Tom Hardy and Christian Bale in The Dark Knight RisesTHE DARK KNIGHT RISES

The Dark Knight Rises, as you've perhaps heard, is the concluding chapter in Christopher Nolan's series of grandly scaled, intensely serious-minded Batman adventures that began with 2005's fittingly titled Batman Begins and continued with 2008's The Dark Knight. It is also, as you perhaps hoped, a terrifically satisfying wrap-up to the trilogy - flawed, at times distractingly flawed, but powerful and resonant and deeply emotional. After my lukewarm responses to The Avengers and The Amazing Spider-Man, I would've been relieved to exit this summer's latest superhero blockbuster merely content. Instead, I left Nolan's 165-minute comic-book epic simultaneously jazzed and sated, and more than ready to see it again.