If Nolan wasn't the director of the complex and beguiling Memento, it would by now be hard to separate his output from the work of a number of efficient high-octane action handlers of the ilk of John McTiernan or James Cameron. But he is, and you will sit through a Nolan film on the lookout for more cerebral elements whilst already having adjusted your critical filter to superhero adaptation mode. For Nolan's work to be feted as it is, it shouldn't require either of these indulgences on the viewer's part. As with the second instalment, The Dark Knight Rises should work as visceral and atmospheric drama without needing daft genre-based allowances. But, as with The Dark Knight, it too often doesn't.
There's no enigmatic volatile element in the form of Heath Ledger's Joker to legerdemain the film out of trouble this time: the steroidal Bane with his muzzle mask, standard-issue psychopathy and generic henchman army, and the rudimentary nuclear bomb-stopping plot are inadequate substitutes. Michael Caine wanders in a number of times to deliver tearful variations on the 'stop moping' speech and Morgan Freeman's avuncular scenes are mostly just recyclings of ones from the first two films. Perhaps surprisingly, Anne Hathaway actually makes a far from insipid Catwoman, but her character motivations are as sketchily realised as the logic of the later stages in the plot, holes starting to prevail over fabric.
There are still rewards for continuing to watch with certain stand-out confrontations and lines, and the very end is tonally more thoughtfully conceived than the lead-up to it, albeit that this is an underhanded trick to play just before you walk out of the cinema In short, it could have been epic, but for want of ruthless script editing ends up an ungainly folly. It is to be hoped that Nolan will finally want to turn down the volume after this. Whether the lure of the studio dollar will let him is another matter.
5/10
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