Films - The Dark Knight Rises – directed by Christopher Nolan

Star rating – 8/10

Christian Bale again reigns supreme in the superhero stakes as the caped crusader in the wonderful The Dark Knight Rises. At the end of The Dark Knight , which was an amazing 8 years ago, the Batman skulked away from his beloved Gotham, accused of treachery and himself being the criminal. 

And he has certainly gone through some trials and tribulations in the intervening period. Gotham City is, as usual, on the brink of disaster at the hands of dubious bankers and charlatans. And Batman simply can’t resist the call to try to save his city once again. This time his adversary is Bane, played by Tom Hardy. He is not quite as scary or effective a villain as Heath Ledger playing The Joker, although he does do some pretty nasty things with people’s necks. To be fair it is probably more to do with not being able to completely see his face than the performance or character himself. 

Michael Caine is his usual delight as faithful butler Alfred, who loves his master as much as Batman loves Gotham, and so is prepared to lose his friendship to save him from himself. Anne Hathaway is delicious and great fun as a beautiful, slinky cat burglar villain. And Joseph Gordon-Levitt is great as the young, idealistic cop as a new side kick to the dark one.

Nolan again delivers with a dark and action packed morality tale. It’s slightly overlong at 164 minutes, and the plot gets a little confusing in the middle. But hey, this is Batman so it’s churlish to complain. Nolan has managed to maintain the excellent production standards throughout this trilogy, and his version of the dark and brooding Gotham is consistently menacing, with wonderful special effects. But the main plaudits go this time, again, to the wonderful Christian Bale, who looks gorgeous as ever, and delivers a mature performance of the super hero in this apocalyptic delight.