From the delightful Cracked.com comes this list which explores the above, five films in which the villains, at some point in the film, did something that “stupidly” sabotaged their own goals:

http://www.cracked.com/article_22362_5-movie-villains-who-stupidly-sabotaged-their-own-schemes.html

The main reason I’m providing a link to this article is because of the very first item mentioned, a bit of silliness/nonsensical storytelling found in The Dark Knight Rises, the last of director Christopher Nolan’s Batman movie trilogy.

Now I know there are many who feel The Dark Knight Rises was the weakest of Nolan’s Batman films and there has been plenty of abuse heaped upon the film.  However, I’m not one of those who “hated” it.  In fact, I felt the film was on par with the other two: It was ambitious, at times wildly entertaining, yet at other times showed some glaring flaws.

I’ve mentioned many times before, for example, that the fate of Ra’s Al Ghul in Batman Begins, where Batman simply allows the villain to die in the train crash, was wildly out of character for our hero.  It was made even worse, in my opinion, with Batman’s silly reasoning for why he allowed Al Ghul to die.  “I’m not killing you, I’m just not going to save you”.

Yeah, right.

Still, I could accept the flaws because the film makers were clearly trying their best to create something that rose above it being “just” a superhero film.

So, having said all that, that first item listed in the cracked article is one of those things that did indeed irk me about The Dark Knight Rises.

To wit, Miranda (who we will soon find out is actually villain Ra’s Al Ghul’s daughter Talia Al Ghul and is secretly behind all the evil events in the film), encounters Batman/Bruce Wayne after he’s escaped the Lazarus Pit and returned to Gotham to save it from Bane and (what we assume are) his League of Assassins.

Again, not one of the heroes knows that Miranda is in reality Talia Al Gul.  Batman/Bruce Wayne comes to her and she knows he’s back in Gotham!  Instead of arranging a meeting with him somewhere she can have an army of assassins take him out, she continues to go along with her deception until almost the very last moment.

When the deception was revealed, I believe I actually groaned.  There had been rumors/speculation for months before the film’s release that “Miranda” was in actuality Talia, so when the movie revelation was made, it didn’t come as a complete surprise.  But in an otherwise pretty good film (IMHO!), this bit really struck me as a major story fail, in more ways than one.

Yes, as mentioned in the Cracked article, Miranda/Talia kept her deception with Batman/Bruce Wayne even though it no longer mattered and she could have easily taken him out when he revealed he was back in Gotham.

But even more frustrating, at least to me: Batman is supposed to be the world’s greatest detective, right?  Yet until the moment Miranda/Talia plunged a knife into Batman’s side, which effectively ended her charade, our hero didn’t have the slightest idea she might be behind everything.

To me, that was the film’s Ra’s-dies-in-the-train moment.