Film Review | The Dark Knight Rises

Christopher Nolan's reboot of the Batman franchise - kicking off in 2006 with Batman Begins - appears to have acquired some sort of curse since then.

Its sequel, The Dark Knight, made its way into theatres under a heavy cloud (though it still raked in a billion or so at the box office) - mere months before its release, news of the death of Heath Ledger - who turned out an Oscar-winning performance as the film's primary antagonist, The Joker - rocked the entertainment world.

But the finale to Nolan's Bat-trilogy was met with an even more horrific tragedy, after a lone gunman burst through the film's premiere in Colorado, murdering a total of 12 and injuring several others, including children.

The easiest thing for a film critic or cultural commentator to do would be to draw parallels with the content of the films in question: did the psychotic Joker character help drive Ledger off the edge?; was the Colorado gunman somehow influenced by Nolan's vision of Gotham City - a morally shaky sprawl that could go haywire at any minute?

But these are not questions for film critics to solve and ponder upon. Though if anything, the mere notion that one could be justified in making the connection is perhaps a testament to the world that Nolan has created.

Forgetting for a moment that we're watching a man in a rubber suit beat criminals to a pulp, the fact remains that Nolan has decided to build the comic book world of Batman up not from primary-coloured camp, but from blood, brick and mortar.

This achievement has won him over a loyal audience, one certainly not limited to fans of the legendary DC Comics superhero.

Ploughing ahead despite losing Ledger - and as a consequence, one of Batman's central villains - with this new (and, Nolan vows, FINAL) instalment, we return to Gotham City eight years after the events in The Dark Knight.

In an attempt to maintain the city's morale in the wake of the Joker's anarchic havoc, Batman/Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) has gone into hiding, communicating only with his faithful butler, Alfred (Michael Caine) and shutting himself away in an underground cave which lies underneath his property.

While Wayne's heroic move has helped keep Gotham's organised crime rings in check - also thanks to the work of Commissioner Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman) - a new threat appears on the scene.

With links to Wayne's own past within 'The League of Shadows' - the mysterious Oriental organisation which provided Wayne with his training, first glimpsed in Batman Begins - the physically menacing criminal Bane (Tom Hardy) appears to have plans for Gotham that would put the Joker's terrorism to shame.

Time and luck is running out, but as he deliberates on whether or not to don the iconic cape again, Wayne meets two unexpected allies.

One is John Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a police lieutenant who appears to have an intuitive understanding of the elusive Batman.

The other, however, is far less clear in her intentions.

Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway), a jewel thief by 'profession', seems to be on the side of Gotham's oppressors... but Wayne soon learns that she may be the city's only hope for survival.

Comparisons are odious, and in this case more so because - if you'll pardon the horrific pun - The Dark Knight casts a long shadow.

But Nolan has succeeded in accomplishing the near-impossible: he has created a film that both stands on its own two feet and completes a plot thread begun, not in The Dark Knight, but way back in Batman Begins.

It's this discipline to the needs of the story that distinguishes Nolan's approach from both the stylistic posturing of Tim Burton's early attempts (entertaining as they were) and, of course, the complete debasement and high camp of Joel Schumacher's Batman Forever and Batman and Robin.

A Batman film is, more often than not, as good as its antagonists.

While nothing will banish the memory of Ledger's Joker, Hardy's Bane is something of a colossal achievement - physically and metaphorically.

His imposing presence is actually quite secondary to the make-up of the character as a whole.

Despite having most of his face masked in Hannibal Lecter-like face mask, Hardy manages to squeeze some humanity with his expressive eyes.

Even the digitally-augmented voice is something of a work of art. Imagine Darth Vader rallying the 'Occupy' crowds last year, and you'll come close to guessing what Nolan and co. have managed to achieve with a relatively minor character from Batman's rogues' gallery.

Given the ending to The Dark Knight, it is perhaps expected for Batman to team up with an outlaw.

Hathaway's Kyle (that's Catwoman by the way, though Nolan's ever-gritty vision does not seem to allow for silly codenames) is a butt-kicking vixen with a beating heart just out of shot.

An early sequence - where she puts both her physical and mental prowess to the test - is a perfect show-off opportunity for any actor, and Hathaway doesn't fail to deliver.

Negatives? It's a tad too long, and too slow in the first quarter.

But where its predecessor seemed built more on set pieces (read: what's Joker going to do next?), The Dark Knight Rises gave us a seamless story built on thrills and that comes with a kind of catastrophic decorum.

Batman Begins showed us a city lacerated, The Dark Knight brought Gotham to a precipice and now, we witness it struggling through the rubble.

Debates over which of the three films will emerge triumphant will doubtlessly rage on for years, but Nolan has succeeded in providing a fitting conclusion to his much-loved reimagining of an often used and abused hero.

Whether he'll keep to his word about not returning to the franchise is another issue entirely.