The Dark Knight Rises

Genre: Action/Adventure/Crime // Running Time: 164 minutes // Release Date: July 20, 2012
Cast & Crew at IMDB - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1345836/

Overall Rating: 8 out of 10

Synopsis: The story picks up 8 years after the end of The Dark Knight, and we find Gotham relatively crime free and in a time of peace. After taking the rap for Harvey Dent's murder, Batman has disappeared and Bruce Wayne has become a recluse. However, the appearance of a new villain named Bane forces Batman to emerge from hiding and try to save Gotham from total destruction at the hands of this new foe.

The movie itself is quite visually impressive. Batman's new toy 'The Bat', is much cooler than 'The Batwing' from earlier Batman films. There are a lot of great explosions, gun battles, and hand-to-hand fight scenes that are fantastic to watch (especially in Imax). That being said however, the story is not nearly as good as the previous two films in this series. Christopher Nolan seems to be working too hard to try and live up to the expectations generated from the first two films, as well as trying to tie up all the stray storylines to wrap up and put a nice bow on this series. There are a few too many flashbacks, tie-ins and otherwise distracting plotlines tied into the main story. The other key component missing from this film is that of a great villain and supporting cast. Tom Hardy's Bane is definitely evil and menacing, but nowhere near the level of Ledger's Joker from The Dark Knight. He is close to level of The Scarecrow in Batman Begins, but when you combine The Scarecrow with Ra's Al Ghul, he falls far short of the level of villainy from the first two films. His voice is also unnecessarily strange and distracting, and it was pointed out to me that it sounds like Darrell Hammond's Sean Connery impression from the Celebrity Jeopardy skit on Saturday Night Live. Anne Hathaway does a good job as Selina Kyle (who is never actually referred to as Catwoman), but in comparison to supporting characters like Harvey Dent and the aforementioned Scarecrow and Al Ghul, she also falls way short.

Convoluted plot and slightly disappointing supporting cast aside, the movie still has its positives. You still have Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman, and both of them are great (as always) in this movie. Michael Caine is especially good in this installment and you leave the theater wishing he was your butler, or father, or just your friend to give you advice all the time. The special effects and score are also great. I felt my heart pumping at times simply from the music accompanying the scenes. And as I mentioned before, there are plenty of explosions for action fans, and the hand-to-hand combat scenes in this movie are also excellent.

As a standalone movie, it would be an excellent piece of cinema. It's exciting, entertaining, and has some great characters. However, since it is part of one of the most (if not the most) popular series of movies (comic or otherwise) in the last 10 years, it will be compared to it's two predecessors and will undoubtedly fall short. It is nearly impossible to live up to the standards set by Heath Ledger, and even without his death making his performance that much more memorable, The Joker is still one of the greatest villains in movie history (in my opinon) and that is a pretty tough act to follow. Don't get me wrong, The Dark Knight Rises is still a great movie to watch, I did give it an 8/10 after all, but I would have given the first two a 9 or 9.5 in comparison. Maybe I'm just being too picky ... guess I'm turning into a real movie critic :-)