I'll make this clear right now. From a filmmaking standpoint, this film is great. The cinematography, the editing, pacing, music, and production design are all top notch and reflect the calibre of a Christopher Nolan picture.
The problem is that when you begin to look past all that, the problems start piling up. From the very first scene, we get to hear the voice of Bane from behind the mask. And I have to say that it was incredibly annoying. Yes, this type of mask can be taken more seriously than the classic luchador mask that Bane has always worn, and while Tom Hardy delivers a good performance, the annoyance of it just doesn't go away.
I'll admit that Anne Hathaway makes a decent Selina Kyle. She doesn't compare to the portrayal delivered by Michelle Pfeifer back in the day, but she is certainly a million times better than that awful Halle Berry one a few years ago.
Christian Bale delivers another good Batman/Bruce Wayne like the previous films, and I do not fault him for any of the problems that arise from his character. Those problems stem from the writing. Like previous movies, most of what Bruce/Batman has to do is simply react to what the villains of any given story are doing. He can't do much but serve as the counterweight to their actions, and while it makes sense 'poetically', in a film narrative it just begins to get old. For example, Wolverine is a character who, because of his missing memories, actively goes out into the world to decipher and regain said memories. He doesnt just sit around the X-Mansion waiting for a villain to show up. Batman does too much of exactly that in these films, and I hope that the soon-to-come franchise reboot addresses that.
Yes I just said reboot. But it's still in theaters! You may be thinking to yourself. Yes, well, with the MASSIVE success of the Avengers raking in well over a billion dollars so far in it's release, competitor Warner Bros has decided to do similar with it's own Justice League. Batman is a longtime original member of the League, and Nolan's films do not in anyway allow for the possibility of cross-continuity the way the Avengers/Iron Man/Thor/Captain America/Hulk movies did. So yes, while this 3rd film was in it's final stages of development, they knew fully well that this whole trilogy was about to be rebooted anyway.
I wonder if Nolan was aware of this going into it, and therefore didn't really want to make his third one, because it certainly has that feeling throughout it. The film is far too long, there are major portions that could have been left out and maybe cut almost half the running length, and the twists that occur are either seen a mile away, or others just plain dumb.
The worst thing going for it is the blatant disregard for the source material. I'm not going to fanboy moan and groan to death that things aren't EXACTLY like they are in the comics, that studios need to cater to the non-comic folks out there, but this movie really pushes the limit with that.
Having said all that, there is a fun cameo of a certain character that I'm glad managed to appear in all three films though. That was enjoyable.
If i rated stars, i'd give Dark Knight Rises maybe a 3 out of 5. It's not bad per say, but it definitely does not manage to live up to being the closing chapter of such a saga. As is the case in a lot of trilogies, the third film ended up being a bit of a let down. the first is still the best by quite a lot.
But see it for yourselves. It's still enjoyable and great to watch the large battle scenes. And now I must go, someone has activated the bat signal!
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