An Absolute Must-See

Rating: 8/10 (11 March 2013)

The third instalment in Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy is an absolute must-see for any fan of the franchise. The man who brought more edge and cinematic acceptability to an already well-loved series has once again achieved excellence in said field; the edginess is there with daring story-telling, and the acceptability is there with box office success and a mass amount of positive reviews.
While a great movie, any sequel is going to be compared to it's predecessors, and in this case, you have to give so much praise to 'The Dark Knight', Nolan's second in the series. 'The Dark Knight Rises' has phenomenal cinematography values and some of the best written dialogue in a super hero movie, but none of this compares to the story, character development or masterful acting, the latter of which is what these films tend to lack, not that that's supposed to hinder the value of such a movie. Also, after Nolan had achieved his 'boundaries-pushing' reputation, this instalment doesn't allow him to live up to such a title as 'Batman Begins' and 'The Dark Knight' did.
'Comparisons' is the only section of subject matter where I allow myself to be negative here though; forget about what came before this and you still have a fantastic film. It doesn't have any of the silver screen brilliance that Nolan's previous two efforts had, but hey, there's always going to be a worst in a series. The casting was fine as usual, which allowed for some tremendous, heart-felt acting from series regulars Christian Bale, Michael Caine and Gary Oldman. Also in the spotlight here were Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard, Anne Hathaway and Tom Hardy who played 'Bane', the barbaric and brilliant antagonist who shone but more-so adequately rather than amazingly. Design, costume, make-up and visuals workers also need to be praised here for living up to the expectations of a movie based around eye- grabbing scenery and appearances.
The editing, production values, sound editing and musical score were also present and polished, with the franchise's familiar themes being thrown towards our ears when necessary, making for a great, well- produced super hero epic.
'The Dark Knight Rises' stays true to it's genre and reputation; a film of brilliant action-packed moments which manage to overcome the select few bits of tedium. It's an adventure, a drama and an overall fan- pleaser. I recommend it if you're a fan of the series, though if you are...surely you've seen it by now. ****