A gloomy finale to our first grand superhero trilogy

Rating: 6/10 (20 July 2012)

I wanted to truly enjoy Dark Knight Rises.
I honestly did. I wanted to appreciate the grand direction, the excellent acting performances, superb cinematography, obvious amount of effort, and excellent wrapping of a trilogy that revived Batman and DC Comics from the Quality Dead.
I wanted to appreciate the obvious (and subtle) nods to the classic Batman comics and other works of literature. I wanted to appreciate and truly adore the way they fleshed out the Batman arc with containing story lines of the other two installments. I wanted to truly engulf myself in all this and hail this as the ultimate chapter in arguably the greatest superhero trilogy in the history of film.
However..
I can't get past the fact that the running time was zooming past 160 minutes, when 30 minutes could easily have been cut. I can't get past the fact that the appearance of Batman himself was reduced to just a couple appearances, getting far less screen time than many secondary characters (especially the villains Catwoman and Bane). I can't also get past the fact that Batman is contradicting some of his fiercest creeds. Rather ironic that two of our biggest criticisms of the 1989 version of Batman were happening here. I can't also get past the fact that within the first half hour, there were about four story lines rummaging around and we had to wait until the end of the entire first act to even get the Dark Knight.
What most strikes me about Dark Knight Rises is that the utter lack of catharsis. The trilogy has always suffered from this, replacing payoff moments with moment after moment of despair. The gloom and doom of Batman works as long we have smaller tuned moments to exhale and relax the nerves. Dark Knight Rises has absolutely none of this throughout the nearly-three hour affair. Yes Batman is the antithesis of your Marvel heroes, but a little humor and deviance from the main conflict couldn't hurt the movie. Even Spider-Man 2 in the midst of all Peter's dramas still had the escapades at the Daily Bugle to infuse some relief into the movie.
While the ending definitely redeems the preceding hour of tragedy and tension with plenty of twists and surprises (Thank goodness), and the final act was far better than the first two, I still can't help but miss the fun of the superhero subculture. Dark Knight Rises is definitely a well-crafted finale to the massive story arc, but it's not exactly a ride you'll want to experience over and over again.