Fans weren't sure if Nolan would come back to continue where The Dark Knightleft off—or if it* even needed continuing—but Nolan found a fitting conclusion to Bruce Wayne's story with The Dark Knight Rises. Although the conclusion to the Batman trilogy suffers from the dreaded escalation of doom that marks most sequels, the importance of Bruce/Batman's evolution was not lost. Rises wasn't a cash grab, but the chance to complete the character arc that Nolan had started in 2005 with Batman Begins.
When we meet Bruce as the film begins he is quite different from where we last left him. Dejected by the shame of what has become of his city, Bruce uses the newly constructed Wayne Manor to make himself a recluse. Batman took the blame for the murders Harvey committed to preserve Dent's reputation as the savior Gotham needed to turn the corner, yet what came from Dent's legacy is not what Gordon or Bruce expected. Gotham, eight years after the events of The Dark Knight, is a borderline police-state. Blackgate prison is filled with those that Dent tried in court, but terrorists roam the streets of the city, and class warfare threatens to tear everything else apart. When a threat arises that he can't ignore, Bruce dons the Batsuit one more time.
Fortunately, for all of the heightened stakes that too often take up running time in big-budget sequels, Nolan and co. don't lose sight of Bruce's arc. In a move that mirrored Batman Begins, Nolan subverts expectations by taking Bruce out of the cape and cowl for a majority of the film. A bold choice for a sequel to one of the most profitable films of all-time, but one necessary to bucking the template of superhero trilogies that had been frequented so often. Previous trilogies involving Superman, Spider-man and the previous iterations of Batman weren't really connected in any way with the exception of the cast and a blueprint laid out by the studios. The number of villains increases, the destruction is hiked up to global calamity, and then the hero saves the day and gets ready for the next movie in two years. What Christopher Nolan gave audiences with the conclusion of The Dark Knight Rises and, with that, the end of the trilogy, is a self-contained series that doesn't necessarily give fans what they want, but exactly what they need.
Batman didn't place trust in the hands of others, but to overtake Bane, he relinquished his burden to Lucius Fox, Commissioner Gordon and Selina Kyle and, in doing so, managed to create the vision of Gotham that his parents envisioned long ago. For so long Batman was resigned to unchanging stasis that left the character without closure for almost a hundred years. By not rigidly adhering to what stories have come before, Rises offers something unique for moviegoers to witness: A Batman who could walk away when the job was finished.
