We all know who the Batman is, but does Bruce Wayne really know?

The Dark Knight Rises is a movie of questions and of struggles. Society as a whole, a man and his inner deamons, a woman on the brink of something huge and a thief looking for a clean slate.

This is a movie with a comic book character in it, not a comic book movie.

Bruce Wayne has become a hermit in his many roomed mansion for the past 8 years since he took the fall for Harvey Dent’s atrocities. Alfred has always been the loyal servant but is growing painfully weary for Bruce. The Batman has not been seen in years and even Bruce struggles with who he is and should be.Nolan puts together a great storyline, a 3 hour long spectacle which brings together a lot of answers from the past of Bruce/Batman. Christian Bale as Batman and Anne Hathaway as Catwoman really do a great job together. Anne stole the show if you ask me.

The writing for her part, the way in which she approached it and the delivery were great. And as always, she is easy on the eyes. Bale turned in another awkward voiced performance for the books, all while making us believe the pain of Bruce Wayne and the struggles within.

Bain (Tom Hardy) is a badass. A very large presence in the film, but a very hard to understand one. Bain has a ton of dialogue and the mask on his mug makes it very hard to understand at times. While this does not take away from his character, I feel it takes a bit away from the over arching storyline.

This movie is a must see, I am not trying to put any negative spin on the film at all. Since watching it last night, I have been trying to come up with words that will make it shine as it should. Don’t expect a ton of action, but when you do it is very well done. Expect great landscapes and a great story with a bit of comic book fun thrown in.

This movie is something I would recommend seeing in the theaters especially for the opening scenes.

Overall – the movie is big, very big, and I will be excited to see what kind of numbers it does. I honestly would be surprised if it beats out TDK though in terms of box office numbers.

Go see the struggles, the pain of Batman and see for yourself how Nolan’s trilogy actually ends.