The Dark Knight Rises Review

Disclaimer: Contains spoilers!

Plot Summary: The third part in the Nolan Batman movies. This time Batman is emo and must fight Bane and mixed feelings for Catwoman.

Review: The best way I can describe this movie is mediocre all around until the last 30 minutes or so. I went into this movie with extremely high hopes only to be greatly let down. It was as if they wanted to continue where "Batman Begins" ended rather than where "The Dark Knight" ended. There are so many contrivances and eye roll moments that I was having a hard time believing this was written by the same guy who did "The Dark Knight." For example: sending ALL police into the sewers? Bruce finding his way home from the middle of nowhere? Bane letting Bruce keep his knee enhancement? I could go on all day (seriously). Most painful was absolutely no mention of the Joker or any of his exploits. This is especially frustrating considering the fact that we see the Scarecrow broken out of Arkham. The Joker would have actually been helping Batman since he'd hate to see someone else kill him. Bane is wasted and pointlessly built up for no good reason. Yeah, he beats Batman, but it was all for nothing since he wasn't the actual boss. There are so many moments where you keep wondering "why the hell would they do that?" They spend almost as much time (if not more) building up some cop called John Blake as they do Bruce, who just magically knows Bruce Wayne is Batman because he "looked in his eyes." In fact, it would seem everyone knows Bruce is Batman this time around which is beyond stupid. Ugh, there is a lot of filler going on in this movie I hardly know how to address it without turning this into a book. Suffice to say, only hardcore fanboys would think this movie was great or anywhere on par with "The Dark Knight." The acting is decent here I will admit, some of the action is good especially at the end, and I enjoyed seeing Anne Hathaway in a skintight bodysuit! But in the end, only the last 30 minutes or so that I mentioned are satisfying enough...which is the only reason I rated this movie as high as I did; it's a shame too because the ending scenes are really enjoyable and made me wish the whole film was as entertaining as that. Unfortunately, I can't say that making it to that point is worth the time or effort unless you're a big Batman fan or just need to see the trilogy through.

Notable moment: The revelation that Bane was not Ras Al Ghul's son but it was Talia aka Miranda who is his daughter. Although this isn't really shocking to a comic book fan or a fan of the animated series, it is interesting nonetheless.

Final Rating: 6.5/10