The Dark Knight Rises Review

The Dark Knight Rises Review

Plot

Set 8 years after the events of The Dark Knight and the murder of Harvey Dent, Bruce Wayne must come out of hiding and don his cape one last time to take on the new threat of the ruthless mercenary, Bane.

Review

The last piece of the puzzle in Christopher Nolan's 'Dark Knight' trilogy comes in the form of 'The Dark Knight Rises' and although Nolan has received almost nothing but praise for his work, it seems his prized piece will end as it started. On a whimper.

The presence of Heath Ledger's Joker is clearly missed. Even though Tom Hardy has a fierce stage presence as the tyrant that is Bane, he lacks the style and wit of the Joker and at times Bane is quite hard to understand when he speaks.

Voice aside, Bane lacks any real emotional depth as a character, instead he is a very violent and emotionless person who resembles a mash-up of Darth Vader and Hannibal Lector makes me think he was only brought in for better fight sequences. However, none of this is the fault of Tom Hardy, who I think does the best he can with what has got and (when he can be understood) delivers some of the film's most memorable lines. But do people dare blame this poor choice of villain on Christopher Nolan?

On the other hand however, there are some things the Nolan gets right. This includes his cast. Most of the main cast, he has worked with before and so knows how to get the best out of them. Since these previous works include 'Inception' and 'The Prestige', you can see he knows what he is doing.

Another thing that is right with this film is the cinematography. Wally Pfister paints the perfect picture with the breath-taking visuals, and his work is especially effective when it comes to the various action sequences. One scene that springs to mind is when we see Gotham Rouges kick returner, Hines Ward (former wide receiver for the Pittsburgh Steelers) outrun an imploding football pitch. You also get a sense of the dark atmosphere that surrounds Gotham which is also complemented by Hans Zimmer's music score.

Unfortunately, there are still some disappointing features to this film. One thing that was disappointing, annoying and something that could have easily been avoided was when the film seemed to jump forward in time without informing