Really I was hoping we could move past the tragedy and just talk about the movie.

I enjoyed it. My complaints are all nitpicky. For example, I think the Alfred in the cafe scene should either 1) not have been shown the first time, deepening the significance of the final scenes, or 2) in the end, Alfred still not have found Bruce Wayne, highlighting that he failed, the moment at the gravesite I thought being the most moving in the whole film. An other nitpick is cat woman coming back to save batman. I had hoped she would prove to be a coward even in the end as a counterpoint to the redemption of other characters. one more nitpick, I thought the constantly changing story of who Ra's al Guul's child is and the legend was less effective than the dual origins of the joker. I think it was because they kept showing us scenes of the child, and the joker origins worked so well because we didn't see anything, we were only told.

I enjoyed it though. A good end to the trilogy. I did like the way bane, robin, and Gordon were characterized as well as Bruce and Alfred. The relationships developed pretty well, even if Gotham's devolution was a bit contrived. Having batman be the second person to escape the pit was a nice touch with respect to the inheritance of the legacy of Ra's. I appreciated that Liam made his cameo. I really need to see it again to really refine my judgment of the film, but I'm overall satisfied. The more I think about it the more I feel good about it.

I agree about the story of Ra'al Guul's child. But, anyone who knows the comic knows he had a daughter not a son. As to Catwoman that's how she is. Some times a villian sometimes a hero.

I liked the Robin character and didn't at the same time. I wish they had taken one of the like 7 Robins and used that as a template but they didn't.

What I liked best about the movie was that it did tie together all 3 movies. I saw much more the first movie then the second. I want to go back and re-watch the first movie now before we go back and see the film for a second time.

The Robin character is a total badass. Great character all around.

*SPOILER ALERT*

For a minute, I thought that Robin would become the new Batman (at this point it had not been shown that Bruce Wayne was alive). They did that with Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers in the Captain America comic books.
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Captain America (I know I'm crossing the unbreakable Marvel/DC line here; forgive me) is still the most badass superhero ever, but the new Batman movie trilogy has made me respect A) Batman B) Christian Bale and C) The writers of the new ones.

Dick Grayson (the first Robin) did take over as Batman for awhile and Damian Wayne is his Robin.


I love Marvel comics. Only DC comic I like is Batman. I didn't really appreciate Captain America until the Civil War storyline.

I try to judge the movies separate from the comics. I enjoy the movies more when I don't constantly compare to comics :P

So yes, while Ra's child is a daughter in the comics, I thought (initially) that Nolan was doing a comics-canon rewrite for the film (such as when Ra's died and stayed dead, while in the comics he came back again and again for various reasons. I honestly speculated that his character was being resurrected as part of bane's plot when I read that Liam was returning. I was admittedly disappointed when it was only a cameo).

As for the robin, I went into the film think Nolan had made batman believable by staying away from freeze, ivy, etc and the most unbelievable of all, robin. I was quite pleased how he manipulated the robin/ Wayne story elements to make a believable robin out of the cop. I didn't really expect him to be robin and thought the reveal was too explicit, but then I didn't really want a robin. As I've thought about it, I like him more and more. Gotta see it again though.

Also, opening sequence was more badass than anything joker pulled in DK. Period.

See if you're going to make a movie about a comic book I'm going to judge it based on that. I'm the same way about movies based on books.

I think they gave a nice nod to the Lazarus Pit with the prison being known as the Pit. I felt the Talia character was to well set up not to be Talia Ghul. I do like the nods he gave to the comic even if he changed some things. Nolan did a very nice job staying as close to the comics as a person can in a movie. I think that's why the Joker had so many stories about his past in the last movie. I don't think any one actually knows he's real background. I believe it's locked up in a vault somewhere.

I liked the Robin character don't get me wrong. I also liked Joseph Gorden-Levitt for him. Just wished they had at least used one of the Robins names. But, that would of been a big give away to the audience.

See I still like the Joker's plots better, but it's just a difference between the 2 villians.

I thought the whole CIA thing was a little unrealistic. Is the CIA really THAT stupid? You don't think they'd, oh, frisk them, or look at their faces before they just accepted three random people on their plane?

This movie had a lot of potential to be so much better. I really hate what they did with the villains; suddenly switching in Tate as Talia al-Ghul just created multiple plot inconsistencies without a particularly compelling reason. I think it would have made for a far better movie if they'd spent more time developing Bane and Catwoman instead. Maybe I'm spoiled from TDK; the Joker was incredibly well-developed and Heath Ledger did an amazing job.

And to add one more voice to the Robin praise, I thought Gordon-Levitt had the best performance in the movie. I actually wished they hadn't made him Robin at the end, though. The way they did it just felt like a cheesy name drop. But Robin was also well-developed and G-L did a wonderful job playing it out.

@ PE

Yeah, the name drop was a little cheesy, (who names their kid "Robin"?) but the movie was coming up on 2 hours 45 minutes at that point and I'm guessing that the writers were like "Fuck it, let's name him Robin to give the audience one last 'Holy shit!' moment without significantly extending the length of the movie"

Bane was relatively developed. I know that Bane is static character, but his background is explained reasonably well and the prison is a significant location for a large portion of the movie. I assume that Catwoman was intentionally underdeveloped because they wanted to portray Catwoman as a somewhat mysterious, shadowy character with a murky background.

I agree with your opinion of Gordon-Levitt. He did an outstanding job as Robin and I found myself cheering for him as much as Batman. If they had decided to kill off Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale), I would have been more than satisfied with him as the new Batman.
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Oh, did you guys know that Tom Hardy (Bane) also played SPC Lance Twombly in the 2001 movie Black Hawk Down? It was actually his first role. I discovered that last night and it blew my mind. He was excellent in Black Hawk Down too.

My one problem with the movie was that the cops didn't have beards or long hair when they came out of the sewers.

@Invictus I thought that was weird as well but it didn't do to much damage to the movie.

@ Invictus

You must have thought it was a pretty damned good movie if that's your only complaint.

Well, I also thought some parts were a bit rushed. It could easily have been another half hour longer to flesh out the story and characters somewhat, or at least have used the time taken by the opening plane scene to do something more with the central plot.

But all in all it was very good. Dark Knight was better, but in the same way Godfather II was better than the first one. That is, not by much and in different ways.

In my opinion, it is unfair to put any one of the three movies above the other two. They all fit together and should be judged as a complete trilogy.

However, if I was forced to choose, I think that Dark Knight and Dark Knight Rises are just about a dead tie (they are both amazing, but in different ways like you said, Invictus), with Batman Begins being slightly below the other two just because the story is choppier and moves more slowly.

I also think that Scarecrow is the scariest of the villains. Joker is very entertaining, but somewhat predictable and easily dismissed as being crazy. Bane is hyper-rational, hyper-intelligent, and physically terrifying, but also very predictable, even with all of the plot twists. I don't even consider the Catwoman in Dark Knight Rises to be a villain. I would classify her as being a dark hero, almost like Batman, but in the morally neutral zone instead of the morally good zone.

Joker's goal is to blow stuff up and kill people.
Bane's goal is to create anarchy in Gotham.
Catwoman's goal is to do whatever it takes to get money (and Clean Slate)

Scarecrow, on the other hand, is literally trying to destroy an entire city with fear. He is by far the most sinister, even if he is the physically weakest.

Well, apart from when the actual terrorist attack was going on I thought the "courtroom" scenes with Scarecrow were the scariest of the movie. Very bolshie.

I liked the first of these new batman movies well enough.

The second one bored me to tears. I was very disappointed.

I therefore haven't watched the third one yet and may never. Any thoughts on this? Did this one do a better job of not dragging on forever and having obvious action sequences where you knew what was going to happen?

@ Alderian

You should give DKR the benefit of the doubt and watch it. It has so many plot twists that even the action scenes are unpredictable.
*stop reading now, SPOILER ALERT*

@ Invictus

Yeah, I like how they included Scarecrow in the courtroom scenes. Another thoughtful reference to the first movie.