Eight years on, a new terrorist leader, Bane, overwhelms Gotham's finest, and the Dark Knight resurfaces to protect a city that has branded him an enemy. Just about everyone thought
The Dark Knight was better than Batman Begins, but I personally begged to differ. I thought 'Begins' was better thanks to its strong story line and lesser hype while 'Dark Knight', although still very good, I think Ledger's death created a bandwagon for everyone that lead to large hype that felt a little out of proportion and raised my expectations so high as well, that it was just about impossible not to be disappointed. Like I said, 'Dark Knight' was tremendous, but I found it a little overrated - and don't take my comment on Ledger/Joker wrong because I personally found Ledger bar-none the best actor in 'Dark Knight' way ahead of Christian Bale's Batman. So it all leads to the "epic conclusion of the
Dark Knight saga" - will it end well or will it end as a huge disappointment? Let's find out.
Eight years after the events of
The Dark Knight, Gotham has found itself at peace while Bruce Wayne has locked himself up in his home, Wayne Manor and looks older than ever. Once a new villain comes into town named Bane, Wayne is pretty much forced to revive his role as The Dark Knight, but with his health poor, can he really come back out of retirement or is he seriously done for good? Well, let's just say, Bane is waiting for the games to begin while Wayne tries to "get back in the game" so I guess we know where this is headed, don't we?
First off, the cast lead by Christian Bale as The Dark Knight is as in any other Christopher Nolan film, splendid. While I preferred Bale much more in 'Begins' than 'Dark Knight', I personally believe this one was his best effort yet in the saga. His portrayal as both a healthy as well as ailing Bruce Wayne are very hard to accomplish, but Bale portrays each form of Wayne with ease and I applaud his efforts as he absolutely
nailed it in this one. Tom Hardy was great as Bane, but of course, as many of us have been concerned about, with Bane's mask, he becomes quite hard to understand at times, but other than that, no complaints with Bane who was a great choice to close out the series providing Batman's biggest challenge yet. Anne Hathaway is not only hot as Selina Kyle/Catwoman, but she is also purrrrfect for the role - sorry, I couldn't help it. But yeah, her character was both sexy and very interesting throughout - you can't tell if she's going to be Batman's sidekick or Batman's nemesis as she seems to go back and forth between the two several times in the movie which makes you wonder which side she's going to choose. Joseph Gordon-Levitt who plays newcomer cop/detective, John Blake is a welcome addition who
SPOILER ALERT AHEAD, IF YOU DON'T WANT TO BE SPOILED, DO NOT HIGHLIGHT THE FOLLOWING TEXT eventually becomes Batman's famous sidekick by the end of the film wondering if there will be a spin-off, or what considering you never see him suit up or team up with Batman in his Robin gear, but it's pretty obvious by the end that a whole new chapter is about to begin. I have liked JGL in every movie I've seen him in thus far - he just seems to nail everything he's in.
ANOTHER HUGE SPOILER AHEAD DO NOT HIGHLIGHT IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO BE SPOILED Marion Cotillard plays Miranda Tate who
as we speculated, turns out to be Ra's Al Ghul's daughter, Talia Al Ghul in a surprising plot twist you didn't see coming - unless you saw it coming months ago. Cotillard is also a welcome addition with her obvious French accent that apparently gets Bruce Wayne sexually excited. The remaining cast includes the reprising roles of Alfred Pennyworth played by Michael Caine, James Gordon played by Gary Oldman, and Lucius Fox played by Morgan Freeman - all fantastic once again. The whole cast as said before, is splendid and I have no complaints other than Bane and a couple other characters' hard-to-understand accents and muffled (Bane) voices, but that's only a minor complaint as you can still follow along even if you can't catch every word the characters say.
As you can imagine for an ending of a series, there is an extremely exciting final battle sequence that has a major plot twist (mentioned above in white, but don't go back there if you haven't seen the movie yet) that adds even more to the epic final battle between Bane and Batman. At times, the movie will be a bit slow, but for the most part, it's non-stop action. As mentioned above, Bane is truly a difficult challenge for Batman and yes,
SPOILER ALERT - DON'T HIGHLIGHT AHEAD he at one point does in fact break Batman's back after whooping his ass in the sewers.. Of course with Bruce Wayne getting older, there is
much less scenes with the caped crusader which may disappoint those that come to see him alone, but when he does have scenes, they are pretty memorable. As mentioned before, Catwoman is a excellent addition to Nolan's project as she not only has major sex appeal, but is pretty badass as well - including one particular scene near the end of the movie that pretty much sums up her outstanding character in this one. So as mentioned, the action is aplenty despite a few times that the 166 minute movie goes a bit slow and you become uninterested, but any time there are fighting sequences, they are pretty dang awesome.
Now I somewhat went into the ending above (again, spoiler territory up above, read with caution), but only briefly. I know the ending will probably have a few people disagreeing with how it should have ended, but I personally thought it was a great ending and makes you wonder what will happen next. Nolan has a tendency to have some pretty memorable endings to his movies (look at Inception for example) and this one is no exception - he again keeps you wondering what happens next which credits his cleverness that can't be matched.
Overall, 'Rises' does justice to the 'Dark Knight' trilogy and I couldn't have asked for more myself. Is it better than 'Dark Knight'? I personally think so. Is it better than 'Begins'? I honestly think they are pretty dead even, but if I had to pick one, 'Rises' is the best of the bunch.