Anyone who’s been following Christopher Nolan’s final chapter of The Dark Knight Rises (which I’m assuming is 99.9% of you) will know that its actors, writers, producers, right down to its work-experience runners, have been sworn to secrecy practically on pain of death regarding any detail of the film.

It’s caused an unprecedented amount of debate, musing and speculation on behalf of the worldwide online community which in some ways have been even more satisfying than simply finding early out what happens to Batman in Nolan’s final chapter.

But now, just four days away from The Dark Knight Rises’ opening day in the UK, the embargo has finally broken and with it comes a flood of excited, impassioned reviews from US writers who’ve had the enviable honour of being the first to write about it.

By all accounts, these reviews are positively filled with adulation and if one word could sum up the general critical feeling in these early days it’d be: satisfied.

Here at WhatCulture! we’re as excited about The Dark Knight Rise as a teenager who’s just realised there’s porn on the internet. So just to whip you up into similar fever-pitch, we’ve compiled a spoiler-free run-down of some of our favourite reviews so far.

Click “next” below for the reviews (we’ve tried to pick spoiler free ones but remember everything you hear from a review will change your expectations going into it, so for the super sensitive, don’t read on…)

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