Overrated

Rating: 7/10 (10 September 2018)

The Dark Knight Rises Review 3/5
The expectations were high for this film given that it was a direct follow up to The Dark Knight. With a great storyline, memorable characters, groundbreaking action scenes and a perfect performance by Heath Ledger it was easily one of the best comic book adaptations to date. But even that film had its flaws but not as much as this one. At the time of its release a lot of the critics received backlash and even death threats from the rabid fans. The fans were even worse than the Star Wars fans. Anyway The Dark Knight Rises is far from perfect but it does have some enjoyable moments throughout.
Eight years have past since the events of The Dark Knight. Bruce Wayne is retired living his life in isolation, The Joker is locked away and Gotham City's crime rate is at an all time low. But the masked villainous Bane and his army are lurking in the sewers and he has a plan. After hearing about Commissioner Gordon being hospitalised and encountering a mysterious cat burglar Bruce Wayne decides to come back out of retirement. It's a real crowd pleaser when he comes back as Batman but he has to go toe to toe with his toughest opponent yet. He's not as fast as he used to be however that is what gives the film it's edge, we can finally root for Bruce Wayne because he is in a vulnerable state here. Bane is sort of like a 60s Bond villain taking the city hostage threatening to blow it up if anyone leaves.
The opening plane hijack sequence is breathtaking and like the majority of the action sequences it was shot in IMAX using practical effects. From miniatures to daring stunts we see real stuntmen hang off of the dangling plane fuselage. The overall action scenes are intense accompanied by an epic music score by returning composer Hans Zimmer. Although some of them suffer from bad editing they are still enjoyable and look spectacular. It's best to watch it with surround sound speakers as the sound effects make the experience more immersive from Banes heavy breathing, the bone crunching punch ups to the extremely loud gunshots and explosions. It's the most action packed of the trilogy but it suffers from a thin plot.
Christopher Nolan does a fine job directing the film but not much can be said about his screenplay. Unfortunately it's his worst writing yet making this the most implausible chapter. It's full of so many character storylines and it just gets confusing. There are a lot of things that make little to no sense. There isn't much logic to many of the scenes, there are some obvious twists throughout and a lot of things go by unexplained. Using flashbacks it harps back to previous plot lines and characters in an attempt to make it feel more connected to those films. On top of all that it runs at nearly 3 hours which is just too long considering how half baked the plot is.
Aside from all of this Christian Bale gives his best performance as a more weary broken Bruce Wayne. Tom Hardy is really good in the role of Bane and every time he's on screen he is physically imposing, very intimidating and he has some great lines of dialogue. Michael Caine is only in it briefly but he gives an emotional nuanced performance as family butler Alfred. Joseph Gordon Levitt and Anne Hathaway both do serviceable jobs - However with such a big cast the film didn't really need them, they are just there for fan service and to be honest their story arcs are not very interesting. But that being said Hathaways cat suit has a cool realistic look to it which fits well within the continuity of the Nolan franchise. That's one thing you can give them credit for is they make these films as grounded in reality as possible. But with outlandish characters like Bane and Catwoman there are a lot of things they have to compromise like Selina Kyle/Catwomans backstory. She wasn't resurrected by cats like the comics, she is simply just a woman who is very good at sneaking about. Bane isn't a raging hulk who gets pumped on steroid juice he's just a conflicted man who has been through some bad stuff. Overall it's a thourouly enjoyable film but it's let down by lazy writing full and plot-holes.