The Dark Knight Rises Movie 2012
Once again, I expect this choice this ruffle a few feathers. But similar to Christopher Nolan, you have to make some bold choices. The Dark Knight Rises has unfairly been perceived as the lesser of the three Nolan Batman movies, with the reputation of being overlong, over-indulgent and narratively unwieldily.And while there are quite a few flaws to be gleaned from Nolan's astoundingly ambitious trilogy-capper, it also feels definitive and rousingly epic in a way few superhero movies — or other films, for that matter — often do.
It's also, undeniably, one of the most towering and grand movies ever presented onto the big screen, and it's certainly one of the most impressive superhero movies to be made in cinematic history, providing a fitting and formidable finale to what might possibly be the greatest superhero trilogy to date — much to the distress of Marvel lovers.
Left with the nearly-impossible task of making a sequel to arguably the greatest superhero movie in history, The Dark Knight Rises could've easily played it safe and made a more conventional, formulaic finale that tied up loose ends in cheesy, familiar ways. But it's clear that for Nolan to feel as though the effort is worth the while, he needed to make something that was appropriately worthy of the legacy he founded, resulting in a movie event that is often grand and impressive in its use of practical effects and visually splendid set pieces. At the same time, it also felt rich and cinematic —and intensely stripped down and character-focused — through its exploration what truly makes the man in Batman, and what becomes of our heroes during their greatest fights
The result is a movie that carries the weight of finality in a manner that few superhero movies are willing to, especially these days, while also feeling justified in its completion. It feels vindicated to make our lead character a fragile and often weak man, broken in several different respects, who must earn the right to be Gotham's savior — whether they deserve him or not — during its greatest moment of peril. We feel the perseverance of this wounded character, and we're made to see a very familiar larger-than-life character in a new and intensely realistic way.
It's also a very political and thematically dense film, with an abundance of ideas constantly streaming through its free-flowing conscious. The result is a richly-realized look at the legacy of our heroes, and how they can be both human and larger-than-life during their greatest failures and triumphs. What makes a hero is often what makes a man, and The Dark Knight Rises is the rare superhero movie that respects both the super and the human of this super-heroic send-off.