There are people claiming that Anne Hathaway stole the show in Batman: The Dark Knight Rises. Critics, fans, tweeters and facebook friends alike are cat-crazy for Batman’s latest love. To say this much reaches too far, as The Dark Knight Rises – of all three in the trilogy – was most truly an ensemble film. Batman himself could not legitimately be identified as the leading role. Screen time was scattered among various key characters, making the film unique to its genre of super-hero cinema (excluding team ups). This method of story telling gave us a beautifully complete story, though lacking a tad in the batman department.

In my honest opinion, Anne Hathaway nailed the part. She made it her own, and brought electricity to every interchange she had with everyone. I was overjoyed with her performance. Whenever she was onscreen I could trust that I would be pleased with the coming slew of events. Whether she was cracking a safe, back flipping out of a window, or simply talking to batman, I had fun watching her.

When I first heard that Hathaway would be playing Cat Woman, I couldn’t believe it. I was admittedly disappointed, as I thought options such as Olivia Wilde or Scarllett Johansson would suffice for the part in ways I didn’t trust Hathaway capable. But Hathaway did more than suffice, and in fact she did something Johansson and Wilde would never be able to do. She imbued the role of Cat Woman with a kind of ironic sass, and bittersweet charm that belongs only to herself; Anne Hathaway. What I enjoyed so much about her performance was that though I could recognize that it was so completely her playing the part, I nonetheless accepted that she was Cat Woman. Immediately. I had no doubts, no self imposed suspension of reality. She was not an actress, she was not trying hard, faking, or emoting one drop over Chris Nolan’s realist boundary – she just was Selina Kyle. This role displays such growth within the industry, and she is only spiraling upward. Anne Hathaway acted alongside titans of drama – Christian Bale, Tom Hardy, Gary Oldman, Marion Cotillard – and she was one of their crew. That being said, I’m confident she’ll make herself fit into any cast, and comfortable in any genre. I can’t imagine anyone having played Cat Woman but her.