Who will rise? Good or Evil?

Rating: 7/10 (26 July 2012)

This is a brilliant film on its own being an action packed, adrenalin rushing and eventually emotional action film. But it is as the final chapter of this trilogy that it really shows its true quality! This film makes 'Batman Begins' and 'The Dark Knight' even better than they are on their own and because of that The Dark Knight Trilogy deserves a spot among the very best trilogies of film history!
Gotham is living in "peace time", but literally underneath the lies of Harvey Dents Alter-ego Two-Face lies a threat bigger than ever before: an underground army lead by the intelligent muscle man Bane who wants to see Gotham burn by giving the power of the city to the people.
Meanwhile Bruce Wayne has locked himself away in the rebuilt Wayne Manor and retired Batman for good after taking the blame for killing Harvey Dent and his five victims. The question is: Will Gotham need Batman in order to prevent Bane from taking over eventually leaving Gotham in ashes?
This is the story line and despite a vast cast and an enormous amount of characters the story is surprisingly focused on this story drawing lines back to the entire series and even to the comics themselves.
The cast is once again lead by Christian Bale as Batman/Bruce Wayne. In Batman Begins he was a good Batman, in The Dark Knight he was better and in The Dark Knight Rises he does exactly what his character does. He rises to an all new level of quality! I think the main reason for this is that the film isn't as much about Batman as it is about Bruce Wayne. The amount of scenes featuring Bale as Wayne clearly outnumbers his scenes as Batman and THAT gives him a lot more screen time to show his fantastic skills portraying the broken, fearful and angry billionaire as his city is burning right in front of him.
Responsible for this fire is Bane in the terrifying presence of a Tom Hardy more muscular than ever before. He cannot do the impossible and outclass Heath Ledger's haunting performance as The Joker. But Hardy comes close with an amazing job - it really is a tour de force performance of physical acting. It is amazing how many emotions Hardy can show just with his eyes and some parts of his forehead!
Returning to the all star cast with ever so brilliant performances are of course Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine above all.
Anne Hathaway is perfect as the cunning, mysterious and independent Kyle and she is just as sexy as she needs to be - leading all male leads straight into her fist! One of the best performances of the film.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt doesn't let us down either: a superb job as the sometimes naive believer in goodness and for that reason Batman, and his refusal of giving up is so powerful that we as an audience refuse it too - even when things are darker than ever before!
This film is brutally powerful in its action sequences and ever so touching in the sudden emotional scenes. Besides the actors, Hans Zimmer is in many ways responsible for this. He has managed to create an overall theme for this trilogy that ranks up there with his very best work.
Cinematographer Wally Pfister won an Academy Award for his work on Nolan's 'Inception' and surely he must be in the competition again come February. With brilliant use of IMAX cameras in the grandest scenes we are taken into the action on an all new level! Add to that an extraordinarily beautiful cinematography of a prison in India and you have the basis for what is also a visual masterpiece.
Finally we have the man responsible for it all: Christopher Nolan. He has created a Batman universe unlike anything ever produced before in previous Batman films or any other superhero franchise for that matter and why is that?
One of the main things is how he focuses on the reality. The characters faces the same fears as we do and he has cast light on some of the biggest debates in modern society. In 'The Dark Knight Rises' we touch the environmental debate, the current recession and of course the returning threat of terrorism. So when Bruce Wayne watches Gotham burn on a TV screen he shares the same despair, powerlessness and anger that we do, when we see the brutality of the world we live in from our homes.
Nolan is also one of the best action directors in Hollywood at the moment and a big reason for that is his desire to use as many physical effects as possible. Very few of the scenes in this film was CGI-created and literally tens of thousands extras was on set for several scenes. Especially a major fight in the middle of Wall Street and a bone crushing duel between Bane and Batman after 50 minutes is memorable and some of the best action scenes of recent time. Using the first hour or so to carefully building up the characters make us that more involved when all hell break loose. You really are kept on the edge of your seat rooting for characters you really care for!
Add to that a fantastic ability of writing shared by Christopher Nolan and his brother Jonathan who has written the final two chapters of the trilogy. Not a single scene or line seems irrelevant for the final plot. And after 2 hours and 35 minutes the final 5-10 minutes will unveil all the secrets in a way you've never seen before. Slowly stitching all story lines of all three films together into one coherent story. You will be overwhelmed when the end credits roll down the screen!