The Dark Knight Rises

The Dark Knight Rises - PG-13 (Warner Bros.)

Being one of the most anticipated movies of the year, I was expecting a lot from this film. And let me say...the movie definitely delivered. Christopher Nolan did a fantastic job with his final touch on the Batman franchise! The movie was well developed conceptually, and the actors did a great job portraying their characters.

First of all, I was not expecting this movie to span over the long amount of time that it did. I was expecting maybe a couple of weeks, not years, but I was surprised by how well it fit together. The writers did a great job of making sure that the jumps in time were fluid and meshed well with everything else going on at that present time. They left no mysteries in the time jumps that usually tend to bring up more questions than the writers intended. Also, speaking of fluidity, this film does a great job of holding the audience's attention throughout the entire two and a half hours. I'm usually skeptical when I see that kind of time...two and half hours is a lot of time and it usually means that the writers included a lot of background information. While this movie did lack with the background information, it did include long action sequences that tend to make the time fly. I enjoyed all of the characters as they were both fully and underdeveloped when needed. One of the best things that the writers did with this movie was they timed everything perfectly. You got background when you needed it, you got a chase sequence when you needed action, and most importantly they shocked you when you least expected it. 

The actors were fantastic! I must say I was skeptical that Anne Hathaway could pull off Catwoman (my first choice was Rachel Weisz, but then again, she's my first choice for any movie). And even though I'll always be a Michelle Pfeiffer kind of person, Hathaway did impress me and so I tip my imaginary hat to her. Needless to say Christian Bale was fantastic. With this being the final installment, Bale did a great job of closing off that emotional pain that Bruce Wayne has always dealt with. Being a huge fan of Marion Cotillard, I was extremely excited to see her character develop because it is an original character that is not in the comic books; she was, as always, fantastic and did not disappoint. I was especially impressed with Tom Hardy, who took a more sophisticated approach to Bane, than the previous Bane from Batman & Robin. He really was able to show both Bane's intelligence and his sheer brutality, being the only man to "break the bat" as the comics put it (you'll notice in the film the voice of Bane sounds very sophisticated and intelligent, while his outward appearance is that of a monstrous brute...very clever). Every actor, even the small, supporting ones, did fantastically well developing their characters and really getting into what and who their characters were and were feeling.

Overall, if I had to describe this movie in one word, I would say EPIC. It truly is a masterpiece of a film and, sadly, a conclusion. Christopher Nolan definitely can be credited with reviving the Batman film franchise and making it one of the best superhero franchises ever made. The film delivered, without a doubt, what it promised us...it was the epic conclusion to the Dark Knight legend.

Rating:

***** out of 5

Trailer for the Dark Knight Rises