The Dark Knight Rises

Rating: 9/10 (3 August 2012)

To relaunch a well loved story and do it right is an immense task. To carry the story on and make an even better film in the progress is monumental. To finish that story and do it right is akin to climbing Mount Everest by hopping on one leg.
With "The Dark Knight Trilogy", Christopher Nolan has done all this and more. He has cemented his place in the history books by creating a franchise of intelligent comic book films, adding them to his rostra of intellectual blockbusters. Most importantly, with "The Dark Knight Rises", Nolan has once again made an excellent film to add to an extraordinary canon: "Memento", "Insomnia", "Batman Begins", "The Prestige", "The Dark Knight", "Inception". He is the rightful owner to the title of Greatest Film Maker of the moment; a modern day Scorcese with a traditionally epic view of films such as DeMille would have been proud of.
This is not to say that there aren't problems with the film; the script, though keeping you guessing throughout most of the plot, is let down but not in a traditional sense. More, it is the mythology of the Batman story that hinders it. Such was the problem with the introduction of Harvey Dent in "The Dark Knight"; knowing the story of this tragic character automatically overshadowed him with the spectre of Two Face. Yet Nolan used this to his advantage, making sure the audience weren't treated like idiots because of it, and making the excellent choice to give the Joker no back story whatsoever to counter-balance this. In "The Dark Knight Rises", if you know the mythology, then a few characters appearance will be more obvious than others.
Despite this, once again the story is treated as realistically as if it was a modern-day thriller. Batman as a character is perhaps (at a stretch) one of the most believable comic book heroes; he has no super powers, he is spurred on by his own tragedy, his own darkness. The characters around him, particularly the villains, are influenced and inspired by this darkness; some for good - an aspiring, perhaps slightly naive police officer played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt is excellent support, and Gary Oldman is once again great as Comissioner Gordon.
The ones whose motives are less than desirable are also treated with great care and attention. Tom Hardy's Bane has come under a lot of scrutiny due to the mask the actor wears, but more of his dialogue can be heard clearly than previously reported. Besides, one COULD be cynical and suggest that this is another ploy by Nolan to get you to come and watch the film again just to try and catch every sentence, but that's probably going too far. Hardy gives an unusually restrained performance as this psychopath, his accent unclear as to where he exactly comes from, but a brutal, brooding force who is determined to reach his goal, whatever the cost.
For myself, however, there are three stand out performances; Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle, who we KNOW is Catwoman yet is never defined as such, gives a sensual, streetwise kick to the character and should play this kind of character more often, not least because she looks stunning in the costume. Michael Caine as Alfred could be forgiven for simply turning up yet manages to bring quite a few tears to the eye as someone watching the closest person he has to a son potentially head to their grave.
But the film belongs to Batman, and that's thanks to Christian Bale. If he was overshadowed by Heath Ledger's excellent performance in "The Dark Knight", here he takes the film back for the vigilante and rises victoriously. In fact, sadly one of the things the film really lacks is a performance like Ledger, such was the power there. Still, Bale growls and grimaces, contemplates and sacrifices. It takes a good forty minutes for Batman to actually appear - a brave decision by Nolan - and the film really examines what it means to fight for good in a corrupt world by mirroring Batman's fight with Bane's more villainous revolution.
The set pieces are stunning, in particular a memorable scene in a football stadium, and its refreshing that Nolan refuses to go down the 3D road. Hans Zimmer's score pounds away with rough, tribal chants and violence. When it comes to the ending, some would argue that Nolan perhaps goes too far. But the important thing to realise is that he has ended this franchise, he has ended this trilogy. The question now is, for Nolan, where the hell does he go from here? 9/10