Finally, a sequel to Batman Begins!

Rating: 8/10 (25 July 2012)

This film opens up with Bruce Wayne living a solitary life in his mansion. He doesn't come out. No one's seen him. No one even knows he's alive. When we, the audience, do see him it is as a crippled dude using a cane to hobble around. In a later more comical scene the doctor tells us that it's because of the beating he's put his body through that he has various scar tissues and other doctor-ey stuff. Don't worry, the doctor doesn't know he's Batman, so no spoilers were in that part of the review.
The reason everyone assumes that Wayne is living the quiet life is because of a fortune-absorbing project to create an eco-friendly nuclear fission reactor to power Gotham that didn't pan out. Of course, the real reason is that his beloved Rachel Dawes died at the Joker's hands in the second movie, and he's still struggling to figure out what to do with his life now that his plans for the future, which had consisted entirely of marrying her, have been derailed. His retirement is cut short, however, by a revolutionary named Bane who makes his home in the sewers shows up and starts doing Supervillain things. He is an ex-member of the League of Shadows, and is here to finish the work they started in Batman Begins by destroying Gotham's societal infrastructure because it has grown so corrupt that, in the Leagues eyes, it is beyond saving. They've been doing this for millenia, and Gotham is just latest on the list.
The movie is undeniably fun, and I cannot stress enough how much better the action scenes look. In Batman Begins Nolan just shook the camera real hard so that we couldn't see the action. In the Dark Knight he had learned a bit more and held the camera still enough for us to see what was going on, but made me wish he's start shaking it again because of how terrible it looked. Batman's fists had a nasty habit of not actually making contact with his target's faces. In this the camera is both still and it often looks believable when Batman punches someone. There are SOME moments where it gets back to that old 'doesn't look remotely convincing' look, but they are few enough that instead of being annoying they're more like some fun odd comic relief. My favourite part was when he punched a guy's motorbike helmet so hard that the visor disintegrated, but the guy's head doesn't react at all. That, and it didn't look like he punched that hard.
All the regulars are back. Michael Caine still rocks as Alfred. Morgan Freeman has a fun 'gear showing off' scene that has become a staple of the series. Christian Bale delivers his best performance as Wayne/Batman yet, which isn't saying much but he actually does good this time. The new characters are surprisingly well played. I was skeptical of both Anne Hathaway as Catwoman, and Tom Hardy as Bane. Heck, I was skeptical of her as Catwoman back when she was gonna play a similar role in Spider-Man 4, but, astoundingly, she does a great job, and unlike the other two live action movies to feature Catwoman (Batman Returns and the Catwoman movie), she has a good enough script to work with that she becomes a fun character. Bane is also surprisingly fun. Not a villain for the ages, but with his funny voice that was fun to listen to and his establishment as Batman's equal (they were both trained by the League of Shadows, both learned to use fear and darkness as weapons, etc.), he makes a satisfying antagonist. The other notable is Marion Cotillard as a pretty rich environmentalist who lost as much of a fortune on Wayne's fission reactor as he did, and is trying to both woo him and convince him to start the project up. She is unnecessary. Even towards the end when her character is brought into the spotlight all developments involving her are kind of useless.
Which brings me to the 'bad things' part of this review. If I had to choose one word to describe this movie it would be 'bloated'. Sure, the movie is long (2hrs, 45 mins), but it should have been longer, because it never slows down. Even in the sentimental scenes with Alfred the big violins don't stop. They don't even take a half second break. Never. The intensity doesn't die down. We never have a quiet moment with the characters to start REALLY caring. Most of the important plot points are introduced to fast and then moved on from that you either didn't hear it properly or weren't given enough time to feel affected by it. Halfway through the movie the status quo changes radically, and the city changes to an occupied city-state controlled by Banes forces, and instead of trying to shorten the movie by speeding every scene up, I think that they should have chopped it in two and given us a set of Batman movies released a few months apart (like the Matrix or Pirates of the Caribbean), thus allowing us to become more involved in the story. That's my only real complaint, but it applies so thoroughly to the WHOLE movie that it's my whole reason for not giving it a higher rating.
All that said, I really liked this movie. I finally got my sequel to Batman Begins, and I got to see a fun movie in the meantime. I wasn't disappointed. I just wished that I could hear it and feel it more.