The Dark Knight Rises

There’s a storm coming…

Christopher Nolan’s epic conclusion to the Batman trilogy has finally arrived and it has reached new unprecedented heights.

Nolan has brought us the origin of Batman and Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins as well as Batman's greatest adversary in The Dark Knight Rises. He has given us a dark and gritty portrayal of Gotham and in this defining last instalment he even gives us a critique of our own capitalist ways. This final act brings together the ambiguous loose ends from the previous two films to bring us a conclusion to remember.

Gotham’s reckoning has arrived in the form of the massively hench Bane (Tom Hardy), whose brutal strength and skill is matched and exceeded only by the calmness in his voice.

The Dark Knight Rises picks up where The Dark Knight ended. Batman (Christian Bale), after taking the fall for Harvey Dent’s crimes and suffering the loss of a loved one banished himself, alongside Bruce Wayne, to the shadows and has spent eight years hiding in Wayne Manner. However, his curiosity returns when he meets estranged Selina Kyle (Ann Hathaway), who stumbles upon an opportunity to steal something extremely valuable to Wayne. Although he has aged and has old injuries to contend with that does not hold him back.

Batman enlists the help of his faithful ally Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) and Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) to face his toughest challenge yet. Batman must stop Bane from turning Gotham upon itself as he “gives the city back to the people” by destroying those with authority and social status. The idealist views leave a resounding truth ringing through the air, as it would seem that Bane offers a critic of our very own capitalist society.

The emphasis on identity still continues to be playfully negotiated throughout this film, especially with the introduction of a hyperfeminine Catwoman, known as The Cat. Hathaway delivers a critical performance, but seems to lack a certain audacity that Michelle Pfeiffer gave to the role in her unforgettable appropriation of Catwoman in Tim Burton's Batman Returns (1991). Bale and Hardy also deliver fantastic performances, emphasising that there is more truth in the mask than the face beneath it.

Christopher Nolan’s epic finale is nothing less than epic as it is hard to imagine it any other way. Nolan playfully raises the idea that we are not bound to our bodies, but, rather, it is our memories and actions that define who we are and who we can become. This is done through the hypermasculine Bane as he points out that "it does not matter who you are what matters is your plan." This idea that identity is fluid and can be 'put on' is foregrounded in all of Nolan's films and leaves a subtle, yet, playful sense of ambiguity surrounding the identities of the characters.

Despite the lack of The Joker and the plot twists and turns that the last instalment offered, Nolan ends the epic conclusion to the Batman trilogy with a film that rises to an unprecedented height as he raises the bar for superhero films.

You are definitely in for a show tonight.