"You say you want a revolution? Well, you know, there’s a comic-book movie for you. The Dark Knight Rises concludes the trilogy of Batman movies so distinctively rebooted, reimagined, and reinvigorated over the past seven years by director Christopher Nolan at the helm and actor Christian Bale in the Batsuit. And the highly anticipated project arrives with outsize political and cultural ambitions. Theme-wise, Nolan tackles nothing less than societal upheaval, urban unrest, class warfare, personal sacrifice, and spiritual salvation, with some nuclear brinkmanship thrown in for timeliness. That’s epic stuff, as grounded in serious social commentary as the literature of Charles Dickens that the director and his coscreenwriter brother, Jonathan Nolan, have cited as inspiration. This is a Batman narrative for a post-9/11 age of anxiety, morally split between the best of times and the worst of times."

"All superheroes are black sheep. But the Dark Knight has always been murkier than most. His superpowers are not an accident of birth, or of stumbling into the wrong lab at the wrong time. They're not powers at all, simply a simulation made possible by good fortune and the leisure that accompanies it. Bruce Wayne can splurge on the kit and cars to set himself up as a crime-fighting Christ substitute, plus power and glitter enough to hide his hobby. He's always been a curious idol: within aspiration because he's flesh and blood; beyond it because he's the lucky recipient of inherited wealth. So it should be no surprise that The Dark Knight Rises so firmly upholds the financial status quo. Christopher Nolan's film indulges in much guttural talk of the gap between the 99% and the 1%, but it is the former who are demonised, whose revolting actions require curbing and mutinous squeals muting. Your average Joe, it turns out, requires a benevolent, bad-ass billionaire to set him straight, to knock him sideways, if necessary. The Occupy Gotham movement, as organised by gargly terrorist Bane, is populated by anarchists without a cause, whose actions are fuelled by a lust for destruction, not as a corrective to an unjust world. Such self-made characters as we meet in the film are, by and large, fishy – power-grabbers hiding behind a fig-leaf of philanthropism. Even someone who earns their crust nicking other people's stuff looks agog when the masses storm posh apartments to try and redistribute a bit of bubbly. Batman's butler-crush and bells and whistles feudalism is swallowable – it's a cartoon, right! Likewise the free pass that Wayne's Rowntree-ish gestures, disapproval of criminals and general tortured grizzling seems to allow him. But The Dark Knight Rises is a quite audaciously capitalist vision, radically conservative, radically vigilante, that advances a serious, stirring proposal that the wish-fulfilment of the wealthy is to be championed if they say they want to do good. Mitt Romney will be thrilled. What's strange is that quite so many of the rest of us seem to want to buy into it."

"What passes for a right-wing movie these days is The Dark Knight Rises, which submits the rather modest premise that, irritating though the rich may be, actually killing them and taking all their stuff might be excessive."

"And with all of its themes of masks, and legends, and the relationship between the hero and his city, Nolan's trilogy is both a powerful myth and a great commentary on myth-making."

"[to Bruce] Remember when you left Gotham? Before all this, before Batman? You were gone seven years. Seven years I waited, hoping that you wouldn't come back. Every year, I took a holiday. I-I went to Florence. There's this cafe, on the banks of the Arno. Every fine evening, I would sit there and order a-a Fernet Branca. I had this fantasy that I would look across the tables and I'd see you there, with a... wife, maybe a-a couple of kids. You wouldn't say anything to me, nor me to you. But we'd both know that you'd made it, that you were happy. I never wanted you to come back to Gotham. I always knew there was nothing here for you, except pain and tragedy. And I wanted something more for you than that. I still do."

"[eulogy at Bruce Wayne's funeral] I see a beautiful city. And a brilliant people, rising from this abyss. I see the lives, for which I lay down my life - peaceful, useful, prosperous and happy. I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts of their descendants, generations hence. It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known."

"[eulogy at Harvey Dent's funeral] I knew Harvey Dent. I was his friend. And it will be a long time before someone inspires us the way he did. I believed in Harvey Dent."

"Not a lot people know what if feels like to, like... to be angry, in your bones. I mean, they understand. I mean, foster parents, everybody understands. For a while, at least. But then they want the angry little kid to do something he knows he can’t do: move on. So, after a while, they stop understanding. They send the angry kid to a boys' home. I figured it out too late: you gotta learn to hide the anger, practice smiling in the mirror. It's like putting on a mask. So, you showed up this one day in a cool car, pretty girl on your arm. We were so excited! Bruce Wayne, billionaire orphan? I mean, we use to make up stories about you, man. Legends. And, you know, with the other kids, that's all it was, just stories, but... right when I saw you, I knew who you really were. I'd seen that look on your face before. It was the same one I taught myself. I don't know why you took the fall for Dent's murder, but I'm still a believer in the Batman, even if you're not."

"We both know I have to kill you now. I suppose you'll just have to imagine the fire."

"We take Gotham from the corrupt, the rich, the oppressors of generations who have kept you down with myths of opportunity, and we give it back to you, the people. Today, we turn myth to reward! We turn the water into wine and implore you drink deep of the cup. Gotham is yours. None shall interfere; do as you please. [one of Bane's captured Tumbler Cannons blows a hole in the prison's gates, allowing his followers inside] But start by storming Blackgate and freeing the oppressed! Step forward, those who would serve, for an army will be raised. The powerful will be ripped from their decadent nests, and cast out into the cold world that we know and endure. Courts will be convened. Spoils will be enjoyed! Blood will be shed! The police will survive, as they learn to serve true justice. This great city, it will endure. Gotham will survive."

"Speak of the devil and he shall appear!"

"Oh, you think darkness is your ally, but you merely adopted the dark. I was born in it, molded by it. I didn’t see the light until I was already a man. By then, it was nothing to me but blinding! The shadows betray you, because they belong to me!"

"Calm down, doctor! Now is not the time for fear. That comes later."

"The rich don't even go broke the same as the rest of us, huh?"

"[to Bane] You were excommunicated by a gang of psychopaths!"

"One man's tool is another man's weapon."

"There are always people you care about. You just don't realize how much until they're gone. The idea was to be a symbol. Batman could be anybody. That was the point."

"John Larroquette - Laurence Van Dough"

"Claudia Schiffer - Herself"

"Ben Stein - Economics Teacher"

"Serena Berman - Young Dot"

"Jonathan Hilario - Pee Wee"

"Joel Robinson - Omar"

"Stephi Lineburg - Gloria Pazinski"

"Mariangela Pino - Diane Pazinski"

"Reggie Jackson - Himself"

"Chelcie Ross - Ferguson"

"Mike McShane - Professor Keenbean"

"Christine Ebersole - Regina Polkadots"

"Edward Herrmann - Isaiah Polkadots"

"Jonathan Hyde - Herbert Arthur Runcible Cadbury"

"Mark Ruffalo – Dr. Bruce Banner / Hulk"

"Chris Evans – Steve Rogers / Captain America"

"Robert Downey, Jr. – Tony Stark / Iron Man"

"Q: How much of that polish was you prepping for The Avengers and specifically the Steve Rogers character? Were you building something in there that was going to lead into this?"

"A: Well I had a very clear conception of what I wanted Bruce Banner to be and part of that was Mark Ruffalo. I was like, “I want somebody who just opens himself to an audience, who can’t help it, and who just takes you along everywhere he goes.” The other was Bill Bixby. That’s something that Mark and I both talked about. I felt that the performances in the other movies were very internal. And the movies themselves led to that, because they were all about Bruce Banner. The TV show was, “I have a problem and I help other people and I live with that problem.” So that’s sort of the way I wanted to approach it and the way… Mark and I spent a lot of time at the very beginning talking about rage, how it feels, how it manifests, what causes it, what it feels like afterwards—the nuts and bolts of the emotion itself. But in terms of the character, it was very clear that we wanted to have somebody who had gotten past where he was in those movies, so that when you meet him he is somebody who has internalized what went on in those movies to the extent that he’s someone you like and are interested in. If you’ve seen those movies, this would be a natural next step. If you haven’t, you’ll get the guy. You’ll get why he’s a good guy."

"Q: I would think Bruce Banner and The Hulk is the toughest part, because we have scene two other movies with two other actors playing him. Chris [Hemsworth], Chris [Evans], and Robert [Downey Jr.] have already been playing the characters. We know their characters. How have you been working on that and trying to develop your own Bruce Banner with Mark?"