Don't be sad because it's over, be happy because it happened.

Rating: 9/10 (20 July 2012)

****SPOILERS****
I had to compose myself before writing this. I felt an unparalleled rush of feelings and perhaps answers to questions long rattled around in my head. Over the past six years Christopher Nolan has brought fans of The Bat and lovers of quality film making on a great journey. When Lord of The Rings finished I felt lonely thinking I would never experience a cinematic event like it again, I was wrong.
The director and his co-screenwriter, brother Jonathan Nolan, pick up the story eight years after Batman (Christian Bale) took the rap for DA Harvey Dent. It was Dent who died going psycho as the evil Two- Face, but Commissioner Gordon (the reliably superb Gary Oldman) persuaded Batman to take the blame as an impetus for severe new crime laws in Gotham. This new era of crime-busting is built on lies, which is hell on Batman's alter ego, playboy Bruce Wayne, who's been living like a hermit in luxury – all his bat toys banished.
What brings Batman out of his shell and back into his bat suit? It starts with his attraction to Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway), a cat burglar who teases Bruce wickedly while hiding a secret agenda. Hathaway – sexy, scrappy and fast with put-downs – is dynamite as Catwoman, bringing welcome humor to a movie about to be enveloped in darkness.
And no one is darker than Bane (Tom Hardy), a battering ram of a villain, his face covered by a grille that feeds him medicine to alleviate pain he's suffered from childhood. Hardy's face is covered for 99.9 percent of the film, but his physical and vocal performance is riveting. It's Bane who initiates the attack against Gotham and the stock exchange. Is Nolan equating the legit protest of Occupy Wall Street with Bane's terrorism? You be the judge.
"The Dark Knight Rises" ends on a self-important note (not just quoting Dickens but erecting an actual monument, no less) that would be insufferable if Nolan and Bale hadn't so clearly earned it. In addition to giving fans their fair share of entertainment value, they helped make comic-book movies safe for good actors, resulting not in great talent slumming but elevating the form. Arguably, Robert Downey Jr., Michael Fassbender, Mark Ruffalo and, most recently, Andrew Garfield owe some debt to Bale, whose brooding, tightly coiled psychological complexity found such a sympathetic outlet in Nolan's densely composed style.
Like one of most hotly pursued MacGuffins of "The Dark Knight Rises," Nolan leaves a clean slate by the end of the movie, keeping a door open for Bale's successors. A generous gesture, to be sure, but for now, it's difficult to imagine anyone else with such a perfect scowl for the cowl.
However, I felt the same sadness leaving the cinema tonight.Then I remembered the joy, the inspiring scenes, the music, the goose pimples, stuff that makes you want to stand up in the cinema beat your chest and cry out " GO BATMAN, GO". Call it schmaltzy but I don't care. Batman lives on, so to speak, and thanks to him we may all sleep safe at night.