When you have Chirstopher Nolan in the driving seat, you expect a roller coaster ride. The journey started with The Batman Begins and for the first time we witnessed someone taking superheroes seriously. In India we have Ramayana and Mahabharata; in Europe they have Iliad and Odyssey but comic books are closest thing to mythology for Americans and here we had someone treating them the way they should have been. You see how a directionless Bruce Wayne became Batman and decided to fight crime in his city in Batman Begins. Then you see Batman going into hiding after taking the blame of a crime he did not commit, trying to make Gotham a better place to live based on a lie in The Dark Knight, which by all means remains the best superhero movie ever made. Making a follow up to The Dark Knight is a challenging task. Since the day I had seen that in 2008, I have been waiting for the Dark Knight Rises and followed every news/gossip around that. Then Chris Nolan released Inception in between and raised the expectations even higher.
I have been wandering how the trilogy would end. What would be the epic conclusion? Then the first look for the movie was released and it was a statue of Batman in Gotham city hall and I thought may be finally we get a filmmaker bold enough to kill a superhero. Then the question is how will Batman be killed? It will be stupid to get him killed by some villain. You cannot possibly have a villain stronger than a hero, that is beyond the age old concept of good vs evil. So I was thinking may be Batman will go evil for some reason and will be killed by either Alfred since he had promised to protect him and this could be his way of protecting from himself. Or would he be killed by Gordon? Then I saw the casting and found that Joseph Gordon Levitt is in there too and expected him to be the one to kill Batman and make Batman what became of Harvey Dent in the end of the Dark Knight, a symbol of goodness in Gotham.
Finally putting all speculations to rest, the wait was finally over and here I was watching The Dark Knight Rises, the most anticipated movie in the history of film making. The movie starts eight years after where the Dark Knight ended. Crime rate in Gotham is almost zero, thanks to the Dent Act. Batman has not been seen since the day he took the blame of killing Harvey Dent and Bruce Wayne is living a solitary life in Wayne Mansion. Gorgeous Anne Hathway is Selina Kyle, a thief wearing a cat mask. You guessed it right, she is the Cat Woman. (It had to be someone as Anne Hathway to erase the memories of Halle Berry's horrible version.) From this very scene the movie starts building the premise for the epic finale, which you realise and appreciate when you see the last scene.
Bane is the League of Shadows and intends to finish Ra's al Ghul's destiny i.e. complete destruction of Gotham. He starts with crashing a plane after kidnapping a scientist mid air. He looks menacing with his towering presence and radiator mask. Batman decides to come out of retirement to face Bane but this time he is in for a surprise. For the first time he is facing a villain physically superior than him and the fight results in Bane breaking his bones and throwing him in the pit called "the worst hell on earth" with a tv to watch what he is going to do to Batman's beloved city. But Batman is not destined to die in the pit. He has other plans. Other than his usual friends Alfred, Fox and Gordon; he has James Blake a rookie detective along with the Cat Woman to help him in his fight to save Gotham.
The movie has some references to the first movie and you are in for some surprises and twists. However it is the ending although little bit expected that bowls you over and leaves you as excited as you were in the beginning of the movie. I cannot imagine a better fitting end to the trilogy.
I will not talk about the usual cast members because you already know. They are all in the same form as they were in the earlier two movies. This time you have Tom Hardy playing Bane, who scares you with his intimidating presence and that husky voice filtered through that radiator mask. Anne Hathway is Selina Kyle/Catwoman and she is awesome. I may be little biased here though. Marion Cotillard is Miranda Tate who joins Wayne Industries' board to save it from going into wrong hands and has little fling with Bruce in the process. Then you have Joseph Gordon-Levitt as James Blake, the rookie cop who believes in Batman.
The story is well crafted keeping the finale in mind with interesting twists in between to keep you hooked. The action scenes are well executed like the aerial stunt in the beginning and the destruction of the football field you must have seen in the trailers. In the gadget department also you have a new introduction the Bat, "there is nothing like some aerial superiority". The dialogues are to the point, be it Bane's commanding tone or Alfred's philosophical conversations or witty one liners by Selina. Hans Zimmer's background score does well to alleviate the tension.
So all of you. Get your seats booked and don't forget to fasten your seat belts because you are in for the ride of a life time. A fitting finale to an epic tale. On the sad note we will never again see Chris Nolan direct another Batman movie and neither we will see Christian Bale in that Cape. Whenever DC Comics decides to reboot the franchise they have really high standards to meet.
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