An End to the Dark Knight Trilogy That Fell Short of its Predecessor...

Rating: 7/10 (21 July 2012)

Before proceeding with this review I must admit that I am a huge Dark Knight fan. The Dark Knight is my favorite super hero movie of all time and one of my favorites in general. With that movie setting the bar so high for this one and being such a fan of it I guess I am the one who is truly to blame for this disappointment. There are many flaws to this film but if I were to simplify it down to one thing It would have to be that this movie takes on much more than it can handle.
It is 8 years since the last movie and Gotham is in peace. Major criminals have been taken off the streets and neither Batman nor Bruce Wayne have been sighted in public since the death of Harvey Dent. The movie opens up with a ceremony honoring Harvey Dent and thats exactly where the trouble for this movie begins. You instantly realize that this movie is chained down to a certain story. It has to continue from the last one and it has to wrap everything up. That is its biggest downfall. Some of the scenes seemed rushed from the very start. A key example of this is when Bane is introduced in a set piece involving an airplane and a CIA agent. No back story is given for this agent or even as to how Bane was captured. Essentially what I am trying to say is that the audience was not given time to register exactly what was going on or to savor the introduction of the villain for the next hours. You can tell that the director just needed to keep things rolling quickly in order to fit everything into the movie. This sort of continued throughout the movie and thus it did not feel as natural as it should have. We do not know how bane got Bruce Wayne all the way to the prison in the desert or even how Bruce Wayne got back into Gotham when there was supposedly military forces watching every entrance in or out.
A similar problem is that a lot of the characters themselves did not feel developed. I did not feel bane to be as threatening as he should have and this made the film a bit weak. Characters such as Cat woman and Blake told a bit of their back stories but I wanted a bit more. Again the problem was that Christopher Nolan had to wrap things up and just could not manage to do so cleanly.
Another problem that is not as major as the others but did interfere with the movie experience was the fact that a lot of dialogue could not be understood. I had to force myself to understand some of the things bane said. This was also the case with the Commissioner when he was hospitalized.
Although it has some flaws it still has a lot of great things to admire. Great performances from Christian Bale and especially Michael Caine as Alfred. A lot of the character dialogue was well written and this is sure to keep anyone entertained. The ending scenes were also very climactic and well executed even though I do have some problems with the very end.
Overall this is a good movie it just had to much on its plate. It could not match the quality of The Dark Knight simply because the Dark Knight was free from any bounds. It did not have to talk about Ra's Al Ghul or the Leauge of Shadows to wrap anything up. THis movie did have to do so and therefore it was not executed to the same level as the last one. I do recommend that you watch it just do not expect it to match up to the previous movie.