It was with no little excitement that we approached this third and final installment in Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy. And fittingly, Nolan holds nothing back, presenting an almost three-hour-long epic that will have you on the edge of your seat, biting your nails right up until the gripping finale.

Picking up eight years after the events of The Dark Knight (2008), which turned Batman (Christian Bale) from hero to fugitive, the film opens with Gotham City in a state of peace. With the unexposed legacy of D.A. Harvey Dent (aka Two Face) living on through the enforcement of the anti-crime Dent Act, all seems well. But everything changes with the emergence of Catwoman (Anne Hathaway), a sexy cat burglar hellbent on stealing Bruce Wayne’s fingerprints to sell to an unknown buyer.

Then there’s the even bigger threat posed by Bane (Tom Hardy), a masked terrorist whose plans to take hold of Gotham eventually force Wayne out of his self-imposed exile. With his beloved city in danger Batman rises again, enlisting the help of a mysterious beauty Miranda Tate (Marion Cotillard) and Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), an upright cop, to set things right. But, as is later revealed, it seems that even more dastardly plans are afoot.

With so many twists and turns, not to mention characters, this is undoubtedly the most complex film of the trilogy. While some of the characters really aren’t given sufficient background, Nolan still does a wonderful job sharing the spotlight around. He also touches on a few interesting social issues, namely power and class disparity. There are some parts of the movie that seem to drag on too long, like when Wayne is stuck in jail, building up his strength. But the film is a fitting end to a trilogy that will leave a long and lasting impression.