Plot, performances and production are perfect.

Rating: 10/10 (18 July 2012)

Chris Nolan's 'Dark Knight Rises' takes the filmic mythology of Batman that only the best conic books dared dream. While 'Begins' chronicled Bruce Wayne's renunciation of a normal life in place of legend, proceeding to meet an adversary who had never had a normal life in 'The Dark Knight', Bane is the full circle opposite of that which Batman was never fully able to do - immerse himself in a new guise, mask himself completely and risk lives upholding an archaic and deranged sense of just society. Bane had a contrasting life to Wayne's and so becomes a despotic monster in a way perhaps Wayne pretended. Where Batman used smoke and mirrors and rejected Neeson's Ghul's edict of necessary harm to criminality, Bane just does it, takes lives, blows up a football field, isolates Gotham to make it his own vigilante dictatorship. Enter Catwoman, the epitome of smart petty crime, who Batman must work with to return from punishing defeat by Bane to combat his raging tyranny. Just as the Joker could be taken as a symbol of America's ruthless economic face and Harvey Dent America's inability to cope with losing face, so Bane is the vengeful, despotic monster America has been in parts of the world and one day could wholly become. Batman is America's brave heart, Catwoman its smarts and sass that it must embrace to knife out potential lapse in true morality. Performances here are exquisite. Tom Hardy is at once grand scale circus strongman Bully and Mussolini-esque born leader, playing far beyond his years as the Goliathic Bane. Anne Hathaway possesses a guile and wit to give the world the first complete Catwoman, while Christian Bale perhaps gives the performance of his career. Chris Nolan delivers Batman's finest hour, topping even Inception's set pieces as he steers a realistic sci-fi fantasy that Kubrick would be proud of - whose influence is as pervasive here as Mann's in 'The Dark Knight' or Ridley Scott's in 'Begins' Some twists - one fan sating cameo - and you have a copper bottomed critical and commercial masterpiece. Go see it!!!