A productive test case for whether operatic ambition can matter more than perfect precision in blockbuster endings.
The Dark Knight Rises is undeniably messier than The Dark Knight, but that looseness comes with genuine scale, civic anxiety, and end-of-myth feeling. It is better defended as a huge finale than judged only as an airtight machine.
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Batman returns from exile when Bane turns Gotham into a siege state and forces Bruce Wayne into one final reckoning.
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