'The Dark Knight Rises' Review

Well, I have watched it for a second time after a month since it's release and I feel like I’m warranted a review. (Am I late to the party? Is anyone reading this?).

“Why do we fall? ...” It’s amazing that the theme from the first movie, with no plans for sequels, is a theme that resonates throughout the entire series and the final film. Gotham has become a city with a wide segregation between the rich and the poor. A mercenary leader named Bane plans to fulfill Ra’s al Ghul’s work to “restore balance” in the necessary rise and fall of civilizations established in Batman Begins, and a retired Batman is recalled to life in order to stop him.

Due to the outright immensity of this movie, the script is very economical. The story moves at a break-neck pace, maintains momentum, and you see only what you need to see. You never realize the runtime is almost three hours long.

I was most impressed with the characterization. Everyone has a motive. And you know you have good character development when you maintain the audience’s attention when Batman’s not even in half the movie. John Blake, for example, is an excellent character. He’s a composite of all of the Robins. He’s an orphan, he’s strong willed, a police officer like Dick Grayson, and like Tim Drake he deduced Batman’s identity. He is a well-developed character and has a great story arc within the film. Anne Hathaway was impressive as “the catburglar” and the chemistry she shares with Christian Bale is fantastic, who also (as always) gives a great performance. Tom Hardy. Is. The. Man. And - I’m going to say it - I thought Bane’s voice was perfect. It bears a semblance to the Batman: The Animated Series Bane and it manages to make the character even more menacing (“You think this gives you power over me?”). There seems to be nothing in his way and Hardy plays him with a terrifying confidence. The performance is brilliant and I think Bane will go down as one of the greatest masked villains in cinema (or else he’ll choke you with one hand). This is definitely something the character deserved after the god-awful Batman and Robin mess.

Rises makes small (and large) references to the comics that can be appreciated. Gotham’s East End is modeled right from the panels of Batman:Year One. Batman's line to himself, “So that’s what that feels like…” is a line from Kingdom Come - He also wears on a brace on his knee, a precursor to the exoskeleton he wears in Kingdom Come. And although a lot of the inspiration certainly came from Knightfall, the film’s best use of source material goes to The Dark Knight Returns - where Batman comes out of retirement to stop a gang led by a hulking mutant leader.

Both Christopher and Jonathan Nolan have done a fine job in writing a satisfying conclusion to an excellent trilogy. I can undoubtedly tell you that we won’t see a film of this scale for long, long time. 

And, for anyone who hasn’t seen this movie in IMAX … I’m sorry, but you have missed out. The IMAX scenes in this movie are incredible. The opening scene is astounding. It truly adds to the cinematic experience and I hope this paves the way for more mainstream movies to be shot in the 70mm format.

The Bottom Line: This is a great time at the movies. Christopher Nolan introduced us to a realistic Batman in 2005, gave us a spectacularly massive, bar-raising sequel, and has now javelined that bar into the stratosphere with an epic conclusion to his trilogy. This is the pinnacle of the superhero movie.