The Dark Knight Rises – A Guest Review by @alexmichaelc

As the final shot of The Dark Knight Rises rolled into the credits, and the crowded theater burst into raucous applause and cheers, my wife looked over at me and said, “Are you crying?” Yes, yes I was.

Not specifically due to The Dark Knight Rises itself, but to the end of the greatest superhero trilogy we will ever see. I’ve been asked my many how TDKR stands up to Batman Begins, and Dark Knight and I have yet to truly make up my mind. TDKR is a stunning piece of cinema, epic in scope and grandeur, and does its best to finish what Christopher Nolan began many years ago with Batman Begins. What Nolan loses in narrative and plot throughout the film, he makes up for in passion, emotion, and determination of not only Batman himself, but Gotham City as a people and as its own character.

We begin the film 8 years after The Dark Knight and you can immediately tell that our main cast of characters are still reeling from the death and actions of Harvey Dent. Hans Zimmer’s score is very somber and has a definite sadness to it that portrays the beginning of the movie wonderfully. We are introduced to many new characters very quickly: John Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a young, idealistic rookie cop who defies the system and wants to set Gotham on the right path. Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway), the Cat Burglar, who rides the fence of right and wrong, but ultimately looks out for herself. Bane (Tom Hardy), the militant antagonist whose sole purpose is to destroy Gotham and the Batman with it. Miranda Tate (Marion Cotillard), a businesswoman who gets tied up into Wayne Corp’s struggles, but plays a much larger part in our story. The list goes on and on and if you have no prior experience with the comic books or the previous movies, you will get lost in who is who fairly quickly.

I won’t spend time getting into the nitty-gritty of the story as everyone else is already doing that out on the blogosphere. This movie is about redemption. A man redeeming himself after failing his parents’ legacy and the only woman he truly ever loved. It’s about a man losing his way as a protector of the people and living with a lie for almost an entire decade. A man who is broken, but will stop at nothing to protect and save the city he swore to protect.

Is TDKR Nolan’s best installment in the Dark Knight Trilogy? No. But it is a fantastic finale to a wonderfully new and inventive series. Nolan reimagined the superhero genre with Batman Begins and created a terrifying masterpiece with The Dark Knight. The Dark Knight Rises will leave you with just as many questions walking out of it as you did walking in. Anything else, and it wouldn’t be a Christopher Nolan film.