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The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

Rated PG-13

Warner Bros.

Epic, complex, overdone, grim, redemptive and rewarding. The final film in the ambitious comic book-to-neo noir series brings it all. At darn-near three hours it needs to.

Eight years after events in part two (The Dark Knight, 2008), Gotham’s nearly crimeless thanks to sacrifices of Commissioner Gordon and The Batman, who’s now broken down and in retirement. Not for long. A three-tiered enemy looms, including those operating boldly in the spotlight, like the merciless Bane, and the double-crossers waiting in the shadows.

Anne Hathaway makes impact as Catwoman, as do Michael Caine as loyal servant Alfred, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a steadfast cop. All of Bane’s sparse dialogue is epic—when you can clearly hear it.

The film’s strength is its sustained tone of impending doom, which puts viewers and Gotham citizens in a simpatico state of victimization and hopelessness. We and they are hyped for some serious payback by the finale.

Give Batman Begins (2005)—the first in the series—a rewatch. The Dark Knight Rises draws heavily upon that film to wrap up its themes.

| Marvin Brown’s Movie Review Archive