in The Dark Knight ),  whose crimes Batman took the fall for, at the end of that second film. Despite this, though, it is hard not to enjoy the romp.  Bale is once again a suitably troubled and dark hero, constantly battling internal demons.   Bane's back story as a child imprisoned in the worst place on earth a place that Wayne will also find himself in, and their respective escapes, relying on total self-belief rather than artificial support, draws direct parallels between hero and anti-hero.  Two sides of the same coin.  Bane and Wayne. Gotham is once again superbly realised as a city which appears to rarely see sunlight.   The effects are impressive but do not overwhelm the film (an unsual thing to be able to say in the era of CGI).    Ann Hathaway as Selina Kyle is superb throughout -- she is never described as Cat Woman, but in costume, manner and style is everything that Michelle Pfeiffer was not in Tim Burton's Batman Returns .  Similarly in the increasingly ubiquitous, Joseph Gordon-Levitt's orphan grown up to be a police officer, Blake, we have the emerging Robin. Gary Oldman is excellent again as Commissioner Gordon (in the role that in the earlier films perhaps landed him his comeback as a leading man as George Smiley in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy ) -- showing that the more understated he is, the more impressive he is . Morgan Freeman is good.  Marion Collitard as Miranda Tate less so (but far better