New Details Emerge About 'The Dark Knight Rises' & Villain Bane's Bone Crushing Fighting Techniques. Gary Oldman Says The Film Is "Just Epic" [Video/Pics]

Video And Pics After The Jump

The Dark Knight Rises is easily the most anticipated movie of 2012. As we inch closer to it's July 20 release date new details about the film are emerging courtesy of director Christopher Nolan and actors Tom Hardy (Bane) and Gary Oldman (Commissioner Gordon).

The film will take place eight years after Dark Knight. Bruce Wayne/Batman is older and not doing so well.

"It's really all about finishing Batman and Bruce Wayne's story. We left him in a very precarious place. Perhaps surprisingly for some people, our story picks up quite a bit later, eight years after The Dark Knight. So he's an older Bruce Wayne; he's not in a great state," Nolan told Empire in a new interview.

To make matters worse for The Caped Crusader, he'll be facing his toughest foe yet in the form of the menacing villain Bane.

"With Bane, we're looking to give Batman a challenge he hasn't had before," Nolan added. "With our choice of villain and with our choice of story we're testing Batman both physically as well as mentally."

Oldman says he feels like the decision to go with one of Batman's lesser known opponents was a smart idea.

"I think it was smart of Chris to go with a lesser-known villain rather than — because Heath's performance, first of all, we love the Joker in Batman," Oldman told MTV. "Heath's performance was so dazzling that you got to think, 'How the hell do I top it?' Instead of going for Riddler, instead of going for Penguin, he's gone a slightly different way with the story."

Bane's character is just plain vicious. His fighting style is designed to inflict maximum carnage on his opponents

Bane

"He's brutal. Brutal. He's a big dude who's incredibly clinical, in the fact that he has a result-based and oriented fighting style," Hardy told Empire. "It's not about fighting. It's about carnage. The style is heavy-handed, heavy-footed, it's nasty. Anything from small-joint manipulation to crushing skulls, crushing rib cages, stamping on shins and knees and necks and collarbones and snapping heads off and tearing his fists through chests, ripping out spinal columns. He is a terrorist in mentality as well as brutal action."

Empire also provided insight into why Bane wear's his trademark mask.

"He was injured early in his story. He's suffering from pain and needs gas to survive. He can't survive the pain without the mask. The pipes from the mask go back along his jawline and feed into the thing at his back, where there are two cannisters," revealed costume designer Lindy Hemming.

This will be the final film in the Dark Knight trilogy and according to Oldman it will end with a bang.

Commissioner Gordon

"I will say this: There's a conclusion. He touches on the first [film] and weaves it in," he said. "It resolves. I think it's a trilogy. It's just great. The story is terrific. It is just epic."

You can read more about the film in the latest edition of Empire Magazine, which will be available Thursday.