In the ten days since its release, Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises has—unsurprisingly—occupied the top position in our Popular Films list, accompanied by its two predecessors in the second and third spots. With Marc Webb’s The Amazing Spider-Man rounding out the top four, this became the week the superheroes took over the asylum.

The highly-anticipated conclusion to Nolan’s Batman trilogy has divided audiences and drawn criticism even from those who loved his second instalment. The Letterboxd community has been generally positive in its , with an overwhelming majority of the 2,250 ratings for the film so far being four stars or higher.

At the positive end of the spectrum, Mr DuLac praised the inclusion of elements from classic Batman comics, calling the film “surprisingly character-driven”, Travis Lytle described it as “tense, emotional and gripping … full-bore, grand-scale entertainment”, and Chris Davis loved the director’s “clear and innovative vision”. Mark Kinsella neatly summarises the general sentiment:

It doesn’t reach the anarchic heights or the thought-provoking themes of The Dark Knight and at times it seems to be struggling with too much plot, but The Dark Knight Rises is an exciting and emotionally fueled denouement to one of the greatest film trilogies of all time.

Further down the rating scale, various reviewers criticised the film for its “bland and derivative” set pieces, poor staging, misplaced character motivations and lazy exposition.

Marcin Wichary’s three-star review begins with a fantastic relationship analogy and goes on to deliver a typically thorough dissection of the film’s flaws and general weirdness. Marcin saw the film as part of a back-to-back screening of the complete trilogy; his reviews of parts one (★★★★) and two (★★★★½) are also worthy of your time.

At the lower end of the scale, Adam Cook found little to like, and while Ryan’s 4,500-word excoriation of the film made some stout points, it ultimately failed to move much beyond the implausible nature of the plot, to which Dean Sherriff had the best response:

Mate, it’s a movie about a billionaire philanthropist who, after training with a secret society of ninjas, decides to dress up as a bat and fight criminals one at a time using only his wits, fists and a utility belt. … It’s a FANTASY film and liberties of logic have to be allowed.

We’ve loved watching the reactions to this film unfold on the site, the good, the bad and the downright ugly. Keep them coming!