The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

  To keep what seems to be an action theme going at the moment, this weeks film at the student cinema was The Dark Knight Rises, the third and finally instalment of Christopher Nolan's Batman series. The Dark Knight is by far and away my favourite superhero film of them all, so this one had a lot to live up to.

  It begins 8 years after the death of Harvey Dent for which Batman has been blamed and has led to him being in hiding and no longer protecting the city of Gotham. However, when a masked villain known as Bane (Tom Hardy) wreaks havoc and threatens Gotham with nuclear destruction, Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) must put on his cape and cowl and rescue the people of his beloved city. With help from the likes of Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman), Catwoman (Anne Hathaway) and John Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), the fight is on.

  Overall, I think this film is really good. Christopher Nolan manages to buck what seems to be the trend of the third film being the worst and has actually kept this film up to the standard of the other two. The action sequences are adrenaline fuelled and are still kept in the rough and ready style of the trilogy with many fist fights and car chases. All of the performances are also kept up to the level of the other films, with Tom Hardy still managing to convey a whole range of emotion even with a mask covering the majority of his face. Like I said, overall a great film.

  There are only a few issues I have with this movie. Firstly, some of Bane's lines were really difficult to understand. I realise that they had to alter his voice to make him sound villainous and all that, but some of Bane's dialogue was incomprehensible, even compared to my dodgy accent. As well as this, I felt that whilst it is good to see Bruce Wayne struggling with his issues and with the difficulties that being Batman brings, this film seemed to focus on this aspect a bit too much for me. The first quarter of the film is spent with Bruce dealing with the possibility he may have to return to being Batman, and another large chunk later on spent with Bruce locked in a prison and recovering from an injury while Bane destroys Gotham. For a Batman film, it seems to have less...Batman.

  However, these should not distract from the fact that, although not as good as the Dark Knight (but I don't think anything could've topped Heath Ledger's performance in that film), this film is still incredibly good and is a worthy final film for an outstanding trilogy.