“Why do we fall?” That was a question young Bruce Wayne was asked in Batman Begins and it’s one that's just as important in The Dark Knight Rises , the final installment in Christopher Nolan’s Batman saga. Borrowing a page from Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns, the film finds an older Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) who has hung up his (gas-powered grappling) guns and retreated into Wayne Manor, now a recluse who needs a cane due to all his injuries sustained as Batman. Bruce hasn’t donned the cape and cowl in the eight years since Harvey Dent died and he took the fall for his crimes.

Now two people will draw Batman out of his self-imposed retirement: cat burglar Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway) and Bane (Tom Hardy), a masked terrorist with a brutal plan for punishing Gotham City. Trapping the people of Gotham within their own borders, it’s up to the newly returned Batman and the GCPD -- specifically Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) and Officer John Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) – to save them from Bane and his army. Much more happens than that, but let’s keep it vague for now so as to beSo is The Dark Knight Rises better than The Dark Knight? If you were one of those fans who prefer Batman Begins to TDK then you’ll find much to love about TDKR. And if you weren’t then no Batman film will ever match TDK for you. Boasting scenes where all three main characters are together in masks and costumes, The Dark Knight Rises is certainly the most comic book-y of Nolan’s three Batman films. It’s also the most epic and lengthy one, and has the greatest inherent stakes and emotion. It’s imperative that one sees Batman Begins before watching TDKR; all you really need to know from The Dark Knight is that Dent became Two-Face, Batman took the fall, and Rachel Dawes died. (The Joker is never mentioned here.) There are plenty of callbacks in TDKR to Batman Begins that directly affect Bruce, the other characters, and Gotham.The lessons Bruce must learn here mirror those he faced in Begins, but he’s not a vengeful young man anymore. Now he’s approaching middle age (he has grey streaks in his hair) and, as Alfred (Michael Caine) reminds him, he isn’t living his life. He’s simply alive. He’s not moving on from the pain he’s experienced, he’s not looking for love or even doing much to help others. Is he going to be miserable all his days? Alfred reminds him how lovely Wayne Enterprises board member Miranda Tate (Marion Cotillard) is, hoping that romance and perhaps even a family of his own someday could help him become the man his parents would have wanted rather than the terrifying symbol that his scared, mournful and angry younger self sought out and embraced.Bale gives his finest performance yet in the role. With these three Batman films, he has brought to life the most fully-formed, multi-faceted screen superhero yet. Returning as Bruce’s mentors, Caine and Morgan Freeman once again lend Bale able support, with Alfred being a particularly poignant fixture this time out. In yet another understated performance as the character, Oldman’s Gordon is a man reaching the breaking point of living with the secret truth about Harvey Dent, but he finds in Gordon-Levitt’s Officer Blake the sort of optimistic and honest cop he probably started out as himself. As Blake, Gordon-Levitt is earnest without being bland, but not everyone may buy his inconsistent East Coast accent and tough, streetwise manner.While she doesn’t quite steal the show as Heath Ledger’s Joker did, Hathaway’s Catwoman is a magnetic presence whenever she’s onscreen and she has great chemistry with Bale. This is a more realistic take on the feline femme fatale than what Michelle Pfeiffer did 20 years ago, yet this Selina Kyle retains those key traits (the sly humor, the sexiness, the fighting prowess and stealth) that fans love about the comic book character. Selina may be the proverbial good bad girl, the thief with a heart of gold, but Hathaway imbues her with a wounded spirit and a survivor’s edge that makes her feel genuine and sympathetic even when she’s being naughty.Bane is a force of nature. Muscle-bound and remorseless, his character recalls his comic book counterpart enough to overlook the most obvious changes to him. This Bane is, like Begins’ Ra’s Al Ghul, akin to a Bond villain; think of him as sort of a cross between Jaws, Goldfinger, 006 and Renard. But because he’s not crazy and is a much more straightforward, kill people and break things kind of villain, Bane is – despite Hardy’s menacing voice- and body language-driven performance –a less riveting and complex villain than the Joker and thus that bit less interesting to watch after awhile. He is certainly more than a physical match for Batman … but that’s all that will be said about that for now.For a nearly three-hour-long movie, The Dark Knight Rises clips along at a brisk pace. Indeed, sometimes it might have been nice for the film to pause long enough to let a few important dramatic moments have that extra beat to resonate, and there are some awkward narrative transitions and a few big leaps of faith required. The film is structured like a sprawling novel with lots of characters, but unlike The Dark Knight and to some degree Batman Begins, the regular people of Gotham aren’t really present here.TDK gave us the people trapped on the boats having to choose their fates. Begins showed the people of the Narrows and even had that homeless guy and the falafel vendor. The closest we get in TDKR are the orphans Blake helps out, but it would have been important and fitting given the hell Bane puts them through and the film’s ending to see what these events meant to the citizenry as they’re the ones Batman serves. It's their hope that he’s dedicated himself to restoring.The film has several exciting action set-pieces, many of which utilize the aerial vehicle The Bat, but none of which provoke the kind of jaw-dropping reaction that the truck flip did in The Dark Knight. Still, there are enough brawls, chases, and stuff going boom to satisfy hungry action fans. The battle in the streets pitting Bane’s army against Batman and the GCPD is quite a sight to behold in IMAX. Speaking of which, far more of this film was shot in IMAX than The Dark Knight, but the transitions here between full screen IMAX and the almost “letterbox” effect of regular film can be jarring. That said, IMAX really is the best way to watch this movie.The aforementioned gripes aside, director Christopher Nolan and his team have delivered the grandest, most emotional and superheroic chapter in their Batman saga. The Dark Knight Rises is a fitting emotional and narrative conclusion to this particular interpretation of the enduring story of Bruce Wayne the man and Batman the legend.