The Dark Knight Rises Review

It's here. Does Christopher Nolan's landmark grand finale deliver on the promise of its predecessors?
Full review by Isaac Handelman

No movie is perfect. The mark of a great film is not a lack of flaws -- rather, its ability to overcome its flaws, and not let its missteps drag it down.

It would be easy to criticize The Dark Knight Rises for being many things -- slow to start, a tad incoherent at certain points and slightly derivative at others, too loud, or lacking in closure. And you wouldn’t necessarily be wrong in these accusations. But I pity the person who dwells on these petty annoyances. They’d be missing out; Rises is a dark, grand, enormously ambitious finale to a saga that’s sure to be hailed as one of modern cinema’s greatest.

Rises picks up eight years after the events of The Dark Knight. Batman’s taken the blame for the murders Harvey Dent committed, and Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) has become a social recluse, spending his days locked up in his mansion while Gotham basks in a golden age, free of the organized crime which has plagued the city for decades. It would seem Gotham no longer needs Batman -- that is, until Bane (Tom Hardy) erupts from Gotham’s sewers with an army of outlaws, intent on finishing the job Ra’s al Ghul started years ago. He is, in his own words, Gotham’s reckoning. Wayne re-dons the cape and cowl and vows to put a stop to Bane's horrifying plan to eradicate Gotham of order, to convert the city to anarchy and watch it consume itself.

New to Rises is Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway), a brash, striking cat burglar with a knack for crossing paths with Wayne/Batman. With her help, as well as that of Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman), and Officer John Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), Batman must overcome Bane’s seemingly unstoppable might. 

Topping Heath Ledger’s legendary Joker performance from The Dark Knight is an issue which Christopher and Jonathon Nolan, Rises’ writers, smartly sidestepped. Bane isn’t the senseless psychopath who “just wants to watch the world burn” that Joker was. He’s cold, calculating, and motivated by a dark and turbulent past. He’s more interesting on a character level than Joker ever could have been, and Hardy’s performance is nothing to scoff at. He's helped along by some brilliant sound editing on the villain’s voice that adds to his threatening, invincible aura (and yes, it's fixed -- you can understand what he's saying now).

Hathaway’s Selina Kyle (Catwoman, though she’s never actually addressed as such), is one of the most surprising aspects of the film. The first time we meet the character, it seems Hathaway has missed the mark on the famous jewel thief -- she seems far too innocent, showing no sign of the brash anti-heroine she's supposed to be. And then, most suddenly, the charade is dropped as Hathaway utters one word that utterly sells her performance. From this point on, her scenes are exhilarating (and great fun) as Kyle bounces between these two personas, more than once using the tactic to her amusing advantage, catching bad guys off guard on multiple occasions and, at the end of the day, crafting a character I’m ultimately extremely disappointed only got one film to shine in.

Batman Begins and The Dark Knight were by no means small in scope, but neither delivered threats that seemed too far outside of Batman’s almighty iron-fisted grip. Rises feels comparatively more desperate -- there’s hardly any sense of hope or light at the end of the tunnel for much of the middle act. The threat posed by Bane is shocking, and one which takes an already gloomy series to darker, more morose places than ever before. 

That’s not to say it’s depressing -- Nolan’s signature touch ensures that even the most dire of scenes are extraordinarily entertaining. Bane is cool, there’s no getting around that. He’s twisted, he’s evil, he could even be downright insane -- but, let's face it, the man’s a badass. We’ve scene this tactic used before in Nolan’s series -- Joker’s scene-stealing mannerisms made every scene he inhabited an absolute joy to see, despite the fact that his character was downright despicable and the filmmaker ensures it’s the same case here, so even the scenes devoid of the Bat and the Cat, Gary Oldman’s impeccable Gordon and Gordon-Levitt’s likable everyman Blake -- that is, everyone in the film who we’re led to root for -- are, well, unbelievably awesome. That’s no easy feat to achieve, and it’s one Nolan and Nolan no doubt deserve to be commended for. 

As the film reaches its climax, we’re treated to a glorious crescendo of epic battle sequences, breathtaking imagery, sweeping scope and raw intensity on a scale that’s never before been realized in the history of all things Batman. The Dark Knight Rises is an unmistakable finale if there ever was one. It’s doesn’t answer every question or provide a definite bookend for every character and side-story, but it doesn’t have to. What's presented here is immensely satisfying, and should provide any and all fans of the trilogy with the chance to let out a big, deep sigh when the credits role as they think, "Man, what a ride it has been." 

Since 2005’s Batman Begins Christopher Nolan has been showing the world that he knows Batman. He knows the character. He knows the world. He knows how to represent the Dark Knight’s comic-book roots in a dark, gritty form that packs in just enough realism to accompany its jaw-dropping blockbuster dazzle and mature tone. With The Dark Knight Rises, he again proves this claim is entirely just. We were promised a spectacular grand finale to one of the greatest cinematic trilogies of all time, and we got it. Be happy; the Dark Knight has risen very, very high.

Final Score:

9.0/10

"Amazing"