Immense, Empowering, Psychological, Groundbreaking, Legendary.

Rating: 7/10 (23 July 2012)

"The Dark Knight" was my favorite movie of the 2 last decades, up until yesterday, when I watched "The Dark Knight Rises".
This movie delivers a cinematic experience like I've never watched before. Photography is absolutely genius and the sense of scale is unreal. The casting is a collection of hand picked professional actors who do their job perfectly, it is simply brilliant.
Christian Bale, as always, does not disappoint as Bruce Wayne nor as Batman and manages to keep the 2 characters separated while portraying Wayne as a very fragile, sentimental person who lost the love of his life on the one hand and a patriotic, cunning, powerful Batman on the other, great performance.
Anne Hathaway is golden, as said. Her physical capabilities are impressing but her ability to catch the viewer's eye is even better, her facial expressions, gestures and slick tongue make her an absolute joy to watch.
Tom Hardy as Bane is, hands down, one of the best villains ever seen on the screen. (I will avoid comparing his appearance to Ledger's legendary Joker as the 2 are very different)
Immediately when appearing on the screen, Bane induces a sense of chaos, terror and brutality while keeping an absolute crisp, logical and articulate tongue, it was just an experience to watch him bend everything to his advantage, not always having to use his terrifying physique, but also his brilliant mind and intelligence. Just wonderful.
Michael Cane is simply one of the best actors alive today and should be nominated for an academy award for his outstanding appearance in this film, nothing more is needed to be said.
The plot of this film is just brilliant and although Bane and the Joker are very different, it feels like at some points Bane actually tries to fulfill the Joker's vision in spreading chaos everywhere, but in a much more intelligent way.
The texts are brilliant, saturated with philosophical and psychological meanings and it truly feels like every scene is extremely important to understand the entire trilogy and the chronicles of Batman and Gotham.
This movie strikes a perfect balance between hi-tech, fast paced, precise action scenes and engrossing, deep, meaningful events and texts.
The Photography and the sense of scale this movie provides left me in awe, the soundtrack was impeccable and the editing was spot on.
I am running out of adjectives to commend this movie enough.
To summarize, I will recommend everyone to watch this movie, even twice in order to absorb the entire experience to its fullest.
"The Dark Knight Rises" is a huge collision between a deep, intelligent, psychological plot to stunning photography, brilliant editing and outstanding acting performance who together create a legendary cinematic experience.
Without a shred of doubt, this is Nolan's best work to date and it absolutely deserves the title "Best Film of the year"
10/10