Matt Adcock’s film review: The Dark Knight Rises

It’s here, the final part of Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy – the culmination of an epic tale that has seen Batman rebooted in gritty, dark and satisfyingly adult style.

The story picks up eight years after The Dark Knight, the Joker is a distant bad memory, Harvey ‘Two Face’ Dent has been hailed as a hero – martyred at the hands of the Batman, who has not been seen since.

Gotham is prosperous and virtually free of violent crime – but a storm is coming and it doesn’t take long before the city is on its knees in the face of a new enemy called Bane (Tom Hardy) who is intent on destroying it entirely.

The Dark Knight Rises begins with a bang – a superb daring mid-air kidnapping of a nuclear physicist Dr. Leonid Pavel (Alon Abutbul).

It seems that Bane is planning to some megaton payback on the citizens of Gotham – and it would appear that there is no one to stop him with the Dark Knight in self-imposed retirement.

Step forward super sexy, scene stealing, new Catwoman, Selina Kyle (Anna Hathaway) who is involved in some shady business with dodgy businessman John Daggett.

The repercussions of Kyles actions have devastating repercussions for Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale on top form).

Throw into the mix some devious subplots and mix well for almost three hours of edge-of-your-seat enjoyment of a delicious dark kind.

Indeed, things look so bleak when Bane makes his move on the city that it just might be too much even for the valiant Dark Knight.

The Dark Knight Rises does something I didn’t think possible after the last film – it raises the stakes to even higher, spine tingling new heights.

The cinematography is just jaw dropping, especially in IMAX and the set pieces bring some truly unforgettable action scenes.

There is sheer joy in seeing Batman take to the sky in his new plaything ‘The Bat’ or streak through the city on his awesome Batpod Motorbike.

And even as the odds against him grow, the plot deftly brings in elements such as brave cop John Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), which offer tantalising glimpses of hope.

As a director, Nolan is at the very top of his game here and he delivers a worthy, darker rival to wham-bam action fun of The Avengers. 2012 is proving to be a vintage year for superhero flicks and The Dark Knight Rises is potentially film of the year.