Without spoiling the entire storyline, it’s safe to say that the climax of the film had me at quite the significant chance of cardiac arrest. Centred around this ticking nuclear time-bomb, the overwhelming sense of anticipation within the story and the incredibly powerful music which blasted through the gargantuan IMAX speakers and reverberated right through my bones, had me right on the very edge of my seat. My heart was racing anxiously against my ribs, my brain was furiously trying to work out what might happen next, my fingernails were in between my teeth and it felt as though there was a scream of shrill excitement building in my throat, aching to escape. With Bane and Batman in fierce bare-knuckled fisticuffs, Hathaway’s leather clad posterior bouncing on the bat-bike as she races around Gotham and the most epically tense scene of rock-climbing ever witnessed, the overall impact of this incredible cinematic masterpiece on such an impressively grand screen was quite the delightful sensory overload.
The conclusion to the movie was both heart-warming and painfully sad, the perfect summarisation of such a well-crafted film. With its impressive yet emotionally exhausting run-time of 164 minutes, however, it did seem that toward the end, the writers used quite a bit of proverbial plot polyfilla, which seemed to somewhat satisfactorily fill up all the holes in the storyline. It appeared that a few loose ends in the story were too hastily tied and a few critical issues were skated over. However, the main crux of the story flourished magnificently in the most unexpected ways, and the last scenes were filled with so many revelations and plot twists that the audience was left gloriously giddy and overwhelmingly cathartic, having purged every emotion in their body in the last three hours.
Overall, in my humble opinion, I would say that this is, and will continue to be regarded as one of the greatest films of all time. Everything about this film screams perfection, and with four years of anticipation and build up, it could’ve easily been over-hyped. The Dark Knight Rises surpasses all expectations and overall, ticks every box for what makes a fantastic film. If you do not see this film in IMAX or at least in cinemas you will almost certainly regret it!