One of the best film I've ever seen, the best trilogy of all-time.

Rating: 10/10 (31 July 2012)

The Dark Knight Rises was the best cinematic experience I've ever had and the film doesn't live up to the hype, it exceeds it.
The film is near perfect, the acting, writing and cinematography is outstanding and what I liked about it was Christopher Nolan and Wally Physter who has been Nolan's cinematographer for Nolan's last 4 films don't use much CGI, he tries to keep it a realistic as he can, not like Transformers and Avengers, it looks impressive but I prefer Nolan's filmmaking. Glad it wasn't in 3D, I watched it in IMAX for the first time, it was unbelievable especially the prologue involving Bane and a plane.
As for the acting, Christian Bale pulls out his best performance as Bruce Wayne/Batman, slightly better than his performance in Batman Begins and Dark Knight, Michael Caine is brilliant as always as Alfred and a couple of scenes involving Alfred and Bruce Wayne are very emotional. Tom Hardy who I am a big fan of, he's brilliant in warrior and I think he deserved an Oscar for his role as Tommy Conlon and is great in just about everything he's in and same goes for this, he is menacing and very powerful as bane and as for the voice, I could hear him fine, there's no issue with the voice. Gary Oldham as Jim Gordon is excellent as always and so is Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox. What surprised me was how good Anne Hathaway was as Catwoman, she's elegant, sexy and tough, all the qualities needed to play Selina Kyle and dare I say it, she's much better than Michelle Pheiffer's Catwoman in Batman Returns, she's mesmerising. The newcomers in Marion Cotillard and Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Miranda Tate and John Blake, firstly Marion Cotillard who plays a Wayne enterprises businesswoman and major spoilers ahead so don't read if you haven't seen it yet, Miranda Tate turns out to be the daughter of Ra's Al Ghul who trained Bruce Wayne n Batman Begins and she come to finish the job with Bane as her protector and John Blake is played brilliantly by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, him and Anne Hathaway were the stand out performers in this movie for me, he is like a young Jim Gordon and the ending is jaw droppingly good, for me Gordon-Levitt is fast becoming one of the best actors in Hollywood.
As for the story, it is near perfection and that is down to the genius of Christopher Nolan and his brother Johnathan, this film brings everything full circle and ties all the films together. the film is 2 hours 45 minutes but it absolutely flies by, it's thrilling from start to finish. The only issue I had with the plot was Bane's killing was a bit quick, all the build up and Catwoman just shoots him and he's dead, I think he needed more of an prolonged, I wanted to see him suffer for what he all did and Talia Al Ghul reveal I thought undermined Bane as just a henchman a bit but over than that, the plot is fantastic.
The ending has caused some debate but I don't know why, it's pretty definitive and is a fantastic ending to a fantastic trilogy. Batman takes the bomb away from the city and saves the day but does he survive? It's pretty obvious to me that he's alive, Alfred sees him at the café with Selina Kyle and it's not a dream, he fixed the autopilot and survived. And Blake revealing his legal name as Robin, I jumped out of my seat and seeing the bat cave at the end and becoming Robin or night wing whatever, Nolan's ending are always genius. Just because Nolan made Inception doesn't mean every ending he does is open to interpretation, but I can't see a robin film, as good as an actor Gordon-Levitt is, it just wouldn't work.
I have to talk about the director of the franchise, Christopher Nolan who for me is the best director of our time and soon he will be up there with Kubrick, Hitchcock and Scorcese, if he isn't already. The three best directors for me are Nolan, David Fincher & Quentin Tarantino but Nolan is the best of the three, Fincher's very good but not as good as Nolan and Tarantino is a genius with his early films but hes made some bad films and comes across as a big head. But Nolan just produces masterpiece after masterpiece, the dark knight trilogy in my opinion is the best trilogy of all-time, the prestige is a very underrated film, memento, Insomnia and the Following and Inception, they're all great films. Nolan is a movie genius and deserves an Oscar for this film, it's an incredible achievement and it's about time he starts to be recognised for his incredible work. He makes these blockbusters but with a great story so the explosions and violence is an integral part of the story and not just an excuse to show off. The batman reboot that is rumoured should not be made because no one will top Nolan's interpretation of the batman story, just look at the Spider-Man films,the originals were very good except 3 but they made the remake this year and it was very poor, can't imagine how anything will top the Dark Knight Trilogy in the new batman movies, it's an impossible task, I for one wouldn't want to take Batman story on after Nolan.
To conclude, you have to see this movie, it's the best comic book movie ever, it's slightly better than the Dark Knight and if it doesn't win best picture at the Oscars never mind nominated, the people who run the Oscars need there heads testing. My prediction Nolan best director and best picture and Joseph Gordon-Levitt best supporting actor.
Astonishingly good. 10/10