"A hero can be anyone even something as simple as creating the perfect batman trilogy and saving us from the awfulness of the Joel schumacher batman films"

Rating: 10/10 (6 March 2017)

Firstly and most importantly the story of this film is brilliant. From the very start the normal narrative structure is disregarded, as with previous Nolan's work. The story starts off with a powerful, unforgettable plane hijacking scene introducing the masked villain Bane portrayed brilliantly by Tom Hardy. It then moves to the life of Bruce Wayne (8 years after the events of TDK) and the emptiness he now lives in with the death of Rachel on his conscience and the crimes of Harvey Dent which he chose to take the blame for, for the good of Gotham. This is until Bane strikes again and forces Batman into action, along with newcomer Selina Kyle aka. Catwoman. The story continues to unfold beautifully with surprises at every twist and turn building up to a mesmerizing sensational last hour and climax. Batman falls and 'rises' in this film as Bane takes full control of Gotham causing Bruce unbearable pain by making him witness his city burn helplessly.
The acting in this movie is wonderful and varied with each character perfectly bringing their roles to life. Christian Bale gives his best performance yet as Bruce Wayne who in many ways feels like a down-to-earth human being in this one and not as of a distant billionaire playboy. In this one we can feel his despair and learn even more about him with the help of the brilliant characterization and development, as he faces immense challenges he must overcome and learn the true meaning of ''Why do we fall?'' whatever the consequences. The fact even he can be 'broken' shows us despite how much of a symbol he is and what he stands for, he is still physically just a man and all men can fall. Moving on, despite not living up to Ledger's genius, Tom Hardy still does a hell of a job portraying the huge masked villain Bane superbly and through his marvelous performance it makes him a completely terrifying and menacing villain who is not to be reckoned with. Despite this monstrous side by the end we begin to sympathise with him more as he is revealed by the end to have a much gentler human side, showing how even the worst of people are still just human. These being the two strongest performances of the film nevertheless doesn't mean the rest of the cast didn't also do a great job. Hathaway portrays cunning, sexy Catwoman engrossingly, Caine does a fantastic job as always, as does new-comer Joseph Gordon Levitt (John Blake) and Gary Oldman as Commissioner James Gordon is excellent as per usual. Marion Cotillard is one of the weaker additions to this impeccable cast and perhaps having a slightly underwritten character than many of the others and a particularly bad performance in her last moments, she still manages to do a good job overall.
The themes and issues explored in this film amount to something greater in many aspects than in TDK, despite TDK being a much better film. Bane's plan can be associated with the Occupy Wall Street movement, the banking crisis of our modern society and whether capitalism is the right direction to stay on or should the system be changed to allow a new sense of order. It does not suggest anarchy but possibly that a new law and order must be brought about for society to flourish. It portrays some ideas about revolution and questions - whether there will ever be a fall of western civilization or such a powerful system as capitalism. This film contributes greatly to the world as we see it today and a lot of symbolic elements fill the story, unlike some other superhero films which simply employ nice visuals and humour to entertain an audience and no deeper gritty material for us to sink our teeth into.
Moving on to technical aspects, the action of the film is bigger and often better than before, orchestrated breath-takingly from the opening scene of the huge plane hijacking to thousands of people charging at each other through the torn apart streets of Gotham, filmed on Wall Street helping to give just the massive scale of the action. This does not always manage to reach the great heights of the electrifying effect of TDK's action sequences yet often is able to surprise you and still has some of the most vigourously entertaining and enthralling sequences in blockbuster history. The sound editing as well as the music of Zimmer are powerful and more hard hitting than ever yet with a nice blend of calm moments to stop it from being a purely loud clunky mess of a film. The visual effects also add to the realism and astonishing nature of the action sequences and the film overall considering a majority of them were practical and avoided using CGI as much as possible, another reason I also respect Nolan as a filmmaker despite making such 'big' films.
Finally, we have a superhero trilogy were all three films are masterpieces. The dark knight rises carries an emotional punch with its brilliant innovative action sequences, hard hitting sound and music, fantastic acting, characterization and great depth in storytelling as well as morals and allegories about society, capitalism and the human spirit and how much one man can affect many so astoundingly, to become a legend, all that can be drawn from this unbelievably entertaining masterpiece of modern mainstream cinema, one of my favourites.