So bad I had to open a window to let the smell out.....

Rating: 2/10 (6 July 2015)

I had very low expectations for this film before watching it and sadly this rubbish even failed to meet those.
An appalling script completely lacking in a moral compass, subtext (imagine what an intelligent screen writer would have made of all of these orphans?) or clear motivations for the cartoon characters involved at the centre of the drama. As a result there was no tension and I didn't care if everyone was blown up at the end or not.
The editing was appalling with one monochrome setting shifting to another in a very flat and monotonous rhythm. The action sequences were really dull. When the cops ran at the baddies the fight scene was as intense as two old ladies squabbling over a cardigan in the January sales! The road chase sequence was like a choreographed run through in a "how to do a stunt" video.
The soundtrack music was a constant background burble that never actually developed into a theme and was as one dimensional as everything else in the film. Hans Zimmer's score was no match for the epic sweep of Danny Elfman's music in the Tim Burton Batman movies.
The acting was disinterested and good actors such as Ben Mendelsohn and Marion Cotillard were wasted in one dimensional stereotypical roles. Ms Hathaway may have been surprisingly good at belting out a song in "Les Mis" but here she is the least sexy Cat Woman ever. To be fair to her that is hardly surprising from a Director as disinterested in sex appeal and human chemistry as Mr Nolan ( this is the guy who even made Scarlett Johansson dressed in corsets in "The Prestige" seem a little ordinary!!). What should have been highly charged emotional moments such as Alfred leaving Bruce or the public realisation of the sacrifice that Batman had made in the Harvey Dent affair were thrown away.
The narrative was muddled, full of holes and lacking in tension. Just how did Bruce Wayne recover from a broken back, climb out of the pit and get back to Gotham on foot, with no resources at his disposal, from what I assume was somewhere like China in about 3 days? How did he get back into a shut down Gotham? As for the twist regarding who was Ra's Al Ghul's offspring – well it obviously couldn't have been Bane because we were told his disfigurement and subsequent medical treatment took a much longer timescale well beyond the escape of that character. So that twist was telegraphed and in that situation when dealing with a script as mechanical as this one you always look to the least obvious character so to see Ms Cotilard declared as the offspring was as easy to anticipate as the fact that she wasn't going to finish Batman off when she had the chance. All as boring and predictable as the supposed poignant finale at the restaurant in Florence which you just knew would be the outcome. In Hollywood films the pay off always has to be signposted!
Is this really the best we can expect for hundreds of $millions? A lame 140 minutes of nonsense followed by a final 20 minutes reliant on the same old tired device of a clock ticking down on the side of a bomb? Really??
Intellectually Mr Nolan has nothing to offer the intelligent cinema goer (IMDb describes him as being "celebral" – yes sure, to Homer Simpson maybe??!! ), emotionally he is clearly pitching his work at the level of a 14 year old school boy who's best friend is his X box and clearly on the basis of this dull waste of time and money he doesn't even have anything interesting to offer so far as technical film making is concerned.
That this rubbish achieves 8.5 on IMDb is a perfect metaphor for the mindless consumerism and rampant stupidification of the western world. Honestly if this does it for you then you really need to grow up and read a few non-fiction books about politics, economics or philosophy.. and perhaps even get yourself a real-life girlfriend.