Analysis of The Dark Knight Rises

The Dark Knight rises is an American action/adventure superhero film directed by Christopher Nolan and is the third installment of the batman trilogy. The film starred Christian Bale, Tom Hardy and Anne Hathaway and grossed over £1 billion at the worldwide box office becoming the second highest grossing superhero film of all time after Marvels Avengers. 
The film is focused around Bruce Wayne (Batman) rediscovering himself after hiding when he took the blame for the murder of Harvey Dent and rises to stop terrorist leader Bane from destroying the city of Gotham. 

The film begins with the sound of heavy threatening drum beat, the opening credits of the subsidiaries involved in the making of the film all relate to the dark theme with the colour scheme of black and metallic colours, most metals are hard so this could symbolise that its indestructible. We also see the batman logo which cracks on the screen letting in streams of light almost like its ‘rising’ through the logo.

We are introduced to 3 masked men which connotes that they are wanted and have been kidnapped because they could be criminals and they are interrogated by the CIA whilst they are on a plane. We see an ariel shot of the plane flying over the mountains During this scene we hear gun shots which signify that this will be a high action film which attracts a widely male audience. We learn that Bane, the villain of the film, is one of the 3 masked men. we see a reversal of roles as the CIA agent crouches lower than Bane as he been interrogates him so that he is shown to be looking up to Bane from a low angle shot, this presents Bane as a dominant figure and has control even though he is tied up. We know that Bane is going to be a villain through this control and his emotionless tone. The agent asks “if I pull that off would you die?” Bane replies “it would be very painful” and finishes “…for you” almost like a threat to the CIA agent. 
Everything begins to speed up as hysteria begins to build and we see a lot of handheld camera shots to portray the unstableness of the situation, the music turns fast pace which implies that this is going to be an high action scene. We then see a cut to an ariel shot of  much larger plane flying over the agents plane and the hijackers shooting something to attaches the planes together. It then cuts to another extreme long shot of the agent’s plane being dragged vertically down and the back of the plane being blown off. The fast pace music and cuts coincide with the panic as the plane falls vertical, this fast pace music also implies that this is an action film, it gets our hearts racing because their lives are dangerously at risk.
 Banes dominance is also apparent when the fast paced music completely stops when he speaks; this suggests that he’s a powerful figure and is important to the film and what he has to say is significant.
After this high action scene we see an establishing shot over the city of Gotham which sets the scene where most of the action will take place, the shot is of the city at night where it looks more spectacular but darkness is also widely significant to the film because of the negativity that comes from villain, Bane. Darkness also makes the film much more dramatic.
We then see the scene of Harvey Dents memorial service, this links to the previous film ‘The Dark Knight’. In the scene we see a medium close up of Jim Gordon giving a speech, during the speech we see a flashback taking us back to the previous film where Jim killed Harvey Dent. 
Also during this scene we are introduced to cat woman, however we are introduced to her from behind so we don’t actually know who it is yet but we know that this character will be of significance because the camera is focused on her for a fair amount of time. They want us to be in anticipation to see cat woman because there was huge hype around her appearance as she wasn't in the previous film.
After this scene we see a cut to the silhouette of what looks to be Bruce Wayne almost as though he is still hiding in the darkness.