
Director: Christopher Nolan
Starring: The same cats from the other two flicks plus Tom Hardy, Anne Hathaway, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard
More info: IMDb
Tagline: The Legend Ends
Plot: Despite his tarnished reputation after the events of The Dark Knight, in which he took the rap for Dent's crimes, Batman feels compelled to intervene to assist the city and its police force which is struggling to cope with Bane's plans to destroy the city.
My rating: 9/10
Will I watch it again? Fuck & Yeah!
OK, so now that I've seen it twice (and yesterday it was on an IMAX screen) I'm completely re-doing this review. I first caught this at the first midnight showing which was also during a marathon which included the first two films. By the time DKR came on I'd been in an increasingly warmer (the air conditioner wasn't pumping as hard as it should have) theater for 9 hours, I was getting tired and I was coming off a Coke/popcorn/candy high. These were terrible conditions to see a movie. That night I gave this a 6.5/10. I didn't like it all that much and I had a lot of questions, ala PROMETHEUS (2012), regarding perceived plot holes.

Watching it again with a clear head I can see now that I was wrong about this movie - very, very wrong. It's fantastic. All of my questions seemed ridiculously silly as they were answered on the screen one by one. My only real beef with any of the picture is some of the score mix. There were moments where it was difficult to understand Batman or Bane (or anyone else who wasn't speaking with a plain, normal-volume voice) because the music was too loud. That's annoying. But everything else I totally dug.

I really like Bane's voice. It's different. He made an interesting and fun villain. His fight with Bats at the end was especially good. And I LOVED how the camera stayed on the fight scenes without jerking around with frenetic editing. It was like the good ole days when you could watch a fight and see what the hell was going on. When actors and stuntmen spend weeks and months working on the choreography, it's nice to be able to see all of that hard work pay off and not hidden behind camera tricks and quick edits.

Ann Hathaway surprised the shit out of me. She was fantastic. I loved how she was Catwoman without being 'Catwoman' if you know what I mean. I liked the devastation of the city and how they were able to tie this with the first film. It gives a sense of completion to the three Nolan flicks. I also LOVED the ending (this would be the coda, letting us know what happens to the major characters).

There are some little things (that could be huge to some people) that I'm willing to overlook; things like how quickly Wayne recovers from his injuries, how quickly he trusts Selina Kyle, as well as characters that felt unnecessary enough that they could have been cut with some minor adjusting (I'm looking at you, Foley (Matthew Modine)). I'm going to suspend my disbelief for these things and fill in the blanks myself. This is a near-three hour movie anyway and it's possible some important details were left on the cutting room floor. It could happen. Regardless, it's not the kind of major fuck ups that PROMETHEUS had. I thoroughly enjoyed this picture and I'm so glad I gave it another chance. It's amazing how many things around you can distort how much you like/dislike a movie and how seeing them under the right conditions can completely change all of that.





















