(No Spoiler Alerts)

The Dark Knight Rises is a fitting and satisfying conclusion to the Christopher Nolan Batman DC COMICS trilogy. The film takes ample liberty with the Batman mythos, not in an attempt to be more palatable as a big studio film but to rectify its scale and comic book mythology with the realistic and relatable tone the series has created. The Dark Knight Risesposes an interesting concept for Batman: rebirth. Much of Batman Begins and later The Dark Knight led us through Bruce Wayne’s (Christian Bale) journey as he morphs intoBatman. Essentially Bruce Wayne had shed his identity to become Batman both as a cathartic means of satisfying the vengeance that haunted Bruce Wayne, to escape his personal demons and to become an agent of good against evil, as well as the symbol of absolute morality for Gotham. Bruce Wayne was just a man; weak and subject to temptation as we see in his attempted murder of Joe Chill in the Batman Begins. Bruce Wayne must sacrifice his vengeful, prodigal son existence and abandon his fears in order to create and sustain the persona of the Dark Knight. The death of Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal), Wayne’s love interest and Gotham’s district DA in the second film (The Dark Knight.) was essential to achieving this transition. This deeply personal love relationship was the last piece of Batman’s connection to Bruce Wayne (and would prevent him from separating his two realities) and Bruce Wayne is still struggling with this loss as The Dark Knight Rises unfolds. This is a pivotal point in the movie. The movie has not fallen victim to the problem that many sequels face – losing that initial fabulous originality. The Dark Knight Rises is exceptional.

The film asks us to consider throughout the story whether Batman needs Bruce Wayne to win this fight against evil. Should Batman accept and embrace the fears of Bruce Wayne the man, in order to conquer the task ahead? Alfred (Michael Caine), Bruce Wayne’s butler is there to expose the duality. Can Batman and Bruce Wayne coexist or must one consume the other? Batman made a sacrifice in The Dark Knight in order to restore harmony in Gotham which required his forgiveness of Harvey Dent; the hero without a mask. Much of The Dark Knight Rises deals with the consequences of sacrificing the true hero for a false one under the mistaken belief it was for the greater good. Eight years have passed and we discover that at this point Bruce Wayne, overcome by grief and remorse, has given up Batman completely. He is no longer the enviable multi-billionaire bachelor living the high life. He has become a recluse and his fortune is slipping away along with any ability to ‘do good’ on the scale envisioned by the Batman he used to be. Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) has withheld the truth from Gotham but as we pick the story back up in The Dark Knight Rises, Commissioner Gordon, obviously conflicted over the mounting consequences of this deception, is seriously considering revealing the truth. He decides for various reasons not to give that speech after all. It would bring about political and social chaos and undermine the precarious harmony which has to date been the result of the Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) myth. Obviously for Commissioner Gordon to consider revealing this truth something very significant must be influencing his decision – but what it is we yet don’t know.