A Fire Will Rise
Text is too large - max size is 60,000 characters.
Commissioner James Gordon (Gary Oldman) is seen delivering a eulogy for Harvey Dent at the end of The Dark Knight: "I knew Harvey Dent. I was his friend. And it will be a very long time before someone... inspires us the way he did. I believed in Harvey Dent..."A van is seen driving across a field, occupied by Russian soldiers. They are transporting a nuclear scientist, Dr. Leonid Pavel (Alon Aboutboul), who is riding shotgun. Sitting in the backseats are three prisoners, who are handcuffed, have hoods over their heads, and rifles trained on them. The van arrives at an airfield, where it meets with a commuter jet occupied by a young CIA agent, Bill Wilson, (Aidan Gillen) and some U.S. Special Ops soldiers from a special extraction team, whom Dr. Pavel has cut a deal with. The CIA agent refuses to let the hooded prisoners come on his aircraft, to which Dr. Pavel claims the prisoners aren't his friends. The agent is told by the truck driver, Barsad (Josh Stewart), tells him that they are mercenaries who work for the masked man. He takes it that the "masked man" is Bane, an infamous terrorist.During the flight, Wilson becomes excited and begins interrogating the prisoners for information about Bane. He has one prisoner dragged to the cargo door, leans him out, and demands to know who paid the men to kidnap Dr. Pavel. When the man refuses to talk, Wilson pulls his pistol and fires a shot away from the man's head, then claims that he "didn't fly so well" and pulls the man back inside. The second prisoner is pulled over to the door and given the same treatment. This time, Wilson asks him about the mask that Bane wears. The man fails to talk, even when Wilson jams a pistol into his back, leading Wilson to believe he's "awfully loyal for a hired gun".At this point, the third prisoner - who himself sounds like he is talking through some kind of voice amplifier when he speaks - helpfully suggests that his comrade is silently wondering: why would someone shoot a man before throwing him out of a plane? Wilson backs away, signals for one soldier to seal the door, and he asks this prisoner for his name. The hooded man says that it doesn't matter who he and his comrades are, but it's their plan that matters. As the man admits that "no one cared who I was 'til I put on the mask", Wilson removes his hood, revealing a bald-headed muscular brute wearing an intimidating-looking breathing apparatus over his mouth - Bane (Tom Hardy).Wilson asks Bane if he will die if he takes off the mask, and Bane warns that the result would be very painful... for the agent. He even cheerfully admits that getting captured was part of his plan, as he and his men want to know what Dr. Pavel has told the government about him. Dr. Pavel swears he hasn't said anything.Unbeknownst to the soldiers or Wilson, a large C-130 Hercules cargo plane descends down over the commuter jet. Its wake causes severe turbulence for the smaller plane.Wilson congratulates Bane for getting himself caught, and asks him what the next step of his master plan is. Bane boldly announces it: crashing the very plane they are on right now.... with no survivors!On cue, a team of henchmen in full paramilitary gear fast-rope out of the cargo plane, land on the small plane's wings, and shoot out the side windows with submachine guns, while Bane forcefully breaks his handcuffs and punches out Wilson. The henchmen then attach thick steel cables to the plane with grappling hooks behind the wings, and plant small bombs in the fuselage. As the plane begins to nosedive, the stress forces tear the wings off. Two henchmen then climb up, and set off charges to blow off the tail section. One soldier draws his pistol and manages to get off one round before he is shot dead by a mercenary descending into the plane. The mercenaries also lower in a black body bag containing the corpse of a man who is similar in appearance to Dr. Pavel.Bane grabs Dr. Pavel, and pulls out a small tube with needles on both ends. He inserts one end into Dr. Pavel's arm and the other into the corpse, and starts to perform an improvised blood transfer. Bane spots one of his hooded comrades trying to attach himself to a safety harness, and orders the man to stop, as the authorities expect to find one of them in the wreckage. The man asks Bane if they've started a fire, and Bane says, "Yes, the fire rises." Bane attaches the harness to himself and Dr. Pavel, and tells the panicked doctor that the time to panic will come later. He sets off a detonator, which releases the fuselage to plummet to Earth. Bane and Dr. Pavel are then reeled up into the bigger plane.In Gotham, the eighth anniversary of Harvey Dent's death is being celebrated as Dent Day. At a Wayne Manor charity event hosted by the forever-absent Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale), Gordon prepares to deliver a speech revealing the truth about Dent and the murders for which the Batman had taken the fall 8 years ago, but deciding that the time is not right, and having flashbacks of Dent holding his son hostage, he stuffs the speech into his jacket. His second-in-command, Deputy Commissioner Peter Foley (Matthew Modine), talks with the city's congressman Byron Gilly (Brett Cullen), who informs him that with the drop in crime, Gordon is merely a war hero in peacetime, and the mayor plans on dumping him in the spring. Miranda Tate (Marion Cotillard), a wealthy investor, and businessman John Daggett (Ben Mendelsohn) try to meet the reclusive Bruce to get him to invest in her clean energy project, but are unable to meet him. Daggett is curious why Miranda is interested in seeing a guy who threw away her investment, but Miranda tells him that he only understands money and the power he thinks it buys.One of the maids working at the Wayne Manor for the event is Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway), a young cat burglar, who breaks into Bruce's room on the pretense of delivering dinner. She cracks his safe, stealing his mother's pearl necklace, which has a tracking device built into it, but out of curiosity, she starts looking around the place, observing a photo of Bruce's parents. As she notices a bullseye target with several arrows embedded in it, Bruce comes in, hobbling on a cane, and announces himself by shooting another arrow into the target, causing Selina to jump. She hastily tries to apologize, and comments that Bruce doesn't look anything like the rumors make him out to be. Bruce notices her newly acquired necklace, and comments that it looks like his mother's, but it couldn't be the same one because it's locked up in a safe that is supposed to be uncrackable. Caught, Selina's tone and attitude change. She points out that Bruce wouldn't beat up a woman so much as she would beat up a cripple.... "of course exceptions have to be made." She kicks his cane out from under him, spilling him to the floor, then escapes by doing a back flip out of a window. She changes out of her maid's disguise as she makes her way to the Congressman's car, climbs in, and asks for a ride.Alfred (Michael Caine) comes up to Bruce's room and finds Bruce looking at the breached safe. Learning that the intruder was one of the maids, he dryly suggests that Bruce stop letting maids into this part of the house. Bruce has found print dust and realizes that Selina also took a copy of his fingerprints.Later that night, Gordon is looking through some files on the police station's roof, next to the destroyed Batsignal, when he is approached by a rookie police officer, John Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), who informs him about the Congressman's disappearance. Blake reveals that he has some suspicions about the circumstances of Dent's death, also the last confirmed Batman sighting. He suggests that he knows who Batman really is, but Gordon dismisses him, takes one look at the Batsignal, and departs.The next morning, Alfred finds Bruce working on the computers in the Batcave. The prints their jewel thief was using were not her own, but rather those of a male armed-robbery suspect. Bruce notes that by using the pearls' tracking device, he was able to get their thief's address and cross-reference it with police information to produce Selina's name. Selina is a master jewel thief nicknamed by the newspapers as "the Cat". We also learn that she's been arrested a few times - for assault, resisting arrest, even breaking out of a women's correctional facility when she just sixteen years old. Alfred suggests that Bruce go out with Selina, and move on from the grief he's had over Rachel's death eight years ago.Alfred surprises Bruce when informing him that during his travels for 7 years (in the first film, before he became Batman), Alfred had hoped that Bruce would never return. He tells Bruce that he wished that in Florence, Italy, while in a cafe, he would see Bruce happily with a woman, married, having a normal life. They would silently acknowledge each other.Blake and his partner Tyler Ross (Reggie Lee) show up at a sewage treatment plant, where a dead body has washed up out of the tunnel. Blake recognizes the body as that of a kid staying at St. Swithin's orphanage, where he coaches baseball from time to time. Blake is shown to have a very close relationship with the orphanage and with Father Reilly (Chris Ellis), the warden who runs it, and we realize later that he himself grew up in that orphanage, which was being funded by the Wayne Foundation. One of the kids at the orphanage informs him that they have heard rumors of the sewers providing good employment recently, which makes Blake suspicious.A few nights later, Selina walks into a dimly lit dive bar with a drunk man in a bright Hawaiian shirt. She seats him at the counter, then walks over to another table and meets with Philip Stryver (Burn Gorman), Daggett's assistant CEO. She hands him a slide that contains four of Bruce's right hand fingerprints. When Selina asks if Stryver has something in return for her, he signals for one of his men to lock the door. Selina smiles nervously, and admits that although she doesn't want to know what Stryver is planning to use Bruce's prints for, she knows he'll need a thumbprint as well. Stryver assures her he counts fine and has another hoodlum put a pistol to Selina's head. She hesitates for a moment, but she hands her cell phone to Stryver and tells him to hit the send button.Immediately, there is a knock at the door, and Selina's friend, a young woman named Jen (Juno Temple), comes in. She enters and notices that the place seems a little quiet, but Selina assures her that the place will liven up in a few minutes, and Jen leaves.Selina then hands Stryver another small pocket envelope containing the thumbprint slide. He draws his own pistol and informs Selina that, even in the black dress she's decided to wear tonight, she will not be missed by anyone. Unfortunately for Stryver, it turns out that Selina has anticipated this, for she swiftly says that while that might be true about her, the cops are missing her friend, the drunk. Stryver looks at Selina's date, and the camera pans from him to a news broadcast on the TV, and we now realize he is in fact the missing congressman from earlier. Stryver notices this, but thinks that the police aren't going to look in such a seedy place, but Selina informs him that he just used the guy's cell phone.Suddenly, the room is filled with the sound of tires screeching to a stop. Immediately, the thugs draw their pistols and Selina attacks them, disarming one thug. Outside, a SWAT team advances up to the front doors with submachine guns drawn. Selina wrestles with Stryver and drags him over the table, knocking him out, while other henchmen escape out through the kitchen. Just then, the SWAT officers begin swinging a battering ram at the locked front doors, trying to force them open. With mere seconds to act, Selina grabs Stryver's pistol, inserts a fresh magazine, and shoots one henchman behind the counter, killing him instantly. Selina pistol-punches Stryver, then shoots another thug near the kitchen door as he tries to draw his weapon.The SWAT team breaches the doors, shooting a third henchman as they enter. Selina promptly screams hysterically, pretending to be a frightened hostage. The SWAT officers chase the thugs into the kitchen and out the back door, where the hoodlums open fire on them and a shootout ensues. Amidst the echos of gunfire, Selina walks over to the congressman, who has taken a bullet in the leg, tells him to apply pressure to his wound, then saunters out the front door, where she immediately runs into Blake, to whom she passes herself off as a captive.While Selina makes her escape, Blake makes his way through the bar with his pistol drawn. He heads out back to the alleyway to provide additional support to the SWAT officers, who have been pinned down behind a parked truck. As they break cover and prepare to fire their submachine guns at the fleeing henchmen, Barsad, stationed on a fire escape, shoots three of them from behind with a sniper rifle. The henchmen sprint for safety, and as they disappear around another corner, more police units arrive, led by Gordon and Foley. They enter the alley the henchmen fled into, but find that the men have vanished. While a few officers head up a stairwell to look for the henchmen there, Gordon spots a manhole and takes three SWAT officers with him to search the tunnel.The four men climb down the ladder into the sewers in pursuit. As they are searching the tunnel, a couple of thugs ambush and open fire on them. After a few seconds of exchanged gunfire, a bomb goes off, taking out Gordon's backup and shooting a fireball out of the open manhole. Foley mistakes the blast for a gas explosion, but Blake realizes where Gordon might turn up and quickly runs to his car.As Gordon starts his way further into the tunnel with his flashlight and pistol drawn, and no backup to help him, two men crack him over the back, knocking him out. They grab him by his arms, and drag him, still semi-conscious, through a labyrinth of tunnels. As Gordon is dragged deeper in, he notices men with assault rifles and submachine guns overseeing teams of hoodlums doing construction of some kind on the walls. The two henchmen bring Gordon to an open cavern with a waterfall, where they deposit him in front of a shirtless Bane.Bane asks the two henchmen what they are doing. Due to a slight misunderstanding, they initially think Bane is talking to Gordon. He asks them why they thought to bring Gordon down here. When the first one says he and his comrade didn't know what to do, Bane tells them that they panicked, and their weakness has cost the lives of three people. He immediately crushes the first man's neck, then tells the other he will kill him after he searches Gordon's jacket. The second thug empties Gordon's pockets, taking Gordon's badge, wallet, pistol, and Gordon's speech about Harvey Dent. Bane looks over Gordon's speech, deciding that it is useful to his plans.Gordon sees that his captors are occupied, and when Bane has his back turned to him, he promptly rolls off the platform into a rushing waterway. Bane's men open fire on Gordon as he floats away, successfully hitting him several times. Barsad hands Bane a tracking device, which he places on the second thug. He then shoots the henchman dead with Gordon's pistol and throws his body into the waterway.Outside the tunnels, Blake jumps out of his car near the sewer outlet, and rushes to the exit grate, where he finds Gordon, soaked and just barely clinging onto life.The next morning, Blake shows up at Wayne Manor, to inform Bruce of the shooting. To Bruce's surprise, Blake reveals that he has deduced Bruce's identity as Batman. He mentions that when he was five years old, his mother died in a car accident, and a few years later, his father was shot dead in a gambling dispute. He's figured out Bruce's identity from the fact that while growing up as an orphan, Blake learned to smile in the mirror to hide his anger. Gordon's own men apparently do not believe Gordon's babbling about an underground army, and Blake makes a plea for Bruce's return as Batman.As Bruce watches Blake drive off, he asks Alfred about Bane. Alfred mentions that Bane is a mercenary with no other known name or alias, though it is known that he and men working for him carried out a coup in a West African country that secured diamond mining operations for Daggett. Bruce asks Alfred why his foundation stopped funding Blake's orphanage, and Alfred reveals that the Wayne Foundation is funded by Wayne Enterprises profits. Figuring it's time to talk to Fox, Bruce asks Alfred for a car and for an appointment at Gordon's hospital for an examination on his leg. He is then seen pulling out of the driveway in his Lamborghini Aventador.At the hospital, Bruce sees an orthopedist who tells him that the cartilage in his left knee is gone through years of strain and inactivity, and combined with all of the other damage to his body, he cannot recommend that Bruce go heliskiing. As soon as the doctor leaves the exam room, Bruce dons a ski mask and fast-ropes down to Gordon's hospital room. He finds Gordon hooked up to multiple machines. Though barely able to talk, Gordon insists that Batman must return to stop Bane.Bruce is next shown sitting in his car, examining a tracking device. He is parked outside Selina's apartment. Inside, Selina has put on the pearl necklace and is preparing to go out for a night on the town when she hears a commotion in the hallway. Jen is being threatened by a yuppie she has pickpocketed. Selina defuses the situation by twisting the guy's hand and forcing him against the wall, in the process stealing his watch, then tosses him down the stairs. Bruce then watches as she emerges and climbs into a cab, and follows her.Bruce is next seen pulling up to the valet at a gala costume ball. As he climbs out of his car, the paparazzi recognize him and start to snap photos of him, but Bruce uses a tiny remote in his pocket that shuts down everyone's cameras, then is waved through by the greeter. Inside, Bruce watches Selina as she is dancing with an older gentleman. We notice that she is wearing a domino mask and a headband with a set of cat ears. As he watches her, he is surprised when he is approached by Miranda Tate, the party organizer. She is somewhat astonished to see him, since he never normally comes to charity events, and never did even before going into hiding. They make some small-talk about the Wayne Enterprises energy project, and then Miranda departs, leaving Bruce free to track down Selina.Bruce cuts in with Selina's dancing partner as the next routine begins. She is clearly annoyed that he came. As they slowly waltz, Selina reveals her desire to get a fresh start, and claims she wants to see the rich lose and the city burn. Bruce also tells her that all of her assumptions of him are wrong. Although he admits that his mother's necklace looks better on Selina than locked in a safe, he doesn't believe she deserves them, and he removes them from her neck. Selina glares at him, angered, then suddenly kisses him and swiftly departs. Bruce then finds out the hard way that she has stolen his car by pretending to be his wife.Bruce goes to his company offices the next day to meet with Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman), who assures him that his majority ownership of Wayne Enterprises keeps Daggett from taking over the company despite him blowing the R&D department's budget on the mothballed nuclear project. He takes Bruce down to the R&D department and shows him a new toy - a sleek flying aircraft. It is a U.S. army project designed for urban combat, with rotors that make it capable of navigating between buildings without recirculation. The project, which has a long and uninteresting project designation, is one that Fox simply nicknames "the Bat", and that yes, it does come in black. The Bat currently works fine, although Fox warns that the autopilot is still sketchy and could be repaired with someone of Bruce's intellect.To get back into physical shape, Bruce straps on motorized leg braces and does basic martial arts in the Batcave. Alfred walks in while Bruce is practicing a roundhouse kick, and tells Bruce that he needs to know about a number of rumors that surround Bane. According to the rumors, Bane once escaped from a middle-eastern prison known for brutality and simply called the "Pits of Hell". How he did this is not known, but Bane then became a member of the League of Shadows, and was trained by Ra's al-Ghul. Bane was later excommunicated from the group for extreme behavior beyond the boundaries of the League. Alfred warns Bruce that anyone too extreme for the likes of Ra's al-Ghul should not be messed with, and believes Bruce has a death wish to go back to being Batman.That evening, Bane and three of his men carry out a very ambitious assault and robbery on the Gotham Stock Exchange. One henchman, McGarrity, (David Dayan Fisher) enters the building by posing as a shoeshiner, working at a stand by an entrance to the trading floor, stashing a submachine gun in his gym bag. A second unnamed henchman (Massi Furlan) enters disguised as a janitor, and pretends to mop the floor in the front stairwell, hiding a submachine gun in his water bucket. A third henchman, Petrov, sneaks onto the trading floor by posing as a sandwich delivery man.Just prior to closing time, McGarrity and the janitor drop what they are doing, wait until there is no one around to see them, then draw their weapons and begin making their way to the trading floor. While that is happening, Bane arrives at the rear entrance, disguised as a deliveryman, and wearing a motorcycle helmet to hide his face. When he walks through the metal detector, an alarm goes off. A female security guard stops Bane and orders him to take off his helmet so their cameras can see his face. He complies, and slowly removes his helmet, revealing his gas mask. Before the guards can react, Bane immediately lashes out with sudden, lethal blows, punching out the female guard with his helmet. He then quickly knocks out a second guard. A third guard tries to draw his gun, but Bane twists his gun hand, punches him in the crotch with his other hand, shoots a fourth guard, and lastly gives the guard a lethal blow to the head with his helmet.Upstairs, as McGarrity and the janitor walk into the trading floor, Petrov suddenly draws a pistol from a paper bag, whips his customer over the shoulder with the barrel, and shoots a nearby trader. Traders dive for cover as McGarrity and the janitor raise their submachine guns and begin shooting at the trading monitors, riddling them with bullets. The three henchmen cease shooting as Bane strides onto the floor. He looks around, and notices a trader who we just saw getting his shoes shined moments earlier. The trader protests that there is no money he can steal. Bane grabs the trader by his tie, drags him over to another terminal, and slams his head against the table, knocking him out. McGarrity then pulls a laptop out of his bag and uses a USB cable to hook it into the computer terminal. Bane then uses the trader's security card to log in to the system, and a series of trades begin rapidly running across the screen.Police cars screech to a stop outside the exchange. Officers and SWAT teams pile out of their cars and take up positions around the building as Foley arrives on the scene to assume command. The frantic exchange security chief clears the sidewalk of pedestrians, then rushes over to Foley and tells him to get his men inside as the robbers have access to everyone's financial assets. Foley refuses to risk endangering hostages. He orders the fiber line and cell tower shut down in an attempt to stall Bane. Inside, Bane is not alarmed when McGarrity reports this to him.While this happens, Blake arrives, climbs out of his car, and notices a cement mixer truck parked on the nearby corner that is obstructing the street. He walks over and tells the driver to move his truck. There is a short argument as the driver insists he has nowhere to move. Blake tells him to back his truck up. Suddenly, alarm goes off, and a wedge-shaped barrier ramp is raised at the end of the block to keep the robbers from leaving the street. Blake orders the driver to stay in his truck and rushes off.Inside the exchange, Bane asks McGarrity for a progress report. McGarrity reports that they need eight more minutes to complete the program. Bane looks at the clock and announces that they are leaving. The janitor orders everyone to stand up, raises his submachine gun and fires multiple automatic volleys into the ceiling, sending hostages scrambling to their feet. McGarrity hurriedly stuffs his tablet back into his bag, while Bane grabs his helmet and starts for the exit.The officers outside train their pistols and rifles at the front doors as the first hostages slowly begin to exit the building with their hands raised over their heads. A sniper stationed on a rooftop across the street notices a couple of bright headlights inside the lobby. Before he can register what they are, the crowd suddenly dives for cover as Bane bursts out of the building riding a motorcycle, followed by McGarrity, Petrov, and the janitor. Each robber is carrying a hostage, strapped to the back of his motorcycle. Foley frantically yells for the other officers to hold their fire. Bane and his men weave through the police cars, speed past Blake and the cement truck, use the crash barriers as ramps to jump over a few police cars, and escape. As they pass the cement truck and Blake's position, Bane and the janitor throw their hostages off. Foley shouts orders, and officers immediately jump into the cars and speed away, tires screeching, as they give chase.Bane and his men race through the streets. As they enter a tunnel, a single police car, driven by rookie officer Simon Jansen (Will Estes) and his veteran partner Kelly (Brent Briscoe) catches on to them. Jansen tells Kelly, riding shotgun, to shoot the tires, but Kelly doesn't have a clean shoot. Foley orders them over the radio to drop back to avoid endangering the hostages.Suddenly, Jansen notices all of the tunnel lights behind them going out by themselves. The tunnel goes dark, and the police car's engine and battery suddenly cut off for a few seconds. Something sleek and black races past their car, and Kelly tells his partner, "Oh boy! You are in for a show tonight, son." Seconds later, Petrov's motorcycle suddenly sputters out. As Petrov comes to a stop, his hostage makes a break for it. Petrov aims his pistol, preparing to shoot the hostage, when Batman slams into him, knocking off his bike. He then climbs back on the Batpod, aims an EMP gun, and shorts out the janitor's motorcycle, bringing him to a stop. Just then, Officer Jansen shoots Batman's weapon. Jansen awkwardly apologizes before his partner orders him back in the car.Receiving word of the Batman's return, Foley jumps into Blake's cruiser, and they drive off to join the chase. As they drive, Foley orders every unit brought in, overly eager to take down Batman, even though Blake believes they should still be focusing on stopping Bane from escaping.While the car chase unfolds, Selina breaks into Daggett's safe looking for the Clean Slate software program, which has the potential to expunge her criminal record. She is using special safecracking goggles that flip up and look like cat ears when she is not using them. When she opens the safe, she is enraged to find that it is empty.As Batman chases Bane and McGarrity on the Batpod, Bane notices that the laptop application is 91% complete. With the cops closing in, Bane signals to McGarrity, then makes a tight u-turn. A pursuing officer reports this to Foley over the radio, but Foley orders the officers to let Bane go and instead stay on Batman's trail. As a result, Bane is able to race through the purusing police cars without any of them trying to intercept him, doing a second glance over his shoulder as he passes Batman. Once at a safe spot, he watches the chase for a few moments to make sure no one has seen him, then rides into a storm drain to head back to his hideout.Batman then rescues McGarrity's hostage and uses his bike to block the mercenary near a highway on-ramp. Batman steps up to McGarrity, shatters his visor with his fist, and looks at the laptop, which now reads "application complete". As the police surround him, Batman grabs the laptop hard drive, then sets off an explosion with the Batpod cannons and jumps off of a stopped auto carrier. After another harrowing chase, the police box him in, and Batman turns off into an alleyway. It appears that Batman has been cornered "like a rat in a trap", but as Foley prepares to speak into a megaphone, a blue light and odd humming noise appears at the end of the alleyway, and Kelly tells Foley he's got the wrong animal. The Bat emerges, and flies out and over the police officers, its downdraft pinning the cops down. Blake casually asks Foley if he's sure that was Batman who just flew off. Furious, Foley shoves the megaphone into Blake's hand.At Daggett's penthouse, Stryver gets off his cell phone and reports to Daggett that Bane has told him the robbery was successful even with Batman's interference, and the men who were captured will die before talking. Daggett tells a servant to open some champagne, and heads downstairs to his office. As he enters the office, he asks "Can we get some girls in here?" A voice promptly says, "Careful what you wish for," at which point Selina suddenly appears, attacks Daggett from behind, throws him across the room and pins him to the wall with her left boot restraining his right arm and her hand grasping his neck. She angrily demands to know where the Clean Slate program is. Stryver comes in and puts a pistol to the back of Selina's head, but she disarms him by stomping her serrated heel on his instep. At this point, one of Daggett's bodyguards bursts in. Selina holds him off by aiming her pistol at the bodyguard while collaring Daggett. She shoots out the window, and jumps onto a window-washing platform with Daggett, which she lowers to the ground.On the nearby rooftop, Selina pins Daggett down, and jams Stryver's pistol into his neck, trying to get him to talk. Daggett, pressured, admits that he lied about the Clean Slate, which he considered a "gangland myth". As Selina tries to control herself and takes this in, she looks up and sees Bane's men surrounding her. She grabs Daggett and tries using him as a human shield to warn the henchmen to back off, but they ignore her. Batman appears at that point, and he and Selina attack the mercenaries, disarming several of them. Selina is significantly annoyed when Batman disarms her of her pistol when she's about to shoot a henchman. Suddenly, Barsad and some other mercenaries appear and open fire on them, forcing Batman and Selina to run towards the edge of the roof. Batman jumps off the roof and into the Bat, parked below the roof ledge. Selina hesitates for a moment, but makes the jump when she turns and sees Bane approaching her. Bane can only watch as the Bat flies away.Batman deposits Selina on a rooftop landing pad. She is annoyed that he tried to interfere, not even so much as giving a "thank you" to him. Bruce manages to figure out what she did with his fingerprints and learns that Daggett was interested in the exchange robbery. However, before Bruce can find out more, he is forced to duck as the spotlight of a police helicopter flying by shines over the roof. When he looks back up, Selina has stealthily vanished. "So that's what it feels like," he says to himself.Returning to the Batcave, Bruce asks Alfred to have Fox decode the hard drive and also notices his thumbprint scan is on the application. His decision to return as Batman leads to a spat with Alfred, who is afraid he has a death wish. Alfred leaves Bruce and the mansion for good after revealing the contents of Rachel's farewell letter to Bruce, given to Alfred previous to her death at the Joker's hands in The Dark Knight.The next morning, Bruce learns from Fox that Bane and his men were making stock trades to bankrupt Wayne Enterprises, meaning Wayne Enterprises is about to fall into Daggett's hands. To protect one secret, Bruce and Fox show Miranda the fusion reactor. Fox and Miranda intend to use it for generating clean energy for the entire city, although Bruce is afraid of the chance that someone will turn the reactor into a nuclear weapon, as Dr. Pavel managed to discover. What Bruce does not know is that Bane has kidnapped Dr. Pavel for this exact purpose. The reactor is hidden in a chamber underneath the river so that it can be flooded for containment in emergencies. Bruce wants Miranda to become CEO of Wayne Enterprises to safeguard the reactor.Bruce is later booted out of a Wayne Enterprises board meeting at Daggett's behest. As he leaves the building, he finds his car being towed. Blake shows up and offers Bruce a ride.Daggett storms into his penthouse, furious, wanting to know how Miranda Tate was appointed to the board. He also demands to see Bane. Stryver hesitates, but Bane suddenly appears behind Daggett, as if magically summoned by the mere mention of his name. Daggett chews him out, telling Bane that his attack on the stock exchange didn't help him take over Wayne Enterprises, and complains that Bane also has been working Daggett's construction crews around the clock all across the city. Bane dismisses Stryver, calmly and casually revealing that the small fortune Daggett paid him does not give him complete power over him, and it was only for the construction machinery that he required to build the sophisticated underground sewers and accomplish his own future plans that he complied with Daggett's orders, which render him Gotham's reckoning. Daggett calls Bane pure evil, but Bane counterreplies that he is "necessary evil", and just like that, he breaks Daggett's neck, then tosses the body into a dumpster.Blake shows up at the hospital while Foley is talking to Gordon, to report the discovery of Daggett's body. He has files that show Daggett's name all over construction permits for underground digging across the city, which make him suspect that Daggett was somehow associated with Bane. Foley still is skeptical of Bane's existence, but Gordon, impressed with Blake's honesty and hard work, promotes him to detective, telling him he's not allowed to believe in coincidences anymore.Bruce finds Selina at her apartment and says his powerful friend needs her help. He says he knows about the Clean Slate program and he has it. Selina says she'll think about it. She apologizes to Bruce about him losing all of his money in Bane's attack.When Bruce arrives home in a cab, he finds Miranda there waiting for him. Bruce finds he doesn't have any keys, so they break into the house through a side window. Bruce's electricity is shut off, as he can't afford it anymore. As they sleep together, Miranda talks about how fire made her family feel rich when they were growing up. Bruce notices a scar on her shoulder, which she calls a mistake.While Miranda is sleeping, Bruce sneaks down to the Batcave, puts on his Batsuit, and goes to a place in the light rail tunnels near Military Park to meet with Selina. They take out a couple of mercenaries on the way. As Batman steps onto a catwalk, a grate suddenly slams shut, and Selina reluctantly admits that she had to keep Bane's men from killing her. Batman is just telling her she's made a mistake when Bane appears behind him. He shocks Batman by revealing that he knows that it's Bruce underneath the mask.A lengthy battle of hand-to-hand combat between the two ensues. Bane very quickly begins to defeat Batman, who tries several diversions, like flashbangs and disabling the lights, but these prove useless against a League of Shadows member like Bane, who mocks his tactics. Bane beats Batman into temporary submission, breaking his cowl with a few blows to his head. As Batman lies prone, Bane reveals where he has established his base. One of his men hands him a detonator, and upon pressing it, explosions go off and a modified Tumbler falls through the cavern ceiling, revealing that Bane has set up his base directly underneath Wayne Enterprises' Applied Sciences office. As henchmen climb up ropes to raid Applied Sciences and capture Bruce's armory, Bruce engages Bane again, but is beaten down again. Bane lifts Batman over his head and brings him down brutally on his knee, paralyzing him. Bane tears off the broken section of Batman's cowl and casually drops it, victorious. Selina, shocked, quietly slinks off as mercenaries grab Bruce and drag him away.The scene cuts to the next morning. Blake knocks on Wayne Manor's front door, looking for Bruce, but finding no one home, he goes into the city, and while sitting his car, he spots Selina getting into a cab. Recognizing her from the shootout at the bar, he tails her to the airport. Noticing the increased police presence, she ducks into an off-limits area. A uniformed officer spots her and asks to see her boarding pass. Selina hands the cop her hat and pretends to check her purse, then punches him out. Just as she is walking down the jet bridge, Blake comes out of a door in front of her, flashing his badge.Blake talks to Selina in an airport administration office, asking her why she's trying to run. He is able to determine that she's trying to escape from Bane. Selina says she's not sure if Batman is alive, given what she saw of his fight with Bane. She is then arrested, and placed in Blackgate prison.Meanwhile, Bruce wakes up in a foreign prison, still in pain from the fight. As he is regaining consciousness, he sees Bane standing over him. The prison sits at the bottom of a deep circular shaft, with the only way in or out being by climbing the stone walls. Bane taunts Bruce that he intends to kill his soul first, making him witness the destruction of Gotham City. Bane promises Bruce that he'll live at least long enough to see Gotham destroyed, and that only when he is done, and Gotham is ashes, will he give Bruce permission to die.The prison is where Bane claims to have been born, and it is notorious as a "Hell on Earth", from which nobody has managed to escape. However, one of the prisoners (Tony Amen) tells Bruce that a child had managed to escape. The child was born of a mercenary, who fell in love with a warlord's daughter. The mercenary was to be sentenced to life in the prison, but the daughter made a deal with her father to free him and instead ended up a prisoner there herself. One day a riot broke out in the prison. She was raped and murdered, but her child escaped. Bruce concludes that the child must have been Bane.While in his cell, Bruce sees several prisoners attempt to escape by using a safety rope, and climbing up the shaft towards the light, but fail to clear the final jump on to a ledge required to escape, instead falling and being slung into the brick walls on the sides of the shaft, severely wounding them.Back on the other side of the Atlantic in Gotham, Miranda and Fox arrive at Wayne Enterprises for a board meeting on the reactor project. They enter the board room....to find Bane and his men holding the board of directors hostage. Bane delightedly welcomes Fox and asks him to nominate another board member to come with him. Fredericks, another board member, volunteers before Fox can name a nominee. Bane and his men take Fox, Miranda and Fredericks down through the hole in Applied Sciences. As he is led along, Fox is visibly horrified watching henchmen fixing parts on the Tumblers.Blake is talking with Gordon at the hospital about Batman's disappearance when Foley bursts in and informs him of Bane's latest move. This is the last straw for Gordon. He orders Foley to send every available cop to search the sewers to smoke out Bane and his men. Foley reminds Gordon that the mayor won't want a panic on his hands. Blake helpfully suggests that they use the cover-story of a training exercise, which Foley takes into consideration. Foley apologizes to Gordon for not taking him seriously earlier, and departs. Blake prepares to leave with Foley, but Gordon holds him back and orders him to look up Daggett's leads instead.Foley oversees the operation from outside a subway tunnel portal, and watches as dozens of officers of every rank walk into the tunnel, not knowing that it will be a long time before they will see daylight again. Elsewhere, more teams assemble at subway stations, sewer portals, manhole covers, and drainage pipes and descend into the tunnels, searching for Bane and his men.Bane and his men lead Miranda, Fox, and Fredericks into a tunnel, where Fox and Miranda notice Dr. Pavel. They arrive at a dead end where henchmen plant explosive charges into a wall. Bane gives a nod, and all of the henchmen cover their ears as the wall is blasted through, clearing a path into the reactor chamber. The explosion echoes through the underground tunnel network, audible to cops searching tunnels elsewhere in the city. Inside the chamber, Bane orders Fox to turn the reactor on. Fox refuses, so Bane signals for Barsad to hold a pistol to Fredericks' head. After Miranda pleads with him to cooperate, she and Fox put their hands on a handprint scanner to turn on the reactor. Bane then orders his men to take the three board members back to the surface.Blake is driving in an unmarked squad car, logging Daggett's cement plants and locations they've done underground construction in. He is talking on his cell phone with Gordon, who tells him to keep looking deeper. He then pulls up to a cement plant.In the reactor plant, Dr. Pavel completes his work - converting the reactor into a four megaton nuclear bomb. Bane orders his men to remove the reactor's core, which Dr. Pavel objects to - removing the core will render the bomb unstable and cause it to melt down within five months - until Bane threatens to harm Dr. Pavel's family if he doesn't cooperate.As he walks through the cement plant, Blake recognizes one of the construction workers as the cement truck driver whose truck prevented the police from getting closer to the stock exchange during the raid. Blake mentions that he is not allowed to believe in coincidences. On cue, the driver's colleague tries to swing a knife at him. Blake twists the guy's arm and shoots him. The driver grabs Blake from behind, and after a struggle, Blake fires his gun at the truck. The bullet ricochets off the barrel and hits the driver in the back. Blake tries to get the driver to reveal what he's working on, but it is too late - the man has died. Blake is disgusted with his use of lethal force and tosses his pistol away. When he gets out his cell phone and leaves a message for Gordon, Blake notices barrels of polyisobutylene and motor oil, and realizes with horror that using Daggett's construction crews, Bane has rigged numerous construction areas around the city with C4 explosive charges.As he drives away from the cement plant, Blake gets on his radio and warns Foley that the cops are about to head into a trap. Foley, stationed outside a subway tunnel portal, immediately yells to the watch commanders with him to start withdrawing the officers under their charge.Meanwhile, the mayor shows up at Heinz Field to watch the Gotham Rogues play off against the Rapid City Monuments. He heads to his private viewing box after shrugging off reporters asking him about the large numbers of cops heading underground, using the training exercise story Blake suggested to Foley.As cops continue to search the tunnels, Bane and his men arrive at the stadium, breaking in through the boiler room, and take up positions in the locker room tunnel as a young boy sings the national anthem. All of them are carrying detonators in their hands. When Bane catches the child's singing, he comments, "That's a lovely, lovely voice."At the end of the song, Rapid City kicker Ravenstahl (Pittsburgh mayor Luke Ravenstahl in a cameo appearance) kicks off to begin the first quarter. Bane comments, "Let the games begin!" and presses the button on a remote control detonator. Several different events occur simultaneously:In the tunnels, officers stop when they hear muffled booms. As they are trying to register and identify the noise, portions of the ceilings across the sewer and subway system collapse, trapping them underground.A series of large explosions rip through Manhattan, destroying buildings and infrastructure alike. All of the bridges leading up to the city, with the exception of the Queensboro Bridge, are destroyed by Bane's explosives, trapping the entire population of the city inside.Blake is driving down another street, siren wailing, when the street starts to blow up. Street lamps, buildings, and telephone poles collapse all around his car, while other vehicles are tossed. He manages to stay ahead of the explosives for a short amount of time until one blast causes his car to flip over once before landing upright on its wheels, demolished.Once he comes to his senses, Blake gets on the radio with Foley, who confirms Blake's predictions: virtually every cop in the city is trapped in the tunnels. But Blake immediately realizes that not every cop is stuck down there, and realizes that Bane will try again to assassinate Gordon. Unfortunately, his car has been demolished. With no other option, Blake grabs a shotgun from the trunk of his car, and commandeers an SUV from another uninjured motorist.Two of Bane's henchmen arrive at the hospital, searching for Gordon. They fire short bursts with their submachine guns as they enter the lobby, causing patients and guards to take cover. As they search the hospital, Gordon is alerted to their presence when the power goes out and the hospital switches to emergency lighting. He slowly and cautiously climbs out of his bed.Outside, Blake screeches to a halt and runs through the lobby. As he searches the corridor, he suddenly hears gunshots. He runs to Gordon's room, draws his shotgun, and kicks down the door, to discover the two mercenaries sprawled on the floor, dead. Blake only has a second to register this before Gordon puts a pistol to the back of his head and orders him to get his coat.
--
At Heinz Field, wide receiver Hines Ward is running the ball down the infield when suddenly, explosions go off in the support columns to the foundation, causing the field to collapse and swallow most of the players, except for Ward, who manages to run the ball to the end zone and score a touchdown, only noticing the destruction when he looks behind him, causing him to drop his ball. An additional bomb goes off in the mayor's viewing box, killing him and his aides.As the debris settles, Bane's men storm the bleachers, taking the crowd hostage, while Bane, Barsad and other mercenaries march onto the remains of the field. He declares to the crowd that he and his men have come to liberate Gotham. He displays the fusion reactor core, calling it the "instrument of their liberation" and "interviews" Dr. Pavel in front of the shocked audience. After getting Dr. Pavel to admit that he is the only person who knows how to disarm the bomb, Bane thanks him, then breaks Dr. Pavel's neck. Bane also declares that he has left one citizen in charge of the detonator who will trigger the bomb in case of any sort of civil rebellion. Bane also threatens the government forces that should anybody try to enter or leave the city, he will detonate the nuclear weapon, thus forcing the government forces to guard the city and stop anybody from leaving.The Queensboro Bridge is left intact as a means to provide food and relief supplies to Gotham's citizens.As Blake drives to his apartment with Gordon, Gordon says he has to get in front of a camera, but Blake discourages him, saying that Bane will shoot him if he shows his face.The next day, Bane proceeds to Blackgate Prison, where more than 1,000 prisoners have been incarcerated as per the Dent Act, which gave enormous powers to the police. He reads out Gordon's intended speech revealing the truth about Harvey Dent, and declares the prisoners free, as the man who drew up the Dent Act himself was a murderer and a madman.The prisoners join Bane and together they enforce what Bane calls "martial law": forcing the elite out of their homes, holding kangaroo courts presided over by Dr. Jonathan Crane (Cillian Murphy) and offering them a choice: exile from Gotham or death. "Exile" means being forced to walk on the frozen East River underneath the Brooklyn Bridge, where the ice cracks and drowns anyone making the crossing. "Death" is revealed to be the same thing, as those who choose it get sentenced to "death by exile."84 days into the siege, the Army manages to slip an intelligence team into Gotham disguised as relief workers, under the command of Captain Mark Jones (Daniel Sunjata). They meet with Gordon, Foley, Blake, and some other cops who managed to escape being trapped underground, in the back of a deli. The soldiers, Blake, and the surviving cops begin tracking three large military trucks, one of which carries the nuclear weapon (they can't tell which one has the bomb because they all have lead-lined roofs). To avoid detection of the weapon, the three trucks are being driven around the city continuously.Blake takes Captain Jones and his men to a Wayne Enterprises office that Fox and Miranda are sheltered in. Miranda takes responsibility for the creation of the reactor the bomb was molded from. Fox explains that as the reactor's cells deteriorate, the reactor will become very unstable, and regardless of what happens, the bomb will go off in three weeks. Fox admits that he could reconnect the core to the reactor to re-stabilize it. Blake prepares to leave with Jones, but Jones orders him to stay with Fox and Miranda while he goes to call in a report.But someone has betrayed Jones and his team, for just as they are leaving the hideout, Bane's henchmen ambush them and open fire on them, and a shootout ensues. Blake and Miranda quickly escape by slipping out a back door, while Fox is captured by a henchman. Jones' team is helpless against the henchmen, and the soldiers are quickly shot dead. When Jones breaks cover and tries to flee, he is shot in the chest and falls. As he lies on the ground, Bane appears over him. Jones says he'll die before he can talk to his commander. Bane assures him, "I'm on your schedule, captain," and crushes Jones's neck. Bane orders his men to round up Fox and the others for judgement and to hang the soldiers' bodies from one of the bridges as a message for the world.All this time, Bruce, holed up in the prison, is watching the havoc in Gotham on a TV set in the prison. He gets the doctor there to crudely fix his back; as his fight with Bane partially dislocated his vertebrae. The doctor puts Bruce into a crude form of traction and pushes the vertebrae back into place. The doctor tells Bruce to remain in that position until he can stand by himself. Enduring the pain, Bruce hallucinates that he sees Ra's Al Ghul (Liam Neeson). As the days wear on in the prison, Bruce's anger builds, and he is determined to save Gotham. Rigorously training his body, he attempts to make the escape twice, but fails each time.After the second attempt, Bruce questions how a child could have escaped, but he could not. The doctor explains that while paradoxically, it seems as if having no fear of death should enhance his escape chances, in reality the human trait of fearing death is the necessary ingredient. There are suggestions throughout the film that Bruce--in his grief over Rachel's death, physical disability, 8-year retirement from his Batman persona, and isolation--indeed is inured to mortality. He in fact seems at times to have the death wish that Alfred had tried to remedy earlier with the shock of his leaving Bruce. Bruce solves the dilemma in replying that he fears dying in prison when the people of Gotham can only be saved by him if he were to escape. He realizes that the child had escaped without the safety rope, and using that technique succeeds in his third attempt.Bruce returns to Gotham as Batman. He first manages to gain trust from Selina after he catches her in the act of beating up two gangbangers trying to harm a young boy. By offering her the Clean Slate program, Selina accepts. Bruce gets to Miranda and Fox by letting Bane's men capture him, as Fox has access to Bruce's backup Batsuit. To escape, Selina comes in and declares to the other mercenaries that Bane wants Bruce and Fox by themselves. Once upstairs, she knocks out the mercenaries and undoes their handcuffs.Once Fox has put Bruce in his Batsuit, and Bruce has found the Bat, he saves Gordon and some of the surviving cops after they are captured and are forced to cross the frozen river. Fox reveals that trigger or no trigger, the nuclear device is unstable and will detonate anyway the next day, and recovers a signal jammer from the Bat which can block the signals from the trigger.With Blake and Selina's help, Batman frees the 3,000 police trapped in the sewers by using the Bat to destroy debris blocking the tunnels, and rescuing Blake after he is captured trying to rescue some cops through a manhole cover.The next morning, the rallied police forces, led by Foley, who is wearing his dress blues, assemble on Wall Street, facing against Bane's army. One of Bane's men gets on a megaphone and orders the cops to disperse or be shot at. Foley replies back, "There's only one police in this town!" Bane orders his Tumblers to open fire, but as one of the Tumblers prepares to blast the cops with its cannons, the Bat appears and disables the cannons. As it flies off, the incited cops cheer and zerg-rush Bane's men. Physical combat ensues between Bane's men and the cops. Batman fights Bane again, with more success, and has nearly defeated him, detaching some of the tubes on his mask that feed Bane his anesthetic, which weakens him greatly. However, as Batman tries to force Bane to reveal the location of the trigger device, Miranda suddenly stabs him in the side.It is then revealed that "Miranda"'s real name is Talia, and that she was the child who had escaped from the Hell on Earth prison. Bane had been a prisoner there, and had become her protector. During the prison riot that claimed her mother's life, Bane helped her to escape, but in the process was hurt severely. The prison doctor attempted to repair the damage, but his methods resulted in Bane needing anesthetics to constantly keep the pain at bay.After she had escaped, Talia then tracked down her father: Ra's Al Ghul. She convinced her father to rescue Bane, and both were trained within the League of Shadows. Apart from the realization that Bane was an extremist monster, the injuries inflicted on Bane's face became a reminiscence of the suffering endured by Talia's mother in the pit for Ra's Al Ghul, which was why Bane was excommunicated from the group. Talia's intention is to take revenge on the Batman for killing her father, as well as finishing the mission of destroying Gotham for its greed that cost her father's life. She then hits the trigger of the nuclear weapon, but Gordon has managed to fit the signal jammer on the weapon just in time. However, there are only eleven minutes left for the nuke to detonate. Miranda/Talia says farewell and leaves Bane to kill Batman.Just as Bane is about to execute Batman with a shotgun, Selina crashes into the lobby on the Batpod and mortally wounds Bane by blasting him with the Pod's large cannon. Talia and Barsad walk out to the Tumblers. As they are climbing in, Barsad is shot dead by Foley with a submachine gun as he fires from outside the stock exchange. He and several other officers are killed when Talia orders her Tumbler's driver to gun them down. She then takes control of the truck carrying the weapon, but eventually her escorts are all finished off in a prolonged chase sequence, with Selina riding the Batpod and Batman flying the Bat in the air, and attacking the convoy. Talia's truck goes off the road and crashes, and she is fatally wounded because she isn't wearing a seatbelt. In her last moments alive, she explains how her access to the reactor chamber allowed her to set a timer to flood it, preventing the weapon from being returned there. She soon dies believing she had finally completed her father's work and avenged his death.Fox soon escapes the flooding chamber and realizes there is no way of stabilizing the weapon. The weapon cannot be deactivated in any way, and will detonate in less than 2 minutes. Before deciding to fly the bomb out of Gotham. Batman explains that the Bat has no autopilot, and that he will need to fly the bomb out of Gotham. Batman shares a kiss with Selina, before discreetly revealing to Gordon his true identity.With not much time left, Batman attaches the bomb to the Bat, and flies it away from the city, and out over the bay. The citizens of Gotham watch awestruck as the weapon detonates on the horizon, and the mushroom-cloud balloons over the bay.In the aftermath, the police recapture all of those released by Bane.A private funeral is held on the grounds of Wayne Manor for Bruce, by those who knew his true identity (including Gordon and Blake). Alfred sobs quietly, feeling that he let Bruce's parents down by not protecting him.Blake resigns from the police force, and explains to Gordon that Gotham will never really know who saved it. Gordon tells him that they will know that it was 'The Batman' who saved them. In tribute, a statue has been erected in Batman's memory.In the aftermath of Bruce Wayne's death, certain provisions are made. The majority of the estate is sold, with the money given to Alfred. Wayne Manor is given to the city of Gotham, as a place for orphaned boys to stay. Strangely, one of the Wayne family's treasures (a string of pearls) cannot be located.Blake is surprised when he is also given a duffel bag as part of Bruce's will. When presenting his I.D., the clerk who checks it suggests that he go by his real first name as it appears on his I.D.: Robin.Back in Applied Sciences, Lucius has several workers go over the second camouflage rotor(The Bat) in the underground storage area. Wanting to know what he could have done to get the autopilot functioning, he is surprised when the workers explain that the autopilot is functional, and the computer log shows that Bruce Wayne made the changes 6 months prior.Up on the roof of Gotham's Police Department, Gordon finds the once broken Batsignal (destroyed by him personally by the end of the second movie) repaired.Meanwhile, Blake has opened the duffel bag, and finds a spelunking rope, and GPS coordinates. The information leads him to a waterfall (the entrance to the batcave). He makes his way past the waterfall, and into the cave, where his light attracts a flurry of bats.In Florence, Italy, Alfred has returned to the same restaurant that he had visited during Bruce's absence long ago. As he scans the tables, he smiles to see Bruce and Selina at a nearby table. A fleeting glance between both Alfred and Bruce, is enough to assure the other that each of them will be alright.In the final shot, we see Blake walking over a pool of water. As he does so, his movement activates the black flooring containing the batsuit. Blake stares around him as the flooring rises up.
Orig. title:
The Dark Knight Rises
Score:
84 %
Broadcasted on: