The Dark Knight Rises 

Starring: Christian Bale, Tom Hardy, Michael Cane, Anne Hathaway, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, Marion Cotillard, Jason Gordon-Levitt

Director: Christopher Nolan

There’s only one word that can describe this film…MASSIVE! Batman is back, and this time he means business.

Eight years after The Joker gets his serving of Batman’s knuckle sandwich Gotham is in trouble again. Bruce Wayne lives in Wayne Manor as a social recluse and new villain, Bane, is out to break Gotham and its Dark Knight. With the help of Catwoman, Alfred, Commissioner Gordon, Lucius Fox and rookie-cop, John Blake, Gotham is saved from the man who breaks The Bat!

First off, Nolan is at his most ambitious with The Dark Knight Rises; he pulls out all of the stops – even more than he did with Inception- and creates a genuine piece of art with a blockbuster budget. Nolan is a creature of habit and gets his regular bunch of actors together, including Bale, Cane, Oldman, Freeman, Cotillard and Gordon-Levitt on the case. At this point it’s worth mentioning a cameo from a few of Nolan’s regulars, but that would be giving too much of the plot away.

The Dark Knight Rises is much darker than the previous Batman films. It’s far more ambitious, broodier and is written far cleverer than any film Nolan has ever created. Throughout Batman’s history – whether in the form of a graphic novel, TV series or film – fans have waited a long time for a sigh of relief to Batman’s conclusion and, with The Dark Knight Rises; this breath of relief is finally achieved. Even with Tim Burton’s Batman Returns, this sense of satisfaction is not achieved and, in all honesty, no other writer/director/actor could achieve what Nolan and that cast and crew of The Dark Knight Rises have achieved with their trilogy and its finale.

Once again, Bale does a top-notch job as Bruce Wayne/Batman – making the audience feel Bruce’s mental torture of his parents’ death and the burden of being Gotham’s only true saviour. The true struggle of The Dark Knight Rises doesn’t come from Batman and Bane’s confrontation, but from Wayne’s reluctance to become Batman once again, after eight years of hiding in Wayne Manor.  Tom Hardy also does a cracking performance as Bane – as an actor, Hardy truly puts everything into his characters, both physically and mentally. Hardy is at his most menacing as Bane, since he stared as Charles Bronson in Nicolas Winding Refn’s 2008 biopic, Bronson – truly pushing his body to the limit, gaining 30 pounds of muscle for the role and shaving his hair.

As a film it’s shot perfectly, capturing the true darkness of Batman, Gotham City and Bane’s villainess; it hits the ground running, and will genuinely have every individual audience member on the edge of their seat. It truly is a piece of art, created by a man who doesn’t think of his audience as being idiots and no one in Cinematic history will ever be able to achieve what Nolan has captured in this trilogy. Watch it; you will love it.