Plot:
Set eight years after the end of The Dark Knight, Gotham is in a time of peace. That is, until Bane comes along to shake things up a bit. Bruce Wayne, (aka Batman) feels compelled to come back and aid Gotham against this new villain, even though Gotham still blames him for the death of Harvey Dent.
My Thoughts:
[There are NO SPOILERS.]
For this review, I'm just going to dive right into the movie, because there is so much to talk about. First off, the plot. The plot line stays pretty standard; Batman vs. Villain with Gotham playing the part of the damsel-in-distress. I don't have a problem with that, but I do take issue with how it was executed. The first thing you'll notice, is how easy everything is for Bane. Bane has an ultimate goal that I won't give away in this review, but he ends up getting just about everything he wants, (and he wants a whole lot), with practically no opposition. Now don't get me wrong, there is a (ridiculously) huge police force out to stop him...they just never do anything. And just a side-note: Bane, like Joker, uses explosives to strike fear in the hearts of Gotham residents. And although both cases allow for an unrealistic amount of planted bombs, there is one major scene with Bane that involves so many timed explosives it was laughable. Nolan pulled it off with the Joker, but the excitement and authenticity of it was lost with Bane.
The main problem with the plot, though, is that it is utterly predictable. The obvious big question going into this film is, "Does Batman die?" Nolan practically answers that question 20 minutes into the film, making the ending quite underwhelming. There is also a "huge" plot twist that I, and everyone with me during the movie, easily predicted. It didn't need to be that easy, and it really ruined the hugeness of the finale for me.
The script, thank God, was actually almost hole-less. TDKR ties up every lose end well, until the end. Nolan leaves us hanging with one massive question, even though this is the ending of the trilogy. You can answer it for yourself, but I found it to be quite unsatisfying, very unlike his masterful closing scene in Inception, (the endlessly-spinning top...or is it?!)
The acting performances were the best part of the movie. Christian Bale has a very uncharacteristically bad scene early on, but the rest of his character development is quite good. Anne Hathaway, Morgan Freeman, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Tom Hardy, Gary Oldman, and Marion Cotillard all did very well. But the star of show is Michael Caine. His performance as Alfred the butler comes to a climatic high in TDKR, and his passionate love and respect for the Wayne family is so incredibly well acted he had me nearly in tears by the end. The only bad performance I can note was Matthew Modine's as Foley. He was horribly unbelievable, and Nolan gave him way too much screen time and Morgan Freeman/Michael Caine way too little.
I think the main problem I had with this film is that I. guessed. everything. And I wasn't even trying; I was just casually watching the movie knowing how every scene was going to end. This made it a very underwhelming, unimpressive viewing experience for me. This was not the case during The Dark Knight, where Nolan has you on the edge of your seat wondering what the Joker was going to do next. Bane's plans/moves are predictable. Batman's progression is predictable. The plot twists are predictable. And every action scene in the finale, (which is about 1/3 of the movie, and what every superhero movie rides on) was predictable. I leaned back comfortably and enjoyed the movie...but that's not what I wanted. I wanted to be on the edge of my seat, and unfortunately, Nolan didn't give me that.
Rating: 6.5/10
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