Eight years have passed since the death of DA Harvey Dent and the passing of the Dent Act, which has allowed Gotham Police to come down hard on organised crime, almost eradicating it from the city. Bruce Wayne, the billionaire who was also the caped vigilante Batman, has retreated to his mansion, and become a recluse, knowing the truth behind Dent, how he became a twisted, acid-scarred villain, and Batman having been blamed for his death. Having found one of his environmental projects, a cold fusion reactor, could be weaponised, he has it shut down, despite the protests of Miranda Tate, an environmentally-concerned socialite. After Selina Kyle, a female cat burglar, raids Wayne Manor, she takes a string of pearls belonging to Wayne’s late mother, but also has the task of retrieving a set of Wayne’s fingerprints, which she delivers to John Daggett, a member of the board of Wayne Enterprises but who wants to launch an audacious takeover bid, ousting Bruce Wayne from the company his father established. A team of mercenaries led by Bane, a muscular thug, storm the Gotham Stock Exchange, and use the stolen prints to confirm a series of trades in Wayne’s name which end up worthless, sending Bruce Wayne dangerously close to bankruptcy. Realising that Bane is dangerous, and working on a much larger plan for Gotham, Wayne is forced to become Batman again after Bane’s men kidnap and wound Commissioner Jim Gordon when he leads the Gotham Police on a raid on some underground tunnels where they believe a mercenary army is amassing. Batman, with the aid of Selina Kyle, who is working for Daggett in exchange for a computer program called Clean Slate, which could expunge the records and details of anybody on the internet, leads Batman into Bane’s lair but double-crosses him, Batman being given a savage, ruthless beating by Bane, who then puts into action his plan to completely take over Gotham City. He detonates the explosives buried in the sewers and underground tunnels, sealing in almost the entire Gotham Police force, who have entered on a large-scale mission to flush out Bane and his men, destroying the bridges which like the peninsular city to the mainland, and blocking all exit roles. Bane releases prisoners from a high-security jail, and as the prisoners and people run wild, turning against the city’s elite with Bane’s encouragement, he announces he has stolen the cold fusion reactor, and will detonate it if any action is taken against him or the now-isolated Gotham City. John Blake, a rookie Police officer, rescues Jim Gordon from the hospital where he is recovering, and where Bane has sent men to kill him, and takes him into the city’s underground where a small resistance movement has begun, as the wealthy and powerful are brought in front of a ramshackle people’s court and orders of execution are issued. Badly injured, Bruce Wayne is dumped in an ancient Asian underground prison, from where only one person, the child of Ra’s al Ghuk, Wayne’s old mentor and enemy, has ever escaped, through climbing up the towering stone funnel which emerges from the middle of the prison. With part of his punishment being forced to see what is happened to Gotham City on a small TV. Wayne is shocked to see it isolated and under martial rule, Bane’s heavily-armed men roaming the streets and killing all those who oppose them. Through exercise and raw determination, Wayne manages to heal himself and make his escape from the prison, realising it relies more on self-belief than using guide ropes, and starts to make his way back to the city. Gordon and the few Police not trapped underground discover that the reactor is going to be detonated regardless of what the US Government do, Bane’s whole aim being to destroy Gotham and everyone in it, and that the bomb is set to go off the following day. That night, with Gordon and the others captured by the kangaroo court and sentence of death proclaimed on them, the cowed inhabitants of Gotham are suddenly drawn to an unexpected sigh on the night sky, on an abandoned skyscraper there appears the huge, burning image of a bat..... Undeniably the most anticipated film of 2012, any mention of The Dark Knight Rises has to acknowledge the tragic occurrence on opening night in Aurora, Colorado, but it was simply because the film was so high-profile and bound to have a sell-out audience that the gunman chose that particular cinema and programme for his actions, a tragedy for those involved but which cannot be claimed to be ‘inspired’ or ‘provoked’ by the Christopher Nolan films, the trilogy, possibly the most accomplished vision in transferring a dark-hued superhero to the screen, seeing violence as the failure of law, order and honour, the last resort to which the tormented Bruce Wayne / Batman is eventually driven to when all else has failed. It is not going too far to say that Nolan has set the bar so high with his three Batman films that to perhaps ever return to the character, at least in live-action, may be completely pointless, although the end of TDKR offers the glimmer of a continuation, of sorts, although both Nolan and lead actor Christian Bale announced they would be hanging up the cowl and cape. From a script written with his brother, Jonathan Nolan, from a story by himself and David S. Goyer, Rises has a truly epic sweep, the film running just under two and a half hours, but these are densely packed hours indeed, the story ranging form what seems to be one crazed man’s rampage in the form of the monstrous and muzzled Bane, and a personal campaign of revenge against Bruce Wayne, bankrupting and taking Wayne Enterprises away from him, escalating into scenes of revolution in the isolated Gotham City, the metropolis eventually becoming a separate entity, a failed state in itself in which a neutron bomb is primed to go off, no matter what happens with the crippled American Presidency, and as with so much of the film the scenes of the isolated city, its’ bridges blown and tunnels mined, is uncomfortably realistic. This is very different superhero territory from the year’s other costumed hit, The Avengers, and its’ not difficult to see the parallels with the French Revolution, the proletariat rising against the city’s elite, the rich, the bankers, the financiers, in scenes interestingly similar to the fledgling Occupy movement, only to find themselves the tools and dupes of new leaders and controllers, forced into carrying out their agendas. It is the scale and ambition of the films which is so impressive, not being content simply to be brilliantly produced action films, several set-pieces in TDKR being as good as anything in the trilogy, Obviously comfortable working with those he knows, Nolan reunites several of his Inception cast here, with Michael Caine returning as the faithful Alfred, and who had the best speech in The Dark Knight, and a couple of memorable ones here too, along with Tom Hardy as Bane, complete with bizarre, plummy, patronising English accent, and Marion Cotillard as Miranda Tate, a Wayne Enterprises board member who is Bruce’s only ally when his enemies turn on him and his company, while Joseph Gordon Levitt also turns up as a rookie Police officer, John Blake, who takes centre stage when Bruce Wayne is a battered, wounded prisoner in a foreign land and the countdown is still in progress. Although the idea of bringing in the character of Catwoman, although never referred to as such in the script, Anne Hathaway (The Devil Wears Prada) plays cat burglar Selina Kyle with some nicely wry lines, which may make one ask why she actually needs a costume in order to go a-burgling only after the film has ended. Also in the cast are Tom Conti (The Tempest), Matthew Modine (Full Metal Jacket), Burn Gorman (TV’s Torchwood), Juno Temple (the St. Trinian’s pics) and Nestor Carbonell, returning from The Dark Knight as Mayor Garcia, as well as an unexpected, ghostly returnee who has very definite relevance to the plot and the identity of who is actually behind it all. One is also reminded in Gary Oldman’s beautifully nuanced performance just how important to all three films he has been. Also impressive is just how seamless the film seems, with shooting in London, Glasgow, Los Angeles, New York City, Newark, Pittsburgh and, most bizarrely, Nottingham, being blended perfectly into the fictional Gotham, one particular chase, the first outing for the new Batcycle being filmed in both the borough of the City of London and LA yet being completely convincing as taking place in the same metropolitan area. Nolan even at the end of this wide-ranging saga, manages to still provide surprises, and also tie up most of the loose ends to a very satisfying degree. Although there were hints that producers Legendary Pictures wanted JJ Abrams (Super 8 / various Mission: Impossibles) to take over the franchise, Christopher Nolan has made such a perfect triptych of films that the character should be respectfully left alone for a decade at least, whoever first suggested Nolan, previously regarded as an ‘arthouse’ director, to be in charge of the Batman ‘reboot’ is an unsung genius, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises being as perfect a set of superhero pics as can be imagined.