Really wanted to "love" this movie

Rating: 7/10 (4 September 2012)

I really wanted to "love" this movie and I really tried. I went to see it twice simply because I thought I was crazy, during my first screening, for thinking it was anything but pure perfection, considering how amazing I thought the first two films were. What The Dark Knight Rises has going for it, are the incredible action sequences mixed with real characters thrown into another world of anarchy caused by the new villain in town: Bane. What it lacks, in my opinion, is the patience and depth of the original two.
Christopher Nolan is unarguably an incredible director. And his entire Batman trilogy succeeds in many ways. Rarely has a story about Batman, on film or in the comics, ever really understood the character of Bruce Wayne/Batman like his films have. By the end of The Dark Knight, Batman was far more than just a popular comic book figure, he became a modern tragic anti-hero. And The Dark Knight itself has become something of a modern day epic, on par with films of the past like Ben-Hur or Star Wars.
When we enter back into Batman's world, Gotham city is in good shape. The cops don't seem as dirty as they used to be. Other than the rare cat burglar and pick pocket-ers, citizens seem pretty clean. That is until a terrorist named Bane decides to come to Gotham bringing with him a whole league of minions, inspiring the corrupt of Gotham to have one more go at destroying the city. Which of course inspires Batman to return for one last time, to again ignore the needs of Bruce Wayne and only think of what Gotham and its citizens need. Batman is a great character, and Christian Bale does his best performance as the character in this film. He is also surrounded once again by an amazing cast, playing their own parts with equal realism, as if depicting nonfictional figures from the past.
This is the last in Nolan's series supposedly. I read in an interview with Christopher Nolan online before I saw the film that he was hesitant on making Dark Knight Rises. He realizes that there haven't been many great third films in other trilogies and he wanted to make sure that his series was perfect. And I can tell that they really tried to do this. If I go through the plot event by event, I have no complaints. But of course, that would just be a summary of a film, and film is not simply story. It is an emotional experience as well. And as an audience member, I felt as if the plot of Dark Knight Rises was forced upon me. There is so much going on in this story, and the film whips through it allowing little breathing space. Characters are given dialog, seemingly for the purpose of moving story even more quickly. Their lines are almost full of plot and character information rather than true human interactions. Where Batman Begins and The Dark Knight both seem to have their own tone and their stories exist in their own world, Dark Knight Rises seems to keep going back to the original films, afraid to exist completely on its own. I understand that this is an end to a series and reminding the audience of what happened in the past is important. But at times, it feels like we are being spoon fed new information.
The place where the story ends up is pretty satisfying for the characters and the series. We even get a twist similar to the one in Batman Begins, when an unexpected villain is revealed. As I was familiar with the comics, I saw this coming, but despite that it still felt shocking and unexpected. I suppose I may be being a little nit-picky considering other films in the genre of comic book movies. While disappointing to me as a fan of Batman, the film is far superior to your standard summer blockbuster film, especially comic book superhero summer blockbusters. It shows an intelligence that all of Nolan's previous films show. Also like his previous films, The Dark Knight Rises is thoroughly entertaining, and I am sure that I will watch it again. I would certainly suggest it to anyone as a pretty great action/drama. The fact that it falls short of the original two is perhaps unavoidable, considering how tough of an act it must be to follow a masterpiece like The Dark Knight. Whether or not you "love" The Dark Knight Rises, Christopher Nolan's Batman series is one of the best trilogies ever made. And if you are like me and felt a little let down as a fan by The Dark Knight Rises, at least we still have the other two to keep watching for years to come.