The first reviews of The Dark Knight Rises have risen and the verdict is… (Updated with negative reviews)

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

The reviews for THE DARK KNIGHT RISES have begun to hit the Internet and the verdict is undeniably positive. As of this afternoon, the film is holding a 94% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. I am sure that will go down slightly because there is always at least one buzzkill, but did we have any doubts that Nolan would deliver yet again?

Here are the first reviews. I will put the more spoilery ones towards the bottom so that the majority can read what the critics are saying.

Justin Chang from Variety: Retains the moral urgency and serious-minded pulp instincts that have made the Warners franchise a beacon of integrity in an increasingly comicbook-driven Hollywood universe.

IndieWire: …a spectacular noir epic that’s equal parts murky, bloated, flashy and triumphantly cinematic.

Todd McCarthy from The Hollywood Reporter: Big-time Hollywood filmmaking at its most massively accomplished, this last installment of Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy makes everything in the rival Marvel universe look thoroughly silly and childish.

Matthew Leyland from TotalFilm: A smart, stirring spectacle that faces down impossible expectations to pull off a hugely satisfying end to business.

Drew McWeeny from HitFix: A triumph, a victory for all involved, and one of the year’s most impressive efforts so far in any genre, on any subject. Whoever Warner Bros hires to reboot the ‘Batman’ films a few years from now, I wish you luck. The bar is as high as it could possibly be.

Ed Douglas of ComingSoon: Nolan figures out a convincing way to wrap everything up in a nice bow, making one feel like he’s created a bonafide Batman story in three movies that can stand up on its own merits completely separate from the comics or any previous incarnations.

Todd Gilchrist of The Playlist: THE DARK KNIGHT RISES is emotionally inspiring, aesthetically significant and critically important for America itself – as a mirror of both sober reflection and resilient hope.

Here are a couple of negative reviews.  Bastards.

Christy Lemire of The Associated Press:  This is the problem when you’re an exceptional, visionary filmmaker. When you give people something extraordinary, they expect it every time. Anything short of that feels like a letdown.

Marshall Fine of Hollywood & Fine:  At times, the action is so massive and thunderously clunky that I might as well have been watching one of the Transformers movies.

A comparison to TRANSFORMERS?  WTF?

Here are some new positive reviews.

Richard Corliss of Time Magazine:  For once a melodrama with pulp origins convinces viewers that it can be the modern equivalent to Greek myths or a Jonathan Swift satire. TDKR is that big, that bitter — a film of grand ambitions and epic achievement.

Xan Brooks of The Guardian UK:  The dark knight duly rises for the bruising final stanza in Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, a satisfying saga of revolution and redemption that ends the tale on a note of thunder.

Katie Muir of The Times UK:  The most anticipated movie of the summer is as ambitious and bombastic as they get, with widescreen mayhem, thousands of extras, hyper-kinetic effects, and a roiling, twisting plot.

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES, even if it is not as good as BATMAN BEGINS or THE DARK KNIGHT is already shaping to be the best third film in any series to hold up compared to it’s predecessors. There will be more reviews coming through the week so stay tuned for updates.

THE DARK KNIGHT rises opens everywhere this Friday, July 20th.