the dark knight rises

movies:  I've been thinking long and hard about the Dark Knight Rises and how to qualify such a movie in words.  It really was quite stunning in just about every fashion, and where to begin may have been the hardest part of all of this.
The movie itself was just a stark cold tale of Gotham in the aftermath of the second movie of this trilogy, The Dark Knight.  On the heals of the death of Harvey Dent, who unbeknownst to the the general population turned into Two Face, Batman, who is deemed responsible for his death, is in missing from the scene of crime fighting and Bruce Wayne is also in exile, feeling lost without his alter ego.  This, however, seems to have helped things in Gotham with the Dent Act, named for the cities fallen hero(or so they say), has gotten mobsters and criminals off the streets.  This is a lie.  And lies are not met without consequences.
That consequence is a man named Bain.  Bain comes from the same League of Shadows that taught Bruce how to become the bat.  His goal seems to be nothing but destruction and anarchy as he makes a brilliant speech about about giving the city of Gotham back to the people while activating an atomic bomb to destroy it.  As Bruce watches this happen, he knows there is only one thing to do:  bring back the Batman.  The more or less obvious full circle use of this story pertaining to a League of Shadows member spouting similar rhetoric to Raz Al-Gul in Batman Begins was a great way to bring the story full circle and allow for continuity between three movies that, if it were decided, could have had none.
The story from there unravels into an epic battle between the people of Gotham and Bain and his followers.  This battle is lead by an absolutely stellar cast.  Joseph Gordon Levitt plays an optimistic cop who believes in Batman to the point of a potentially important future.  Catwoman is played elegantly (although without enough insanity for my taste) by Anne Hathaway as the queen burglar of Gotham whose affection for Gotham's dark knight, and his alter ego, ultimately force her to help save the city in which her crime has thrived(the moment when Batman asks her to help save Gotham from destruction by nuclear bomb, you see her think something along the lines of Spike's "I like this world" speech in the final episode of season two of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  The meaning being that some people want the world to survive because they enjoy being bad in it.)  The always engaging and beautiful Marion Colltiard plays the yin to Catwoman's yang as an optimist who still believes in Wayne Enterprises.  And of course, Michael Caine and Gary Oldman couldn't be more brilliant in their returning rolls as Alfred and Gordon.
What we see in this movie that makes it different from The Dark Knight is that this collection of characters and actors bring a sense of total excellence to the movie.  There is no iconic performance or moment in this movie.  But a collection of greats doing great work.
As the end of this trilogy, the movie did exactly what it was supposed to.  It gave a sense of completion and closure the story that had unfolded over the previous movies.  In the spirit of all things Christopher Nolan, there was not necessarily an end.  It was just a conclusion.  The politics most thought would be overt in this movie were left to interpretation quite nicely.  Then end may even be subject to debate.
Nolan's greatest achievement may have been his most vague point of conclusion though.  The fate of Gotham was not written in stone at the end of the movie.  Batman saved Gotham from yet another pending danger.  It may have been the biggest danger yet faced, a HUGE danger necessary to bring him out of exile.  But what ever the fate of Gotham is by the end of this war, there is no assurance that it is going to remain safe.  Harvey Dent once said, "The night is darkest just before the dawn.  And I promise, the dawn is coming."  The night certainly did continue to get darker.  But after seeing where this trilogy has taken us, I can't say that I know that that dawn Dent spoke of is ever going to come.  The sun has just been given a temporary opportunity to rise.  Luckily, Gotham has the hero it deserves to save them if need be in the future.