What Did You Think of Bane?

[Kirino]

What did you think of Bane and the way he was portrayed in the Dark Knight Rises? How would you compare him to the other villians in the Dark Knight Trilogy, and Batman in general?

I absolutly loved him in it. He was a complete bad***. I loved his look. The mask looked great on him, and I thought his voice was fantastic. The way he fought was great, and all of his fight scenes were very well done. He was very powerful and in charge. I also liked his motivations. But my favorite thing about him was how great of a villian and how mighty a foe he was. His strength was fighting were great, and I loved the way he fought. He also made brilliant plans and was a master strategist. His brilliant plans and the way he executed them never ceased to amaze me from the very beginning of the movie where he took down that plane. He seemed like Batman's ultimate foe, and pushed him to the brink of death. All in all, I thought he was excellent villian.

 

[Batman]

I thought Bane was great. I’ve always liked him in the comics and I was happy to see him portrayed the way he was in TDKR. Bane is one of the best superhero villains of all time, and he didn’t disappoint in the movie.

 

[Luke's Wife]

YES I GET TO RANT AGAIN RANTING IS MY FAVORITE THING (see my post in the Avengers vs. TDKR thread.)

I loved Bane. I mean, I already adored Tom Hardy to begin with, so I was excited for the character, and man, did he bring it. Everything, from his voice, to his mask, to his battle scenes with Batman (the only foe, except for maybe the Joker, who I really think is more than a match for him.) From when he destroyed the plane to when he blew up the football field and took control of Gotham, he was absolutely amazing and yeah, I love his voice. Sexy.

And then you find out more about his backstory, his ties with the League of Shadows and Talia, and I don't know about you guys but I love a villian with a story and real motivations and plans instead of some guy who says "ok guise imma blow up a city cuz i can lol". Like dracomajora said, I liked that he was wicked powerful but was still really intelligent and strategic.

Bane could kick all the other Batman villian's ***** immediately.

 

[Kuddlesnot]

Phew. This is a tough one for me. There were many things that I liked and didn't like.

I liked his story, his background, his motivation. The Nolans did everything right in that respect, and made him a fierce adversary for Batman.

However, his portrayal was anything but amazing. To be fair I don't think it is Tom Hardy's fault, he did a fantastic job with the body language of Bane. What threw me was the voice.

Now, before you get all defensive, let me explain. I liked the quality of the voice. The tone and sound through the mask was fantastic - intimidating, character defining, etc. BUT THE VOICE ITSELF SOUNDED ARTIFICIAL. No matter what, Bane was talking a foot and a half from your ear, no matter where he was on screen, emotionally, or what have you.

Example 1: Under the burlap sack on the plane, the first time we ever hear his voice, it is supposed to be this big reveal. This big moment, like when the Joker took off his mask during the robbery sequence of TDK. Instead, what we get is this underwhelming, almost disembodied voice from nowhere. It doesn't sound muffled, nothing. Oh, that was Bane under the sack? I though it was my brother sitting next to me, breathing down my neck. Jeez, give me a break.

Example 2: When Batman first faces him, in the sewers after Selina tricks Batman and locks the gate. We see Bane standing on a catwalk in the middle of a big, echo-y chamber underneath the ground. Yet, when he talks, HE SOUNDS LIKE HE IS TALKING DIRECTLY INTO YOUR EARS AGAIN. No echo, no nothing. Batman echoes, sounds like he belongs in the space. But no matter when Bane talks, no matter where he is, his emotional level, or whatever, he sounds like he is in the same place, talking at the same volume.

To be fair, this disemboided voice thing was probably because when they did do it properly, all of the processing on Hardy's recorded in a studio lines became intelligible. So this was their only option. But every time I heard it, I just rubbed my forehead. A gamebreaker for me. It doesn't help that Hardy's vocal performance was not that amazing.

Besides, I think the sudden explosion of the "Bane Voice" meme shows that I am not alone in this opinion.

 

[nareky]

I thought how Tom Hardy played Bane was out standing. Bane was the best character from any of the 3 films. I loved his voice and how you could still get the expression that was being portrayed without being able to see his mouth.

I think he will win awards for his role as Bane.

 

[Chilfo Freeze]

Now, before you get all defensive, let me explain. I liked the quality of the voice. The tone and sound through the mask was fantastic - intimidating, character defining, etc. BUT THE VOICE ITSELF SOUNDED ARTIFICIAL. No matter what, Bane was talking a foot and a half from your ear, no matter where he was on screen, emotionally, or what have you.

I do have to agree with this. I absolutely adored every aspect of Tom Hardy's Bane, but this is true, that the voice protruded through every aspect of the movie. Every time we heard him speak, it was that intimidating, loud, in-your-face voice. I can't help but think that they did it on purpose... just to give him a dominant aura.

With that said and out of the way, all of the other aspects pertaining to his voice, I absolutely loved. Initially, I thought his voice was going to be deep and gutteral, but I believe that the fact that his voice had such a range in pitch and tone made Bane that much more villain-esque. The range in his voice gave him a feel of insanity, in my opinion. With the mask, you'd think the voice coming from within was low, almost like Darth Vader. But no, his voice was full of range, and I loved every second of that range.

Bane's physique was pretty flawless as well. Tom Hardy pulled that off quite nicely.

 

[Hero of Time]

Bane was a terrific character in that he had both intelligence and brute strength. I was sold on his character from the start when he wittily stated, "Maybe he's wondering why you would shoot a man before throwing him out of a plane" in that awesome voice of his and then viciously crashed the plane as he had planned; and from that point on he never came close to disappointment in my eyes. Another one of my favorite lines of his was when Daggett said he was in charge and Bane menacingly stared at him with his hand on Daggett's shoulder and said, "Do you feel in charge?" Furthermore, his incredible ability to test Batman to his breaking point (literally) was fun to watch, especially in the fight scene in Bane's lair. I rather enjoyed watching Bane take over Gotham and manipulate all those people by careful and smart planning and inducing fear with his physical prowess and threat of detonating the bomb. Of course, I was always rooting for Batman, but you have to love the bittersweetness of seeing the villain take over for once. Also, seeing Bane cry towards the end was a great addition to his character, in my opinion; some people didn't like that part because it showed his more benign side, but I thought it was really nice to see Bane with a little emotion.

All in all, I loved Bane as a character for numerous reasons, and despite the excellence of all the characters in The Dark Knight Rises, I don't think the film would be as great as it was without him.

 

[Cfrock]

Bane was a mixed bag for me.

When I first heard his voice I almost laughed at how ridiculous it sounded. I think I was just expecting a deep, gravely voice, one which sounded as tough as he looked but instead I got this... almost polite sounding gentleman. I've got to agree with Kuddlesnot about how artificial it sounded. I can understand wanting to make it stand out but there's drawing your attention to something and then there's making something feel wrong and out of place. Besides that, I couldn't even understand some of what he said. At times, it all just sounded muffled to me.

I didn't like how his story ended.

Spoiler

For the whole film, Bane was this almost invincible figure of sheer power and menace. His threat was more real than even the Joker's because he had an army to back him up. And then at the end it turns out he was doing it for some woman he knew years ago who, up until that very moment, gave no hints at being a villain. He was even crying. Some of my friends say that it "made him more human" and showed "more depth to the character" but it all just came out of absoloutely nowhere and then, seconds later, Bane was dead in the most anti-climactic manner possible.
The last few minutes of Bane's life took pretty much all of the menace and fear he exuded and just stripped it away for me. It was a totally unecessary twist and weakened him as a villain in my opinion.

I didn't hate Bane though. I did enjoy his presence. Visually, he was a great character and I did eventually get used to and start to kinda like his voice (what I could understand of it anyway). With The Joker, Batman was facing an incredibly evil and intelligent foe, but The Joker couldn't rely on brute strength when going one-on-one with Batman. Bane could and he was just as intelligent, giving Batman his most fearsome foe in the Nolan Trilogy, and rightly so seeing as this was the end of that trilogy.

The only other thing that niggled me was that Bane's motivation was never explicitly given. I know that he was fulfilling Ra's al Ghul's destiny but since I haven't seen Batman Begins in many years, I have forgotten what exactly that was. I would have appreciated maybe a single line that refreshed my memory on that one, but I can't hold that against Bane as a character.