10 Reasons You’re Wrong About The Dark Knight Rises

2. An Fitting Ending To Both Film And Trilogy

The final act of any film franchise faces a difficult task. There's obviously a necessary desire to wrap up any loose plot threads and provide a sense of resolution, but putting too much focus on that can leave a rather flat film in its own right. In a world where most book series have their final entry split in two, turning movies franchises into elaborate mini-series, this tends to hew closer to the overall ending; Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows: Part 2 offered very little in isolation. The Dark Knight Rises succeeds in balancing these elements, with an ending that works on both levels. The ending of Rises sees Bruce Wayne fake his death to live a quiet life and John Blake take up the Batman mantle. With Catwoman along for the ride and having young Robin an essential part of the film's narrative drive, this obviously works in a stand-alone manner, but it's solid in reference to the previous movies too; The Dark Knight shows Bruce looking for a way to give up being Batman and this film provides him with a legitimate way to do it cleanly. Few movie series can boast a final entry that works so well in the spirit of the early installements (there's even call-backs to specific scenes from earlier movies) without immense compromise, something The Dark Knight Rises doesn't succumb to.