The Bat Rises

The Bat Rises is the 2012 and final installment of Sam Mendes' Batman reboot, which started with The Batman Begins and continued in The Dark Detective.

Plot
The film begins with a group of CIA agents climbing on board a small plane with some hooded prisoners and Professor Achilles Milo, a physicist. The agents interrogate the prisoners for information on a mercenary named Bane. One of them begins to speak and his hood is removed, revealing a masked man. He tells the agents that he planned on getting caught and the next step is to crash the plane. He suddenly activates a tube which pumps a drug known as Venom into him, enhancing his strength. He quickly breaks his handcuffs. At the same time, a cargo plane appears above the plane and several men on zip lines dive onto the CIA plane, shooting the windows out. Bane takes Milo and gives him a blood transfusion with a dead man, making it appear as if the other man is Milo. They then leap from the plane and return to the cargo plane as the CIA plane falls to the ground and explodes.

Eight years since the death of Harvey Dent, Gotham City is at peace. Bruce Wayne throws a party in honour of Dent's memory. He overhears police captain Harvey Bullock discussing Mayor Hamilton Hill's plan to retire Police Commissioner James Gordon, calling him a war hero in peace times. Bruce goes to his quarters and encounters a maid, Selina Kyle, who tries to play innocence but he recognizes her as a thief, having stolen his mother's pearls from a safe. She manages to escape through a window.

A young police officer, Terry McGinnis, finds the body of a missing boy from the local orphanage where he grew up. While visiting the orphanage for information, McGinnis learns that the boy heard of possible work in the sewers and went looking for it, and presumably drowned. McGinnis decides to investigate the supposed work. Gordon goes with him but they get into a shootout with a gang of mercenaries, during which Gordon is wounded and captured. McGinnis manages to flee as the mercenaries bring Gordon before their leader; Bane. Bane orders him to be searched and they find a speech that Gordon wrote but never gave, which reveals the truth about the death of Harvey Dent. Gordon manages to fall into a water way and is carried away to safety, where he is found by McGinnis and brought to hospital.

Bruce learns of Gordon's shooting and his babbling of an underground army, and decides that it's time to return as Batman to fight this new threat. He approaches Lucius Fox, who reveals to him a large aircraft called the Batwing. He visits Commissioner Gordon wearing a ski mask to learn about Bane and then researches him, learning that Bane was excommunicated from the League of Shadows by Ra's al Ghul. Alfred tells Bruce that if Bane was too extreme for Ra's al Ghul, who is not a threat to be taken lightly.

That evening, Bane and his men arrive at the Gotham Stock Exchange and try to rob it, while the police gather outside. When their cyber theft is foiled, Bane and his men take hostages and escape on motor cycles. The police chase them through a tunnel when suddenly Batman appears on the Batcycle. With Bane almost out of reach, Bullock orders the police to chase Batman. Batman pursues Bane and rescues the hostages but the mercenary escapes. Back at the Batcave, a worried Alfred tells Bruce to leave Batman behind, revealing that Vicki Vale chose Harvey Dent over Bruce prior to her death in the previous film before he resigns.

Fox informs Bruce that Bane's hit on the stock exchange has left Wayne Enterprises bankrupt. They take businesswoman Vesper Fairchild to see a clean energy fusion reactor they were working on, and ask her to take over as Wayne Enterprises CEO to protect it and keep it out of the hands of Roland Dagget, an employee who is working with Bane. At the next meeting, Vesper is appointed, enraging Dagget. Returning to his penthouse in a fury, he is confronted by Bane, who he berates, telling him that he gave him money. Bane thanks him but tells him that he has serviced his purpose, before throwing Dagget through a window to his death.

Bruce finds Selina at her apartment and asks her about Bane, and she reveals that she can help him. They organize to meet that night in the sewers. Returning home in a cab, Bruce meets Vesper at Wayne Manor and after going inside, they sleep together. While Vesper is sleeping, Bruce puts on the Batsuit and goes to meet Seline, dressed in her own costume as the Catwoman. However, Catwoman reveals that she was forced by Bane to betray him and he is locked in with Bane, who savagely beats him and breaks his back while Selina flees.

The next day, McGinnis tails Selina to the airport, where she is trying to flee. He corners her in an airport administration office and asks her why she's trying to leave. She tells him that she's trying to escape from Bane. Selina is arrested and put in Blackgate Prison.

Bruce wakes up in an underground prison, with Bane standing over him. Bane tells him that he owns the prison, and that he will use it to torture Bruce rather than outright kill him. Bruce asks how, and Bane reveals a monitor with a live news feed. Bane then tells him that Gotham will soon burn.