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.
A smart, stirring spectacle that faces down impossible expectations to pull off a hugely satisfying end to business. Boy, you’re in for a show tonight…
An ambitious sequel that – almost against the odds – brings what has become a bruising and operatic series to an end in a satisfyingly epic way.
After a breathless, bravura final act, a nuclear payload of catharsis brings The Dark Knight Rises, and Nolan’s trilogy, to a ferociously satisfying close.
Emotional, epic and entertaining, this is the end you’ve been waiting for.
"I'm still a believer in the Batman," murmurs Joseph Gordon-Levitt's rookie cop at one point. Arm-twisted, senses reeling, I am forced to concede that I am too.
Nolan throws in enough chases, explosions and fight scenes to ensure that, in spite of its vast running time, the film whistles by.
With spectacle in abundance and sexiness in (supporting) parts, this is superhero filmmaking on an unprecedented scale. Rises may lack the surprise of Begins or the anarchy of Knight, but it makes up for that in pure emotion. A fitting epitaph for the hero Gotham deserves.
For a summer superhero movie The Dark Knight Rises is thrillingly ambitious and serious-minded.
The film looks fantastic, Hans Zimmer’s pounding musical score fills you with dread and a nerve-shredding ending propels you to the outer edge of your seat. The Dark Knight Rises is without doubt this year’s unmissable summer blockbuster.
I wish there was more yin and yang in the movie, rather than yin and more yin.
It has all the self-importance of a work that has nothing to say but amplifies it by saying it at inordinate length.
Despite its shortcomings, Nolan's series puts all other comic book franchises in the shade.
Director Christopher Nolan completes his dark and brooding trilogy based on the DC Comics crime-fighter in suitably grandiose fashion, delivering not only the longest film in the series but also the most brutal, violent and satisfying.
This concluding part of Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy goes out with a bang – a big one – though the ringing in your ears as you leave the cinema may have less to do with exhilaration than puzzlement.
Spectacular - but overlong and often incomprehensible.
Christopher Nolan’s epic third and final Batman film succeeds through allowing the audience to identify with those at the heart of the story while not sacrificing the citizens of Gotham.
Bleak, black and brilliant.
I approached the final part of Nolan's trilogy not expecting much, and while I pretty much got what I did expect – glum verbosity, thunderous firepower, stygian darkness – I found myself liking the combination.
The production designers have done a first-rate job. Wally Pfister's photography is uncompromisingly Stygian. A pity about the dialogue, but I'm sure something can be done about it, and maybe it works in the Imax form for which it was made. That being said, The Dark Knight Rises has an intelligence, epic thrust and visual grandeur far beyond its present box-office rival, Joss Whedon's Avengers Assemble.
I love that the director and his co-screenwriter, brother Jonathan Nolan, are ambitious for superhero stories to be more than just clashes between good and bad costumes, but his trilogy struggles to balance character and momentum with exposition.
Once Nolan gets going, he's reluctant to stop. Never mind the muddle, embrace the chaos, and watch a British director prove, again, why he's the shining knight of the blockbuster business.
The Dark Knight Rises is far from the triumph of the previous two films but it still far outshines the previous series and fans will find much about it to enjoy - just don't expect it to win any new converts.
General release. Check local listings for show times.
RSS feed of Cinema reviews