Beautifully made film, but a little hollow

Rating: 7/10 (20 November 2012)

I expected a technological and moral extravaganza, evil Bane, mighty Bruce and sexy women. I got all of that and more. However, the extra I got from the quality of the special effects, the design of the weird flying or road machines and the actors play I lost on the plot.
They have tried so hard to make it more that they made something different. Yes, Batman is a workaholic in disguise, obsessed of saving the city of Gotham, yes, Morgan Freeman knows all and, yes, in the end good prevails in a dark world. We already knew that when we started watching the film. All the extra stuff they've put in was just spam. The legend of the Pit, the megalomaniac threat to the city, the people that just stay put because they have no bridge, the ridiculous fighting scenes when Batman is either too weak or too strong and he doesn't use any of the tech to actually help him win the fight, all of these made it feel like I was watching a bad movie blown up to gigantic proportions.
The actors. I liked Tom Hardy in the fighter and he made this film, as well. He is clearly a talented actor and this is his rise (see what I did there?). Christian Bale was almost not present in the film. He smiled a little, then cried a little, did some pushups and got screwed by every woman he met. Anne Hathaway has a rather hard to buy role, but she was more than OK and helped make the film seem more complex than it actually was. Gary Oldman was useful, but not really doing anything complicated. As for the others in the full cast of the film, they barely registered.
Bottom line: the entire plot is based on characters from the previous movies by Nolan. You should refresh your memory on those before you watch it. The feeling of the film is impressive because they tried very hard to make it so, but all the cool scenes you can watch in the trailer and the rest is a convoluted plot that doesn't make a lot of sense. The film is redeemed by the great quality of its making, meaning well spent big budget, and of the actors play. All in all, an average movie, but fun nevertheless. Oh, and Robin doesn't suck.