Ambitious, a little shaky, but makes for a good capper.

Rating: 7/10 (24 March 2015)

There's a lot riding on this movie after "The Dark Knight", but "The Dark Knight Rises" does a pretty good job delivering on the third installment promise. And just like before, it's populated by great actors (adding in Cotillard, Hardy and Gordon Levitt). It's befitting of the Nolan brand. The big grinding plot machine is a little top-heavy, but it picks up the threads from both prior movies and sews them into something of a finish. Indeed, everything's all wrapped up with a tidy bow. Except for that line about the auto-pilot. That was flinch that smacked of having the ending both ways.
An even though I'm still not sure on Darth Va- I mean Bane's voice (yeesh, he was unintelligible in the theater), give Tom Hardy credit for doing something different with the character. Bale's still rocking that awful Batvoice (I guess it's too late in the game to change it now); Bane and Bats make quite a pair in this movie.
The movie's best feature (for me) is Catwoman. Hathaway's gorgeous, sassy, makes for a fine cat burglar, and even though I'm never hot on multiple bad guys in a Batman movie, she fits well enough into the narrative. That was always Nolan's gift with these movies: his handling of the rogues gallery. It's not that there are too many bad guys, it's that they mesh as pawns of one another. They still show up, but aren't crowding room.
7/10