The Dark Knight Rises

It has been eight years since Batman vanished into the night, turning, in that instant, from hero to fugitive. Assuming the blame for the death of D.A. Harvey Dent, the Dark Knight sacrificed everything for what he and Commissioner Gordon both hoped was the greater good. For a time the lie worked, as criminal activity in Gotham City was crushed under the weight of the anti-crime Dent Act.  But everything will change with the arrival of a cunning cat burglar with a mysterious agenda. Far more dangerous, however, is the emergence of Bane, a masked terrorist whose ruthless plans for Gotham drive Bruce out of his self-imposed exile. But even if he dons the cape and cowl again, Batman may be no match for Bane.

Brace yourselves because this is going to be a long one.  Let me start by saying this is an amazing movie.  It fell in line exactly with where my expectations for it were.  I kept saying that this would be more of a sequel to Batman Begins than to The Dark Knight.  Heath Ledger's performace was a once in a lifetime type of thing and to think that they would be able to top that would be ridiculous.  That being said - Christopher Nolan (best director out there - sorry, Fincher) was so fair to everyone in this movie.  He was fair each actor that has been throughout all the trilogy.  Gary Oldman got his due.  Morgan Freeman got his due.  Michael Caine got his due.  And most importanly - Christian Bale got his due after pretty much just being a distant third fiddle to Ledger and Eckhardt in the last one.  Besides them, he worked in Catwoman very well and Anne Hathaway was great with the sleekness needed delivering her lines.  Tom Hardy is the man.  Love this guy and he was awesome as Bane.  And Joseph Gordon-Levitt was great as the new cop getting introduced.  Much more on him later.  As for the fans - he could not have done us more justice.  This movie trilogy wrapped up in the most phenomenal of ways.  I can't really go into it without giving too much away.  I will go over some stuff later but with spoiler warnings.  I am just so happy with how I felt walking out of the theater and didn't realize how much this telling of Batman really meant to me as a movie fan until that point. 

All of the awesomeness being addressed, there were some things that left a bit of a blah taste in my mouth.  The first 30-45 minutes of the movie seemed a little choppy and forced having to introduce Bane, Catwoman and the new cop guy.  Luckily, just when it was getting to the point where it could really take away from the movie - it smoothed out and because awesome from then on.

SPOILERS AHEAD!   SPOILERS AHEAD!  SPOILERS AHEAD!  Only read if you don't care with things being mentioned. 

Bane was so badass and was such an awesomely developed villain, yet he became completely inconsequential after the swerve of Thalia A'Gul being revealed and his demise was almost done in passing and for comic relief.  That bothered me alot.  I felt like the character deserved better than that.  As for the aforementioned swerve - I'm being generous when saying swerve because I saw that coming months ago when they announced the casting and saw it coming the whole movie.  That was very un-Nolanesque.  The only two other things that didn't sit well with me was A - the flying away with the neutron bomb (Did they have to drag it on the ground and bang it all over the place?  It's a bomb.  I feel as if something would have happened in the realm of blowing up prematurely by doing that?  It just looked kind of silly.) and B - a major editing snafu with the getaway from the Wall Street attack.  The chase started in total daylight and they went under some tunnel and it was total nightime when they came out?   Again - just kind of hit me as un-Nolanesque. 

Now on to my praise of the ending - STILL SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Wow!  Christopher Nolan not only gave every character what they wanted to have a happy ending, but he gave Warner Brothers the biggest gift ever if they really want to try and do the Justice League thing.  I've been ranting with my friend about how they would never be able to pull it off because The Avengers was a work of advanced mastery in marketing and WB would basically just be throwing Justice League on the screen having to have a new Batman too soon and no advance hype whatsoever.  Then Nolan goes and has Joseph Gordon Levitt acknowledged as "Robin" and has the movie end with him going in to the batcave.  HOLY $HIT!!!   I felt the same way after seeing Sam Jackson at the end of Iron Man.  Now all they have to do is have JGL show up in the relaunched Superman next year and they already have the legwork for Justice League.  Please let the powers that be at WB not screw this up and run with the absolute gift that Nolan has given them. 

I feel as if I have written enough here.  You have probably guessed that I would recommend this movie by now.  It's easily one of the best trilogies of all time - probably behind only the original Star Wars and Lord Of The Rings for me.  I would say it's by second favorite of the trilogy behind The Dark Knight and I would say it is my second favorite movie of the year only to The Avengers for pulling all of that together.