Early reviews of Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises have been ecstatic with just one negative notice out of 25 registered on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.  Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter (formerly of Variety) called TDKR "big-time Hollywood filmmaking as its most massively accomplished," and raved that "this last installment of Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy makes everything in the rival Marvel universe look thoroughly silly and childish."

 
 

In his review McCarthy finds that the power in Nolan’s film arises from the fact that "Nolan has thus boldly rooted his film in what are arguably the two big worries of the age, terrorism and economic collapse."  Coincidentally Warner Bros. today released an image showing Bane after his takeover of the Gotham Stock Exchange. (Warning to those who wish to avoid spoilers, McCarthy’s review discusses the movie’s plot at length).

 

David Poland of Movie City News called The Dark Knight Rises, "the best of the Nolan Batman films," and concludes "The Dark Knight Rises is the movie a filmmaker makes after they have earned the freedom to break the mold and to reach for something bigger than the franchise."

 

Hollywood analysts are expecting The Dark Knight Rises to open bigger than 2008’s The Dark Knight (see "'Dark Knight Rises' Tracking as Monster Hit"), which means that anything less than eclipsing the TDKR’s former record of $158.4 million will be something of disappointment.  But with reviews like TDKR is receiving on top of the interest that Warner Bros. has created in the film (and with the hot weather forecast for most of the country), disappointment appears increasingly unlikely.