Peace has been bought for Gotham but at what cost? We see a city consumed with ignorance; while many of Gotham’s worst criminals are safely behind bars, the corrupt social climbers, the real megalomaniacs – continue to usurp the system and prey on the less fortunate. Many of the villains in The Dark Knight Rises are motivated by power, greed and personal gain. At first glance this appears to be in stark contrast to the motivations of the main antagonist Bane (Tom Hardy) – who is unleashing a seemingly unstoppable force of chaos and terror upon the city. The script is superb, cleverly revealing the characters and their motivations right up until the last frame. Bane’s actions have unleashed a destructive revolution in Gotham and it is against this backdrop that each character begins to reveal their true self. We engage each character so completely with horror, joy, relief, remorse, hope and disbelief as we come to understand and recognize the inevitable consequences of the events in their reality. This holds true for all the characters including Commissioner Gordon, Albert, Fox (Morgan Freeman) and Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), and particularly the major characters of Bane, Batman, Miranda Tate (Marion Cotillard), and Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway).

Is Selina (cat burglar) the ultimate representation of the altruistic nature of mankind or not? Is she a weathervane for the moral tone of the film? Is it about me and screw everyone else or is it I am going to help my neighbour? In the end that question is satisfied by asking if the glass is half full or half empty? Awareness/truth for Gotham is paramount to its rebirth. The fear motivated by Bane’s terrorism must be embraced by the able bodied (herein represented by police forces and the duo of Batman/Selina). The Dark Knight does an excellent job of convincing us that the characters behind the masks are real people and are motivated by more than duty and the herculean ability and opportunity fate has afforded them. As Gotham’scourts are mocked and justice (Scarecrow played by Cillian Murphy presides as judge) gives way to chaos, we can see the effect of Batman’s presence in Gotham truly become more than vigilante justice and transform into a metaphor for personal responsibility and social justice. But we are reminded that without the embrace of character; personal desire and need such as Batman’s to conceal his identity to protect what Bruce Wayne holds dear, we can become monsters like Bane in an effort to misguidedly devote ourselves to a “greater good” that for the most part abandons individual humanity.