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Saw the film a while ago and for some reason never posted my thoughts, so here they are Cliff Notes: A disappointing final chapter So I loved Batman Begins and loved The Dark Knight even more. I recently re-watched both films this summer for the first time in 3 years and possibly liked them even more than I had before (actually, I probably liked Batman Begins a little more and The Dark Knight a little less). I went into this 3rd and final chapter with a completely open mind, ready to take in the entire film and then pass judgement after. I had avoided all spoilers and while being aware of a lukewarm response overall, I hadn't read any specific reviews. The new film's opening plane sequence was fine I suppose. A far cry from the bank robbery prologue of The Dark Knight but at least it wasn't a re-tread of that either. But then it almost immediately started going downhill. What follows felt like 45 minutes of poorly-handled exposition, a million new characters introduced, and the old characters acting WAY out of character compared to how they were before. Commissioner Gordon writing down a speech laying out Harvey Dent's true nature 8 years later? That would have happened either right away or never. Bruce Wayne still mopey 8 years after Rachel died and hasn't dated anyone since? Alfred waiting 8 years to tell Bruce the truth to try to get him out of his funk? I just felt uncomfortable, these didn't feel like the natural progressions of these characters. And I seriously had trouble keeping track of all the new characters, including who they were working for and who was working for them and what goals they were trying to accomplish. And I was never confused for a moment by any of The Dark Knight's plot. Anyway Bane starts causing havock everywhere so Bruce eventually decides to put the suit back on for a fight and car chase that is honestly not very memorable. Then he decides to let Selina lead him to Bane and fight him mano-a-mano. What? Another vastly out of character move. Walking into enemy territory with no upper hand against a guy clearly your physical superior? Even if he won, he'd be surrounded by Bane's goons. Ridiculous. Then comes Bane's take-over of Gotham which was actually handled well, despite some nagging questions (How did he know what floor of Wayne Enterprises all the Bat- tech was stored on? Really - EVERY cop in Gothan ended up in the sewers? Please! And the ENTIRE city is only supplied by 5 bridges? In 3 months NO ONE found another way in/out?) While the city is under Bane's rule for 3 months, Bruce is in a prison healing his back and trying to climb out of the prison's only opening. I get the symbolism but the details were wonky. Couldn't he have just climbed the rope all the way to the top and not even needed the walls at all? And once he gets out, how the hell does he get back to the USA, get back into Gotham, get into Wayne Manor, get his Bat gear, and then get right into the thick of things undetected? Obviously at this point Batman is going to save the day, and the final battles and chases and fights are fine I suppose. Why Batman challenges Bane to another mano a mano fight fight I don't understand. Catwoman saving him at the last minute was not handled well and felt cliched. But then something happened. Somehow I enjoyed the end - like the final 5 minutes - so much it almost made up for the slooooooooow, confusing, melodramatic mess I had just watched. I really enjoyed all the final revelations - that he was alive, that he was with Selina, that Robin found the Bat Cave - a lot, and left the theater fairly happy. Until I got home and time went on and I could still only think about all the flaws the movie had. One of my biggest problems with the movie was that it's not a Batman movie! It's not even a comic book movie! Seriously, this is just a crime/action film. Take out Batman and replace him with generic action hero and the entire movie would have worked perfectly fine. Compare to The Avengers, which was an entire movie of super-powered heroes fighting other super-powered heroes and aliens with their super powers. Obviously that style would NOT work here. But at least Batman Begins and The Dark Knight had some cool comic book-y elements, some cool gadgets for Batman to use, some cool just-out-of-reach sci-fi tech, etc. This had The Bat and.... that's it. Don't get me started on the idea of a program that wipes out your entire criminal history on every computer in the world! Enough about the bad, what did I like? Well, the best part of the film is easily Anne Hathaway's performance as Selina Kyle. She is sexy, intriguing, sympathetic, and vile at various times, and pulls it all off. The only confusing part was, she is living with some other girl in the movie, and they never explain who she is - sister? friend? roommate? daughter? lesbian lover? No idea! I also really enjoyed Joseph Gordon Levitt's character. Somehow all his scenes were very enjoyable and I wanted things to work out for him, and the reveal that he will either be Robin or Batman if this universe continues was great. But man, I HATED that he knew Bruce was Batman because he looked in his face and knew the Bruce persona was his mask. WTF was that shit? Even when Gordon figured out Bruce was Batman because Bruce said "you put a coat on a child once". WTF? As I mentioned before, the film was also way, way too long. It could have easily been 2 hours and told the same story with no bloat. All the scenes with Robin trying to save the orphans on the bus could have been nixed. That is so obviously cutting room floor material! The entire first act needed to be tightened up. The subplot with the feds infiltrating Gotham only to die at the end of the scene could go. Etc. Learn to cut the fat from your films Nolan! The scenes you cut can live on in Special Features or Extended Cut land, but make that theatrical presentation lean and mean! I guess overall, I like the film's BASIC arc - That because Batman took the fall for Harvey Dent's murders and the death of Dent himself, the city has entered a period of barely any crime and Batman feels he is longer needed, but in the end he is revealed to be the true hero and is seen to have sacrificed his life to save the city one final time only to be revealed to still be alive - that's a good arc, that's the perfect way to end the trilogy. It's just the DETAILS of how that arc was handled was done so very, very poorly here. Too much exposition, too many out-of-character actions, too dense of a plot with too many characters, and too much was a retread of Batman Begins. Don't even get me started on revealing Marion Cotillard is Ra's Al Ghul's daughter and evil only to kill her off 5 minutes later, and how that reveal also means the super-bad-ass-to-that-point was just a puppet. Awful awful awful. Alred being absent for most of the movie was a bad idea. Gordon's family being omited was a bad idea. Oh! Another HUGE out of character moment was Lucius Fox putting his hand-print on the Reactor to power it up for bane. NO! He would have taken the bullet to the head rather than let Bane get ahold of that weapon. Awful! I'll see it again and hope I like it more, but the more I think about my first viewing the more disappointed I am. Oh wait, I almost forgot to mention the music! One of the things I noticed when I re-watched Batman Begins and The Dark Knight this summer was just how bad the scores to them really are. I mean, its really bad! Sometimes its just there doing nothing, which is more or less fine, but other times it is so loud and obnoxious and not the appropriate scoring for the scene it really stood out. I mean, generally if I don't like a score it just doesn't even register for me. I just leave the film not wanting to check out the OST because I didn't remember it. But with the first two Batman films, I actually had several moments where I sat there thinking "This music is so wrong for this scene - AND its awful music!" So how do I feel about the music in The Dark Knight Rises? Well contrary to a lot of opinions here which said the movie was spotted wrong and had many LOUD obnoxious moments....... I have to say I have no opinion on the score! Seriously, I just didn't even notice it the entire movie. I never felt it was too loud, I never felt there was music playing when there didn't need to be. >shrug< Maybe it was because I saw it in a normal film theater that isn't the most up-to-date (and certainly wasn't IMAX), I dunno. But like the other films, I am not compelled even a little bit to check out the score outside the film.

I like Turbulence. Her use of Christmas music is great too. Batman: TAS is terrific. I just listened to Volume 2 and I think it is even better than the first.

I almost feel like digging out my old posts on the matter and pasting them in, just for laughs!

Christopher Nolan presents: Exposition: The Movie. I hear he has a new superhero trilogy in the works as well. Backstory Begins (2013) The Up All Knight: Explain Harder (2014) The Word Count Rises: Exposition With a Vengeance (2015) If I thought for an instant the audience could fill in the gaps themselves, I'd quit the business and get onto textiles - Chris Nolan

I also agree Inception is one of the great Zimmer scores, and an example where his sensibiliaties were spot on

Watched Inception for the first time in quite a long time (1 year and a half, I think). What a fun film. I love how playful the script is, with all its ideas dancing around effortlessly and creating a very coherent whole. Other people might disagree, but I find this maze of a story incredibly fun to follow. Had a great time watching it again. It's good to see a bit lighter from Christopher Nolan again, after the last Batman film. As a pure entertainment, this film is better. Also, one of the best Hans Zimmer scores ever. Yeah, I'm being serious. Karol

Did Zimmer even do conforming on this? Or did he just throw shit against the wall and saw what stuck?