Reviews for this film from our members:
- Marco Albanese @ Stanze di Cinema [Italian]
- Excerpt: E’ l’episodio finale di una trilogia che Nolan ha forse cominciato su commissione della Warner e che ha fatto propria, arricchendola con le sue ossessioni, i suoi attori, le sue sottotrame ed il suo gigantismo.
- [New – 1/24] | Dragan Antulov @ Draxblog VI [Croatian]
- Jason Bailey @ Flavorwire
- Excerpt: In the seven years since Warner Brothers handed the keys to their biggest franchise over to a British filmmaker best known for a twisty indie, Nolan has done nothing less than redefine blockbuster cinema: what it is, and what it can be.
- Luke Bonanno @ DVDizzy.com
- Excerpt: Nolan not only knows what he’s doing, but he also clearly loves it. That mix ensures this career-making enterprise ends on a strong note for the director/producer/co-writer and the many respected actors at his disposal.
- Tim Brayton @ Antagony & Ecstasy
- Excerpt: Satisfying without being more than slightly breathtaking, a hugely appealling broad-strokes action movie that nevertheless feels that, given everything, it should have a bit… more.
- Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ SpiritualityandPractice.com
- Excerpt: A formidable examination of the roles of superheroes in our society and the importance of purpose in life.
- Sarah D Bunting @ Tomato Nation
- Peter Canavese @ GrouchoReviews.com
- Excerpt: The Nolans consider the issues of the day…explore the role of legendary heroes (from Robin Hood to Batman and Robin) in galvanizing the public, and labor mightily to ensure that how their Batman ends dovetails with 2005’s Batman Begins.
- Daniel Carlson @ Pajiba
- Kevin Carr @ 7M Pictures
- Excerpt: “The Dark Knight Rises” is a bit of a disappointment. It’s a good movie, and taken against the slate of dozens of comic book movies over the decade, it’s a fine effort. But compared to its far superior predecessor, it underwhelms.
- Stephen Carty @ Flix Capacitor
- Bob Cashill @ Popdose.com
- Excerpt: More on Batman, plus Magic Mike and Beasts of the Southern Wild, too.
- Samuel Castro @ Ochoymedio.info [Spanish]
- Excerpt: A worthy end for which is perhaps the best superhero movie trilogy, which highlights the reflection of Christopher Nolan about what it means to create a symbol
- Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Rich Cline @ Shadows on the Wall
- Excerpt: It takes about an hour to find its stride, but Nolan’s final Batman movie is thunderously complex and entertaining
- David Dayoub @ Cinema Viewfinder
- Excerpt: It’s enough to give a viewer pause for long enough to marvel at the kind of ego necessary to marshall the sizable cast and crew successfully in order to precisely execute the kind of story being told here.
- Jim Dixon @ Examiner.com
- Excerpt: “The Dark Knight Rises” is the biggest, darkest, and arguably the best of writer-director Christopher Nolan’s deservedly lauded Batman reboots. Epic in every sense of the word, this is a colossal movie, both in terms of spectacle and length, and defies conventional wisdom that popular movies can’t handle complex plots or juggle multiple points of view. In any event, the sort of visual spectacle on display in “The Dark Knight Rises” hasn’t been seen regularly since Cecil B. DeMille.
- Mark Dujsik @ Mark Reviews Movies
- Excerpt: Bigger is not necessarily always better, but in some cases, like that of The Dark Knight Rises, it is more than enough.
- Candice Frederick @ Reel Talk
- Excerpt: With the third and final act of his story, The Dark Knight Rises, we move past the glitz and glamour of Bruce and the virile heroism of Batman to reveal the man behind both facades.
- Dustin Freeley @ Movies About Gladiators.com
- Excerpt: The Dark Knight Rises closes out the triptych that started with Batman Begins. Here, Nolan’s grim Gotham and cynical superhero hold a lens of indifference and illusory comfort on the citizens who bask in complacency.
- Kimberly Gadette @ doddle
- Excerpt: Dark Knight gets an eye-filling send-off. But between muddled plot points, an overlong 2nd act and an underwritten villain, this finale may be strong … but it turns out that the series’ #2 was indeed #1.
- Susan Granger @ www.susangranger.com
- Excerpt: Tense, terrific and triumphant, this is the best action-adventure of the summer!
- Vadym Grygoriev @ kinoblog.com [Ukrainian]
- Roderick Heath @ Ferdy on Films
- Excerpt: Just as Inception turned the psyche into a place of ponderously literal video game rules and sucked out all hints of sensuality and polymorphic possibility, so, too, Nolan’s versions of Batman have reduced the iconography of the original comic books and other takes from surrealism-infused pop art into more theoretically realistic fare that feels no actual responsibility to realism.
- Eric Henderson @ WCCO.COM
- Excerpt: The Dark Knight channeled the nervous energy of a larger cultural movement. “The Dark Knight Rises” swaggers as though it IS the larger movement. Whether or not that’s a good thing depends, I guess, on how highly you rank being a Batman fan among your life goals.
- MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: This may be the darkest, the grimmest, the most depressing summer popcorn movie ever. It is not summery. It is not popcorny. The peasants of Gotham are us, we 99 percent huddled in the dark and frantic for a hero we will not find.
- Daniel Kelly @ eFilmCritic
- Craig Kennedy @ Living in Cinema
- Excerpt: A worthy conclusion to a terrific superhero trilogy. Tom Hardy brings the menace while Anne Hathaway brings the sexy mischief. Together they almost equal Heath Ledger’s Joker.
- Jennie Kermode @ Eye For Film
- Excerpt: Loose ends. Viewers might complain about them but good writers know their value. There’s a disease afflicting sequels at a certain stage, in which every loose end from a previous film has to be woven into the new plot. It milks our fondness for established characters; it clumsily reminds us of favourite moments; and it strangles anything truly fresh that might emerge. This third installment in the Batman franchise is chocked by its own sense of destiny. It’s a shame because it still has some brilliant moments and one can’t help but think that there’s a great film in there struggling to get out.
- Josh Larsen @ LarsenOnFilm.com
- Excerpt: …a far more conventional narrative arc, not to mention an alarming amount of franchise care.
- Wesley Lovell @ Cinema Sight
- Excerpt: The Dark Knight Rises blends a lot of what Nolan learned in his prior two Batman films with a sense of entitlement that sometimes feels disingenuous. His film is bloated and lengthy; whole scenes that don’t seem important to the rest of the film play out as if their significance were paramount. Nolan gives his film urgency despite its ungainly length, which thankfully keeps the film from feeling too listless.
- Joe Lozito @ Big Picture Big Sound
- Excerpt: The epic, unwieldy conclusion to the “Dark Knight” trilogy is everything that made its predecessors great but it can’t rise as high as the bar had been set.
- Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: This is an amazingly brave piece of filmmaking, in that it stares directly into the abyss – and then pulls out one hell of a satisfying ending.
- Matthew McKernan @ FilmWhinge
- Jason McKiernan @ Next Projection
- Excerpt: I’ll spoil it right out front: The Dark Knight Rises is the least of the Nolan Batman films, not an unmitigated disaster but bloated enough that it could be confused with one.
- Ryan McNeil @ The Matinee
- Simon Miraudo Miraudo @ Quickflix
- Excerpt: Nolan can be over-serious at times, but it’s so nice to know someone finally treated the material seriously at all.
- Darren Mooney @ the m0vie blog
- Excerpt: An in-depth spoiler-filled exploration of the conclusion to Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy.
- Kenneth Morefield @ 1More Film Blog
- Excerpt: There is a difference between tweaking the mythology and fundamentally rewriting it. After three movies, let me make that distinction this way: based on Nolan’s movies what is indispensable to the Batman mythology? What makes Batman recognizable as Batman and not simply an entirely new character? What can’t be touched or changed or messed with? What is not okay to tweak because doing so moves him outside the realm of being Batman and makes him into something or someone totally new, sharing just a name with a previous character?
- Paulo Peralta @ CinEuphoria [Portuguese]
- Mark Pfeiffer @ Reel Times: Reflections on Cinema
- John J. Puccio @ Movie Metropolis
- Excerpt: There’s plenty of action, intrigue, special effects, and high-tech gadgets to maintain our attention at least in spurts.
- Tiago Ramos @ Split Screen [Portuguese]
- Jamie S. Rich @ DVD Talk
- Excerpt: I liked the third of Christopher Nolan’s Batman films a lot. Not as much as The Dark Knight, but certainly better than Batman Begins. It’s not the outright victory the build-up demands, but you should walk away satisfied–particularly as the not-as-great stuff is largely in the early portion of the picture. For whatever faults at the outset, The Dark Knight Rises manages to obliterate all doubts with a rousing final act.
- Jerry Roberts @ Armchair Cinema
- Excerpt: It isn’t perfect, but “Dark Knight Rises” lives up to its legacy.
- Diego Salgado @ FanDigital [Spanish]
- Excerpt: An ambitious ending to
- Tom Santilli @ Examiner.com
- Excerpt: There is no question in my mind that Nolan’s Batman trilogy is the definitive Batman story. I couldn’t imagine anybody doing Batman better, although time will surely give us more Bat-movies in years to come that will test that theory.
- Norm Schrager @ Meet In the Lobby
- Excerpt: … a huge, mixed bag of Nolan-sized ambition, working both for and against the film.
- Amir Siregar @ Flick Magazine [Indonesian]
- Cole Smithey @ ColeSmithey.com
- Excerpt: Disconnected significantly from the flow of logic between the first and second installments of Christopher Nolan’s “Batman” films, “The Dark Knight Rises” is a disjointed mess.
- Frank Swietek @ One Guy’s Opinion
- Excerpt: Ambitious but overstuffed…feels every bit of its 164-minute running-time, and then some.
- Phil Villarreal @ OK Magazine
- Excerpt: It’s this series’ version of The Matrix Revolutions, The Godfather Part III or Caddyshack 2.
