So here we are, the final big superhero movie of the summer (at least if you live outside Japan, but I’ve bitched enough about the four month wait for The Avengers). Not only does The Dark Knight Rises round out the summer trilogy of big superhero movies, but it also rounds out Nolan’s Batman trilogy that began with Batman Begins. When Batman next appears on the big screen, it will be a different actor under the cowl with a different director at the helm, and in a different universe (Warner Bros. has already confirmed they will reboot Batman following The Dark Knight Rises, and I’ll get to that later).

I am a bit sad to see this series end, especially Christian Bale’s role as Bruce Wayne/Batman. Ever since I saw American Psycho, I was telling anyone who’d listen that Bale is the perfect actor to play the Caped Crusader. So when he was actually cast, you can imagine how quickly I flipped. Three movies later, I’m still happy about this choice. There are certain actors who were just born to play certain characters — Christopher Reeve/Superman, Robert Downey Jr./Iron Man, Patrick Stewart/Professor X, and I added Christian Bale/Batman to that list seconds after Batman Begins.

Nolan and Bale brought Batman into the modern superhero cinematic family with Batman Begins and proved that even after the disastrous Batman & Robin, the Caped Crusader can still be a contender. And then Nolan raised the bar for superhero movies everywhere with The Dark Knight. Not only was it a good superhero movie, but The Dark Knight was a game-changer. Now, even the snootiest of film snobs was taking another look at superheroes. And The Dark Knight, in my opinion, didn’t really do anything that hadn’t been done in superhero films before — I think Hulk, X-Men, X2, Iron Man, and Batman Begins all did similar things as well — but the execution of it in The Dark Knight was just better (helped in no small part by Heath Ledger’s stunning performance as the Joker).

But enough on all that. This is supposed to be a review of The Dark Knight Rises so let’s get on that. Spoilers are after the jump.

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