The greatest superhero trilogy ever made.

Rating: 8/10 (20 July 2012)

With "The Dark Knight Rises" Christopher Nolan brings his Batman trilogy to a triumphant conclusion and completes the greatest superhero trilogy ever made. Christian Bale does his best work yet as Bruce Wayne giving us the most human and tortured Bruce we have yet seen. Anne Hathaway does some of the best work of her career as Catwoman. Joseph Gordon Levitt gives a career best performance as John Blake, an idealistic Gotham cop. I saw the film in IMAX really the only way to see it. The opening plane hijacking ranks as one of the greatest action sequences in history. In my review of "The Dark Knight" I wrote that the film was about the choices made by Batman and Commissioner Gordon. Here we see the consequences of some of those choices. Gordon has lost his family and Bruce has lost himself. Bane represents the most lethal villain Batman has ever gone up against. Tom Hardy gives a great performance as Bane, while not as memorable as the late Heath Ledger's towering performance in TDK, he is still a chilling creation. The only major flaw for me was that the film almost seems overstuffed. There is almost too much going on. TDK was more streamlined and had the most visceral storytelling of the trilogy. However TDKR is still one of the best films of the year and again Nolan provides the most thrilling ending of the year. Not as good as TDK but a more than worthy ending to one of the great film trilogies.