Nolan saves the best for last

Rating: 8/10 (14 October 2018)

The Dark Knight Rises is probably the greatest possible send off to the Dark Knight trilogy, as it manages to capture that complexity in its narrative like Batman Begins did, while not being severely muddled by chaotic views on morality Like the Dark Knight.
As The Dark Knight had significant improvement over Batman Begins in terms of the action sequences, this is even more so evident in The Dark Knight Rises. This is finally a film where Nolan shows himself to be a competent action movie director. The flashyness of Batman Begins and the shakyness of The Dark Knight's fight scenes are now replaced with more simplistic and conventional camera angles. The ASL ( Average Shot Length ) in these action scenes seem to be a lot higher than in its previous entries, and the result is that in particular the fight sequences between Bane and Batman are a fascinating piece of brutal choreography where everything is now perfectly shown. It is obvious that at this point in the trilogy Chris Nolan has become self aware of his directional capabilities as far as action is concerned. He understands he isn't capable of directing these quick edited shaky fight sequences, and therefore does nothing special to the camera except heighten the ASL and let the actors's superb athleticism do their work. It is a great action film too in this regard.
The cinematography is noticeable for being brighter than its two dark predecessors, yet the cinematography is still very good. It still manages to produce beautiful images, and despite that lack of utter darkness and hopelessness in its visuals, it still manages to capture an unsettling atmosphere. The original score by Hans Zimmer is once again obviously superb, even though a lot of it are recycled pieces from earlier on in the franchise.
Acting quite possibly reaches its ultimate peak in The Dark Knight Rises, with in particular Michael Caine ( Alfred ) as a stand out. The genuine care Alfred seems to have about Bruce Wayne is something that is continued on throughout the film, and there are a couple of truly emotional outbursts that are as impactful as they are heartbreaking, which is all thanks solely to the superb performance by Michael Caine. The rest of the cast was good, although with very little other standouts. Bane ( Tom Hardy ) is a great villain but this is mostly because of his interesting character arc and apparent physical superiority. Tom Hardy doesn't have to go to many depths to portray the villain as well as he did because due to the mask on his face there is very little emotional depth possible. New characters like Selina Kyle ( Anne Hathaway ) & John Blake ( Joseph-Gordon Levitt ) are introduced and mostly adequately acted, but their characters are not particularly interesting in their development or persona in any way.
The screenplay, unlike in The Dark Knight, does provide a couple of clever twists, which makes it retain the strong, intelligent and complex narrative structure of Batman Begins. However, Nolan does deem it necessary to put an over emphasis on exposition when these twists are revealed. We get a character spelling the events out for us combined with a flashback sequence which shows it to us, as if the audience wasn't clever enough to put two and two together. It would be fine if Nolan did one of the two here, which is either spelling it out without visuals or showing only the visuals for the twist ( preferably the latter ), but Nolan seemed to have little faith in his audience understanding his twist without the spoon fed and ham fisted exposition.
In terms of emotional value and pure ecstatic quality there is no doubt that The Dark Knight Rises is the best in the trilogy. That pure feeling of achievement and triumph when Bruce Wayne makes a certain jump, or the impact of the death of a certain character, it is all as immersive as it can be because it does make you care about these things. Unfortunately it still seems to be the victim of a bunch of social commentary in the character of Selina Kyle. Be it crushing the hands of a tough inmate to beating up every men she can lay her hands on, her character is just a bunch of nonsensical feminism propaganda. A strong female character is not necessarily a bunch of social commentary, but when about five seperate seemingly irrelevant scenes about her beating up a bunch of guys are shown, this really shows Nolan is spelling out for us: 'Look at this film, we are so original by showing a puny female beat up bunches of men! This is going to sell great to the uninitiated and the SJW's!'. It is really an unfortunate turn of events for a film that could have been even greater.
The Dark Knight Rises consists of excellent action sequences, superb cinematography and acting, a smart script & a lot of character development, but it unfortunately also features a lot of unnecessary exposition and irrelevant social propaganda, which decreases the intellect of the overall product severely. Still, it is the best entry in the series due to the fact that it is superior in most of the primary aspects.