More like "Bane: The Movie"

Rating: 6/10 (20 July 2012)

Wow, how to begin. I'll start by saying I WANTED TO LOVE AND ADORE AND CHERISH THIS MOVIE. The Dark Knight is one of my all time favourite movies ever, and I love Batman Begins almost as much, but in my opinion, The Dark Knight Rises missed the mark.
First thing first, where is the Batman? In the 165 minutes of this movie, it seems like he was hardly in it! Looooooong periods of time go by where we don't see any of the Bat, or Bruce Wayne for that matter. It's almost like Batman was a secondary character in comparison with all the Bane and Blake screen time.
I have no feels for the villains. When watching TDK, you don't want the Joker to win, you don't think he's a good person, you don't empathize with him, BUT YOU LOVE HIM ANYWAY! I didn't feel anything for Bane, and when Miranda reveals her identity and you learn a bit about Bane's story it's just like... cool flashback bro. And then Bane's character gets completely tossed aside to make way for Talia, who you don't really care about either! They throw in a random tiny romance between her and Bruce, and we're supposed to feel all betrayed when it turns out she's bad? Not gonna happen, don't care.
Also disappointing was the lack of humour and the seemingly endless corny dialogue. When Bruce gets out of that hole thing and goes after Bane, Bane says something along the lines of "You've come back to watch Gotham burn." to which Batman says "No, I've come back to stop you." WHAT? BATMAN CAME BACK TO STOP BANE!? NO F'IN WAY. MIND BLOWN. Thanks Bruce, we weren't sure what your motives were for putting on your Batsuit and going back. I felt like Alfred was the only source of decent humour, and emotions. The only two times I got choked up were because of him!
Was it a good conclusion to the trilogy? Yes. There's definitely a nice finality about it. The acting was amazing (even Anne Hathaway did a pretty stellar job), and the effects were spectacular, but there were too many new characters and twists that really took away from the story. I'll definitely see it a few more times, but as someone who was hoping for a movie to trump (or at least be on par) with the first two, it was a real let down.