An excellent conclusion to a terrific trilogy!

Rating: 10/10 (22 July 2012)

I have never written any kind of review in my life (not counting facebook ranting!), but after hearing people (a clear minority, but still too many!) give negative opinions of this movie, I felt obligated to write my own review. I need to start off by saying that I had never been this excited for a film. Ever! This is the first film that I've seen on the day of its release and I had been hyping it up like you would not believe to anyone that would listen. Well, even to people who wouldn't listen too! Despite going in with the expectation that this would be one of the best movies I've ever seen, I can safely say that I was not let down. Not one bit!
The Dark Knight Rises is an even mix of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. Batman Begins has its slow moments (especially in the first half of the movie), whereas The Dark Knight is able to just continue straight on from the foundations that the previous movie built, and is pretty much non-stop epic action from start to finish. The Dark Knight Rises also has slower moments, but where the story continues on from The Dark Knight, it's a bit inevitable. There was not a single moment though, where I thought to myself "man, this is a bit boring". Because of some of the "less exciting" scenes, I may not be able to re-watch The Dark Knight Rises as many times as I have seen The Dark Knight though. That doesn't make it an inferior film at all (especially going by first viewings). The plans that the bad guys have in store for Gotham City in Batman Begins could well and truly mean the destruction of the city. However, while it feels, and is an epic movie, the truth is that nothing that the Joker does in The Dark Knight poses much of a threat to your average citizen, let alone the whole of Gotham City. In The Dark Knight Rises however, what Bane achieves certainly does affect and also seriously threaten the WHOLE of Gotham City, and the conclusion (as it should, being the end of the trilogy) blows the ending of The Dark Knight out of the water, and then some.
Complaints about Bane not being as good a villain as the Joker are a bit ridiculous in my opinion. Sure, Heath Ledger as the Joker was a once in a lifetime performance, but you can't judge Bane against that. Tom Hardy does an incredible job as Bane. While the Joker was crazy... Bane is a psycho! If I were to come across either of these two in a street by themselves (unarmed), sure I'd be running like crazy from either of them... but I'd be running a lot harder and a lot faster from Bane, guaranteed! If Christopher Nolan had the option of returning to the Joker for the final film (well, if he could, maybe it might not have been his final film, who knows?), then chances are we would have just been given The Dark Knight V2.0. Not that there would have been anything wrong with that at all! But it might have gotten a little bit stale/repetitive. The unfortunate passing of Heath Ledger forced Nolan to go in a new direction, and it's an absolute credit to the story/screen writing team of himself, his brother Jonathon and David S. Goyer.
Overall the actors were very good. Christian Bale was excellent as Bruce Wayne, struggling with wanting/needing to be Batman. Michael Caine finally gets a chance to show his acting ability (in this trilogy!) and is very emotional in his scenes. Joseph Gordon-Levitt was very good as newcomer cop John Blake. Anne Hathaway did a good job as Catwoman (a word never said in the movie, which I think is a good thing!). I don't know why anyone thought she would do a bad job. Tom Hardy as Bane was exactly what you wanted him to be, terrifying, brutal, yet strangely composed. There was a line here or there from Bane that I missed completely, but nothing that left me confused about anything going on in the story. The scenes where he had extended dialogue, for example the NFL stadium speeches, I could understand every word. With second, third, fourth viewings etc, I'm sure I will pick up on the little bits that I missed. Even if I still miss them again, it's nothing that a subtitled DVD won't fix eventually!
I don't want to go on all day, so I won't go on about the other aspects too much. The cinematography and score are exactly what we've come to expect from Nolan's previous epic films. Either you like them or you don't. I certainly do! From the moment I first heard it in a preview, I have loved Bane's chant.
I had more written out, but I'll cut it short. I'll just say this, I think that anyone who gives The Dark Knight Rises less than a 7 out of 10 is being a bit ridiculous. It is a very exciting and entertaining movie, well written, with a lot of high quality action scenes. A lot of time and effort has clearly gone into every aspect of making The Dark Knight Rises (as it does with every one of Christopher Nolan's films), and if you can't at least appreciate and respect that, then you probably shouldn't be watching movies at all! I'll finish off by saying that it was an absolute tragedy what happened at the midnight screening at Aurora. How disgusting is it that anyone should be put through something like that? But people who are at the movies, clearly excited (since they're the first in the country to see it!) to watch a good movie, it's a disgrace. There's so many screwed up people in the world, all you can do is try your best to avoid them!