The surprisingly fitting epic finale!

Rating: 8/10 (17 July 2012)

You just don't watch a Nolan movie. You experience it. Something happens inside you after you're done watching any of his movies.
The Dark Knight Rises is not just a movie, its a baggage of expectations, its a sequel to The Dark Knight, it has been directed by Chris Nolan, it has the Batman and people have already started with their assumptions and speculations.
Does the movie survive all this?
Yes. Definitely yes.
Batman Begins dealt with fear. The Dark Knight dealt with chaos. The Dark Knight Rises deals with pain.
Eight years have been passed since the demise of Harvey Dent. Batman had hung up the boots and started blaming himself for Harvey's Death and everything. With all the injuries he had sustained while fighting under that bat suit and the depression, he is no longer the Bruce Wayne Gotham knows. People have been questioning his sanity. Wayne empire is declining.
In comes Bane. The dark, brutal, masked and monolithic beast who almost destroys Wayne enterprises to seek Batman.
Selina Kyle, a female burglar who teases Bruce Wayne with her attitude and activities.
As a result, Batman is forced to come back. What follows is the series of events that not only blow your mind away but cast a magical spell to last the full life time.
There are a several new players that have been introduced in the film, such as Wayne's love interest and the new age cop John Blake who does the job of being the good side kick of Gordon and plays in an important role in convincing Bruce Wayne to be back as the caped crusader to protect Gotham one last time from the terror of Bane and army.
So is The Dark Knight Rises better than The Dark Knight? If you were one of those fans who prefer Batman Begins to TDK then you'll find much to love about TDKR. And if you weren't then no Batman film will ever match TDK for you.
As both Batman and Bruce Wayne, Christian Bale's work here is master- class, and he gives the character such an inescapable melancholy – a certain perseverance in the face of absolute resignation to his fate – that he becomes a more tragic figure than ever. That said, he's aided enormously by a never-better Michael Caine, who turns with hope and palpable love what might otherwise be expository dialogue into searing, supportive criticisms of Wayne's self-destruction.
On the other hand, after being marketed as heir to the Joker in "The Dark Knight," Tom Hardy's Bane is a different sort of villain – a focused and more ideologically-developed version of Heath Ledger's Joker – but one with equally ruthless charm.
While she doesn't quite steal the show as Heath Ledger's Joker did, Hathaway's Catwoman is a magnetic presence whenever she's on screen and she has great chemistry with Bale. Selina may be the proverbial good bad girl, the thief with a heart of gold, but Hathaway imbues her with a wounded spirit and a survivor's edge that makes her feel genuine and sympathetic even when she's being naughty.
That being said, the acts of good old Gary Oldman and the power house Joseph Gordon Levitt cannot be ignored.
Christopher Nolan is in peak time of his life. Whatever he is touching is turning into gold. He has taken The Batman series to a level which no one in thousand years can reach. The action scenes, the rise and the fall of all the characters along with the climax are just the pieces of the puzzle, which in the end you feel was taking shape since the day Batman Begins released. The first hour ties all the loose ends the first two movies left behind and the climax is so apt that you leave the theater feeling contended and satisfied.
We may never see superhero films quite like these again, and that's fine. Nolan had something special to say with his time in the trenches, and he's ended on his own terms.
I wonder which series Nolan decides to reboot next!