#51 The Dark Knight Rises

In Summary

Christopher Nolan's much-anticipated sequel to the immensely successful The Dark Knight sees the caped crusader return to action after a spell in isolation to save Gotham from a new cavalcade of villains, spearheaded by the powerful Bane.

Like Nolan's previous two entries into his Batman trilogy, The Dark Knight Rises attempts to deconstruct what it means to be a hero, putting its protagonist through a series of increasingly testing trials and tribulations before he can ascend to heroic status.

This concept is illustrated visually through the prison in which Bruce Wayne - a.k.a. Batman - is consigned. A deep pit where the prisoners can see the light of the open world but can only escape via an almost impossible ascent, you don't have to strain your eyes to find the metaphor.

The Dark Knight Rises is an attempt to escalate the events of The Dark Knight further. The cast of villains and heroes is expanded, with the stakes raised to a nigh-on apocalyptic level. It seems as if Batman has at last been bested.

However, those attempts to up the ante from The Dark Knight is where this film really falls flat. Having taken such great efforts to ground this superhero story in reality, the extent of the escalation shatters the suspension of disbelief somewhat.

While there are some interesting themes explored in The Dark Knight Rises - such as the Occupy Wall Street movement being co-opted by violent thugs uninterested in social equality, which has proven prescient - it is a film that stretches itself too thinly and breaks apart at the seams quite easily.

A Memorable Quote

Peace has cost you your strength! Victory has defeated you!

Things You May Not Know

• Christopher Nolan considered including Heath Ledger's Joker in the film via a mixture of CGI and deleted scenes from The Dark Knight, but ultimately chose against doing so.
• Tom Hardy had to re-dub all of his dialogue for Bane after the reaction to the trailer for the film where audiences struggled to understand what he was saying.
• Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo and Ryan Gosling were all considered for the role of John Blake, played in the film by Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

One of the Greatest of All Time?
Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy was a game-changer for comic book films, demonstrating that audiences were willing to treat superheroes as serious subject matter. The biggest issue with The Dark Knight Rises is not that it's a particularly bad or uninteresting film, but that The Dark Knight gave it so few places where it could go.

While The Dark Knight Rises is better than a lot of superhero films on a character and a cinematic level, it would be wrong to rank a film that fails in the execution of several of its ambitions among the greatest of all time.