The Dark Knight Rises- Grade: A

Starring: Christian Bale (American Psycho, The Prestige), Tom Hardy (Inception), Joseph Gordon Levitt (500 Days of Summer, 3rd Rock from the Sun)
Directed By: Christopher Nolan (Inception, Memento)
Release Date: July 20, 2012
Opening Weekend: $160,900,000
Rating: PG-13
Run Time: 2Hr 45Min
Synopsis: Gotham's eight years of peace following Harvey Dent's death ends when a new, mysterious super villain, Bane, comes to power. Reclusive billionaire Bruce Wayne returns to his vigilante ways to save Gotham, this time with help from some new friends.

So How Was It?: The danger with films like TDKR is that they've simply become too much. There's the megastar cast, the endless promotion, the sold out tickets, the crowds, the tragic Oscar winning legacy of its predecessor and most recently the horrible events in Aurora, Colorado. There's a danger of all of these things getting in the way of what's most important; the film. The hype runs the risk of warping people's perception of the film. On one hand, people can mistake popularity for blind adoration and that isn't healthy for any film. It only belittles the endless hours of hard work the cast and crew put into making it. On the other hand, the hype may make some people decide they don't like or want to see the film without ever giving it a chance to prove itself.

Outside influences aside, The Dark Knight Rises is an example of film making at its best. Everything comes together just right; the cast, the crew and the story. The film revisits many of the trilogy's previous topics such as power, greed, corruption, revenge, fear, faith and morality and expands on them. Everything is bigger and more urgent. The final scenes of the film are beautifully done, giving many of the characters we have come to know and love (or hate) fitting ends. Most importantly though, Bruce Wayne's character arc comes to a very natural feeling close. He secures his place as one of the greatest and most human of all the comic book superheroes. Nolan leaves whoever is in charge of the series's reboot with a lot of material to work with.


Side note: although it would have been nice to get closure, Nolan's choice to forego any mention of Ledger's Joker is understandable and tastefully done.

Acting Wise: Nolan sure does know how to choose his ensemble casts. Honestly, there wasn't a single bad apple here, from the average background cop to Batman himself. The cast truly was top notch.

Best performances: Tom Hardy as villain Bane and Michael Caine as butler Alfred. Hardy had an especially interesting hurdle to overcome; his face is partially obscured the entire film. The bulk of his acting comes from his menacing physical presence, his eerie voice and his threatening eyes. Hardy gives a haunting performance of a character so heartless that its deeply unsettling when we finally see the flickering remains of his humanity at the film's end. Unfortunately, Michael Caine's scenes are rather limited but the ones he does have are some of the most moving and heartbreaking of the entire film.

Honorable mentions: Joseph Gordon Levitt's rookie cop, John Blake. For what could have been a forgettable and overly earnest character, Levitt gives Blake a human core that audience members can easily relate to.

The Technical Stuff: Visually the only thing that felt odd about TDKR was its lack of the dark, Gotham like quality its predecessors had. The film is so blatantly shot in NYC (there are numerous shots of a very recognizable NYC skyline, Chrysler building and all) that sometimes its a wonder why they even bothered calling it Gotham. Other than that, everything else looked and sounded great (Composer Hans Zimmer continues to amaze).

Best Scene: For coolness factor: the opening sequence plane stunt. Nolan's Batman films have never disappointed in the creative stunt department and TDKR is no exception.

Runner up: the final scene between Bane and Batman; two superpowers butting heads. It was brutal and heart breaking to watch.

Editorial Commentary: I was pleasantly surprised at how much I came to enjoy Anne Hathaway's Catwoman. She turned out to be one of the most interesting characters in the film.

Too bad Leonardo DiCaprio couldn't make a cameo in TDKR. He was the only one missing from the Inception party this cast turned out to be (Joseph Gordon Levitt, Marion Cotillard, Tom Hardy, Michael Caine and Cillian Murphy were all in Inception and TDKR as well)

To See or Not to See?: No doubt about it, this is a must see. Forget the hype, just go see it.

WARNING:  SPOILERS

For Those Who Saw It: I don't even want to risk spoiling it for someone by writing it here but what was that twist at the ending?! Not since watching Fight Club have I been this surprised by a character. Kudos to Nolan for keeping that a mystery up until the end. 

Did anyone else have as goofy a grin on their face as I did when it was Joseph Gordon Levitt's John Blake revealed what his real name was?