It's been over two years since the release of The Dark Knight Rises, the closing chapter of Christopher Nolan's Batman Trilogy. And in that time it's fair to say there's been a bit of a backlash. In general, the consensus is that the film is a mess, fuel to many a Nolan-hater and a mar on what could have been a great run of films. Now the thing is, The Dark Knight Rises isn't a bad film at all. It deserves to sit alongside Batman Begins and The Dark Knight (in many ways surpassing the former, but that's for another time) on the shelf, standing as a great Bat-flick and movie in its own right. There's unavoidable issues of course - there's some logic lapses in plot (but not as many as detractors would have you believe) - but these only matter if you're setting out to be nit-picky; as an overall experience the film works. There's was already dissidence amongst the fan-base during the film's production, with speculation being on the much more negative side of things than with the previous two films. That no doubt played a part in building the backlash, but there's more than just general dissatisfaction at work here. With Nolan's latest, Interstellar, currently in cinemas, it seemed like the perfect time to go back over the film and look at why it doesn't deserve all the hate.
