The Dark Knight Rises polarised audiences in their masses upon its first release, many of whom felt that Christopher Nolan had constructed a movie so heavily reliant on plot holes and coincidences that it seemed somewhat ridiculous. Whereas those criticisms might have been spot on, one of the biggest concerns came in the form of the ending, whereupon Michael Caine's butler Alfred spots Bruce Wayne having lunch in a cafe in Vienna. Given the ambiguous nature of Nolan's ending to Inception, fans of The Dark Knight began to look into this ending with an exceptional amount of observation; did Bruce Wayne really survive that nuclear blast, or was Alfred simply imagining his old master as a means of confronting his own grief? Though the signs seemed to point to the fact that Batman was alive and well and enjoying his vacation, the debate surround Batman's death rages on today.
Sam Hill is an ardent cinephile and has been writing about film professionally since 2008. He harbours a particular fondness for western and sci-fi movies.
