10 Harsh Truths You Don't Want To Admit About Chris Nolan's Movies

5. Characters Don't Behave Realistically

Another major criticism of Nolan's movies is that his characters just don't behave realistically: they act in exaggerated, black-and-white ways simply to heighten the dramatic stakes and make everything seem more important. For example, in Inception, why doesn't Cobb just have Michael Caine's character fly his children out to France? Sure, it would negate the need for Nolan's rather ingenious dream-within-a-dream construct, but basic things like this could be fixed in the scripting stage and make the characters seem more like people and less like automatons spouting dialogue. Tying into the pseudo-intellectualism argument mentioned earlier is the simplistic character psychology: in Batman Begins, Bruce develops his fear of bats from falling into a cave and being attacked by bats, in The Dark Knight Harvey Dent's transition into Two-Face is too fast and should have been given its own movie to fester, and in The Dark Knight Rises Bruce moving to Florence with Selina Kyle seems a) extremely reckless and b) totally out of place with the rest of the movie.