Stops short of being a truly great movie

Rating: 7/10 (31 May 2013)

This one got me more emotionally involved than the previous two installments, but still feels like it lacks real substance. The images of the October Revolution repeating itself in New York, er, Gotham, are chilling, but the movie holds back, and it shouldn't. Let us see Alfred and Lucius Fox hang. Let's see Catwoman gang-raped. Let's see Batman really die. That's the problem with Hollywood movies, especially of the superhero genre — in what I suspect is fear of alienating a large portion of the audience, they don't allow anything of real consequence to happen in the story. When all is said and done, everyone still lives, everyone is happy, with no hint of the tremendous social impact that Bane's reign would have left on the city and the world. The Dark Knight was a step in the right direction, and its immense popularity attests to that, but instead of building on its success and going even further, Nolan apparently got cold feet. Which is a shame because he had all the elements — great actors, great special effects — to create a truly great movie.