Tedius but maybe appealing to Batman devotees

Rating: 7/10 (7 January 2013)

Although I see that the prevailing trend is great acclaim for this movie, my thought is that there are those who have bought into the Batman mythos and those who have not, and for the former it is perhaps a very satisfying experience to not only see lots of Bat-gear and stupendous special effects but also to watch character after character reminisce and wax philosophical about how his/her childhood have led to their current state. For fans, perhaps, a 9 is warranted.
For those who are not already "fans" I would say that the movie's special effects are truly impressive, but the philosophizing will seem laughably superficial and the reminiscences very contrived. The effects will wear thin after a while, and as the movie approaches its finale, at slightly less than three hours, they are wearying. As to the philosophizing and reminiscing - it will become grating. SPOILER: when the snooty heiress recounts her sad childhood in a prison somewhere you want to say SHUT UP ALREADY and get on with it. For those not sold on the Batman mythos, I would say a 5 is more appropriate, hence the average score of 7. Another issue ... while I am reluctant to critique fantasy stories for logic and plausibility, there were issues all along that made it hard to suspend disbelief and just go with it. No, I'm not talking about the fact that Gotham was both Los Angeles (i.e. "One Wilshire" was visible on a building) and New York:). SPOILER There seemed to be something contradictory imbedded in the storyline itself. For example, how was it that Bane was both turning the people loose, "freeing" them to attack rich people (talk about paranoid visions of class warfare!) while also planning to kill them - didn't the people figure out that they were the targets, not the beneficiaries, of his plan as he publicly announced a nuclear bomb was due to detonate? On a related note, the actual peril was not stated until toward the end of this long movie, so it seemed to meander a lot. All in all, I found it dissatisfying and mind-numbing after a while but I realize I'm in the minority on this.