fun! Whether it’s based on the parameters of worldbuilding, the personality of a character, or simply a matter of plot, there will probably be something that doesn’t quite make sense. This is especially true ofChristopher Nolan’sThe Dark Knight trilogy, which has some ofthe most thrilling superhero fight sequencesever and one of the most iconic iterations of the famous hero.
It also has plenty of little plot holes for those who like to nitpick. For instance, Gotham’s courthouse apparently doesn’t have a metal detector inThe Dark Knight, and why does Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) use the Batman voice when there’s no one around or when he’s speaking to someone who knows his identity? InThe Dark Knight Rises, why would Gordon (Gary Oldman) write that speech about the real Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) in the first place? Of course, some plot holes are larger and more important than these, but others are bad enough to make suspension of disbelief pretty darn challenging at times, especially in the third part of the trilogy. It’s debatable which are the “biggest” ones, butthe following ten plot holes below have a significant effect onThe Dark Knighttrilogy’s narrative, contradicting logic and seeming more contrived than most of the others.
Batman Begins
10The Joker isn’t injured from the jail explosion
‘The Dark Knight’ (2008)
Heath Ledger’s powerhouse performanceinThe Dark Knightmakes it easier to shrug off most of the story’s plot holes. However, a few of them are too glaring to ignore. For instance, when The Joker detonates the bomb that he planted in that poor guy’s stomach, he’s in a room full of cops. It’s hilarious when he says he just wants his phone call since he has a knife pointed at one of the officers at the time. They give him a phone, and the number he dials detonates a bomb that knocks out everyone except him.
Buthow is the Joker totally fine after the blast knocked everyone else out? The guy doesn’t have superhuman strength, after all; he doesn’t even dive to the floor for cover. It’s hard enough to believe that his extremely intricate plan would go off without a hitch, but the screenplay really goes too far by showing him totally unscathed by something that leaves the jail otherwise totally unmanned. He can even set Lau (Chin Han) free, which makes his escape even more ridiculous.
The Dark Knight
9All the cops go to just one location
Heath Ledger’s take isarguably the best iteration of the Joker, but that doesn’t mean his character doesn’t still enact plans that make you scratch your head when you really think about them. When he tells Batman that he has to choose between saving Rachel (Maggie Gyllenhaal) and Harvey (Aaron Eckhart), the audience wonders why. How is the police force not distributed across Gotham evenly enough to go after Rachel and Harvey at the same time? It only takes one person to save each, after all.
Batman goes to Avenue X for Rachel, prompting Gordon to order the rest of the police officers to go to 2552nd Street.Are there literally no cops near Avenue X to help Batmanout? He’s not The Flash, and the interrogation scene implies that both of these places are far enough away from this building to pose a challenge for Batman and the authorities to reach their targets in time. Moreover, the fact that Gordon asks Batman which person he’s going after suggests that he is ready to deploy his officers to either location, prompting the audience to wonder, “Why not both?”
8Bruce’s body is in shambles, although he hasn’t been Batman for very long
‘The Dark Knight Rises’ (2012)
The Dark Knight Risesstarts slowly, and the reason provided doesn’t even make sense. Bruce’s doctor tells him that he has no cartilage left in his knees, barely any in his elbows and shoulders, and some other problems with his kidneys and brain tissue. That’s a lot—certainly debilitating for a crime-fighter, but it all sounds like something that would gradually build over a decade or so of being the Caped Crusader. Oddly, Bruce had the job for only a few years (if less).
One of the things about people who practice martial arts is that their bodies get strong enough to endure lots of blows that would damage others more severely. This is not to say that Bruce didn’t get injured in the first two installments ofThe Dark KnightTrilogy; it’s just thatthe amount of damage he’s sustained feels too soon, especially for his cartilage to wear down like that. Maybe a doctor would disagree, but Batman should be tougher than this.
The Dark Knight Rises
7The random doctor fixes Batman’s back in one go
Speaking of doctors, it’s pretty lucky that Bruce winds up finding one at the bottom of a pit inThe Dark Knight Rises. That’s convenient, given that there’s no other way he’s going to get a chance of escaping this prison and saving Gotham. It’s also nice that the only man who can help him is actually willing to do so, but neither coincidence is the main issue here. The problem is thatthis guy fixes Bruce’s broken back with a rope and a punch to the vertebrae.
Then he leaves Bruce hanging by that rope and tells him to stay that way until he can stand. Well, even if Bruce stays like that for a long time, this comes across as too easy. This entry doesn’t count as a professional medical opinion, but the whole treatment plan here doesn’t seem viable. Maybe this is how medieval chiropractors worked, but it doesn’t ring true in this hyper-realistic world. It comes across much more like a contrivance that lets Batman get back to work.
6The vaporizer is needed to set off the drug
‘Batman Begins’ (2005)
Batman Beginsis one ofthe best DC Comics movies with great acting. That said, the plan that drives this narrative (and serves as the primary plot point of the climax) has a timing issue. The villains have poured a fear-inducing hallucinogenic into Gotham’s water supply and want to set it off all at once with a vaporizer. However, if Scarecrow (Cillian Murphy) and the League of Shadows have been pouring it into the water supply for weeks, and all the water has to do is turn into water vapor to start working, thenwouldn’t a simple shower do the trick?
Is there no hot water in Gotham? Also, almost everyone with a stove top would boil tap water at some point. Maybe Gotham’s police force would have looked into the matter sooner if people had started reporting their terrible symptoms. In fact, they wouldn’t even need to hear reports; they would find out the hard way, too, and a public health emergency would likely be declared. It’s still a difficult kind of sabotage to undo, butthe process would have begun sooner.
5All the police officers are sent into the sewers at once
BetweenThe Dark KnightandThe Dark Knight Rises, it seems that Gotham’s police force needs to learn how to disperse itself more strategically. In the former, they sent all the cops to only one of the two hostages who were about to explode. In the latter, they send all the cops into the sewer system. Bane has been doing lots of his operations from there, so it’s certainly justified to send some of Gotham’s officers down there.Allof them, though?
The Dark Knight Riseshas a few ofthe most rewatchable scenes inThe Dark Knighttrilogy, but it also has some of the most ridiculous. We’re talking thousands upon thousands of people here. They still have to maintain order above ground, so they’re obviously leaving the city defenseless against any number of other crimes. Also, they wind up getting trapped inside, illustrating further whysending all your forces to one location makes no sense. Even if Bane hadn’t seen this coming, his henchman could just escape through any of the sewer holes scattered across this major city. In short,no police force would ever do this.
4Batman takes the blame for all those murders
The ending toThe Dark Knightappears deep on the surface, as Batman sacrifices his reputation to save Harvey Dent’s.Batman’s now-famous lineis that he’s whatever Gotham needs him to be. Likewise, Gordon says that he’s the hero that Gotham deserves but doesn’t need right now. Batman tells Gordon to blame him for the people that Two-Face killed, but viewers paying attention to what’s going on will realize it’s completely unsound.
Did they forget about The Joker? They easilycould have blamed all of those deaths on the Clown Prince of Crime, and everyone would have believed them. The Joker has been publicly killing people the entire movie, even on television. While Batman and Gordon are correct that Harvey’s change of heart would have a detrimental impact on Gotham’s morale, their solution is too silly to make this film stick the landing. Their sacrifice was supposed to be profound, butthe more one watches it, the more pretentious it is.
3Talia doesn’t kill Batman when she has the chance
Talia al Ghul (Marion Cotillard) is one of thecharacters thatThe Dark Knighttrilogy wasted.The Dark Knight Riseshas too many characters to do any of them justice, whose arcs are further undermined by an overly convoluted screenplay. In Talia’s case, she goes by Miranda Tate, a disguise to make sure that Batman doesn’t learn that she is actually R’as al Ghul’s daughter. Supposedly an ally, Talia shows her true self when she stabs Batman with a knife in the climax.
One would think that a knife wouldn’t be much of a threat against the Batsuit, but that’s beside the point. If Talia was going to betray Bruce this entire time, thenwhy didn’t she kill him earlier? She slept with the guy, for goodness' sake; she could have found a more reliable time to attack him (and land a fatal wound) if she really wanted to. Maybe Talia was going by Bane’s idea of making Mr. Wayne learn despair first, but that doesn’t make sense either. Case in point:her plan fails, she dies, and Batman lives.
2Batman escapes the bomb in time
At the end ofThe Dark Knight Rises, Batman uses his flying vehicle, aptly named The Bat, to carry Bane’s bomb out to sea so that it won’t affect Gotham. Before flying away, he states that it doesn’t have an autopilot. This is presented as a noble sacrifice, but it doesn’t make sense. He survives, which would be impossible if the autopilot weren’t intact. The explosion would have been enough to destroy the city, meaning it spans many miles in radius.
In the montage after the explosion, viewers learn that Bruce actually fixed the autopilot himself months before, which means that he must have been faking his death with the plan of ejecting from The Bat long before the explosion went off.This whole plot feels under-explained, though. At what point could he confidently eject, and how well could he swim in the Bat suit? Would no one notice Batman returning to shore? And if he wanted to fake his death, why show his face in public after?It’s rushed and unclear, makingthe ending toThe Dark Knight Risesthe weakest in the trilogy.
1Bane doesn’t simply kill Batman after breaking his back
The Dark Knight Rises’biggest plot hole is also one of the reasons why it has so little Batman in it. Once he finally gets around to fighting Bane one-on-one, Batman gets pummeled, Bane breaks his back, and that’s all she wrote. At least it should be, exceptBane takes his nemesis to prison instead of killing him. His reasoning for this just doesn’t work, saying that Batman welcomes death (rather than fearing it). Therefore, his punishment must be more severe.
Bane wants to teach him about despair, going off on a whole speech about the prison and how it gives people a glimmer of hope. This is all just an excuse to keep Batman alive, with Bane saying he will only give Batman permission to die once “Gotham is ashes.” Bane should’ve killed Mr. Wayne when he had the chance, and his long, elaborate torture method just doesn’t fit with the overall high-stakes narrative. As for the screenplay, it probably should have made the fight more even: Bane gets away, and Batman is still in fighting shape. For these reasons and more,Risesprovesthe least grounded inThe Dark Knightfranchise.
