"The Dark Knight Rises" is a monumental, satisfying summation to Christopher Nolan's blockbuster trilogy of Batman films.

That, at least, is the consensus from the first round of reviews of the July 20 release. Warner Bros. has been screening the film quietly for a week or so, and the studio's embargo on advance reactions was lifted, appropriately enough for a movie about a crime-fighter who prefers to lurk in the darkness, in the dead of night.

And when those who'd seen the film were free to write about it, the results for the most part were unqualified raves.

The Hollywood Reporter called it "big-time Hollywood filmmaking at its most accomplished." The Playlist says it's "critically important for America itself." Predicted Variety, "Global [box-office] domination awaits."

As Batman's TV sidekick might have said back in the '60s, "Holy hyperbole, Batman!"

And to borrow another catchphrase from that version of the Caped Crusader, Nolan sets his third film in a new Bat-time (eight years after the events of "The Dark Knight") but he's back on the same Bat-channel – which is to say, a characteristically doom-laden, haunted look at a man tortured by the double life he's driven to lead.

TheWrap will have reactions, a review by Alonso Duralde and more over the next few days – for now, I'll just say that "The Dark Knight Rises" is dark and majestic, deliberate but thrilling. The two-hour-and-44-minute film has flaws, and it misses the sense of crazy fun that Heath Ledger's Joker brought to Nolan's second film, "The Dark Knight." But it feels like a grand finale, and grand  is an appropriate word.

In the first North American review, which jumped the gun by three hours by going up at midnight Eastern time rather than midnight Pacific, Canadian critic Bruce Kirkland summed it up in his headline: "'Dark Knight' rises to perfect ending."