A movie for serious fans which doesn't quite meet it's full potential

Rating: 6/10 (22 July 2012)

(I've written this with (minimum?/)no spoilers, so I refer to parts of the film subtly. Don't read on if you're concerned about reading vague references to plot twists) OK, I now have the confidence to say this on this public forum due to a friend who totally agrees with my view. I thought the new Batman movie was poor! I spent much of the film fighting off boredom and after leaving I summarised it my head as: nothing really happened until the end. It wasn't a smart or clever film, just processional. Someone goes here, someone goes there. It was very predictable and unoriginal. There were no - "aww, I never saw that coming" moments - except of course with a certain baddie at the end, but by then, I didn't care, and it didn't really fit with the character they had built up. It was an uncomfortable and poor plot twist that felt forced almost like it was added quite late when they realised they had no surprise twists (perhaps that was due to the person playing the role?). The only surprising part for me was the girl who was sitting at the table at the end in Alfred's last scene, and it's nice that the character with her has a nice happy ending, even if this feel-good idea is out of place with the rest of the movies dark depressed feel and theme.
There seemed to be too much time 'waiting' for something to happen when we already knew what was going on. They could have cut out half an hour out of the middle of this film and it wouldn't have made any difference.
My biggest complaint is that I couldn't understand a word Bain was saying and his neck movements didn't match with his garbled vocal patterns that were supposed to be speech. It felt like a voice track recorded on top in post production, which I found very distracting. As an actor, he couldn't express anything at all with that stupid mask on his face. This made him a very boring and one dimensional character. There was never anything real, genuine or human about him, which made him unrelatable as a human being. He wasn't a flawed villain (like all good baddies should be) but just like some sort of unrelatable alien monster.
When I think back to the sensationally good performance of Heath Ledger in the last Batman movie it saddens me. Ledgers portrayal of The Joker was totally amazing! So deep, screwed up and totally unpredictable, but in a totally believable psychotic way. Anne Hathaway was OK as Catwoman, but she pales into insignificance compared with Michelle Pfeiffer's portrayal in the 90's films.
I know many of you will dislike me for writing this post, but I wanted to give voice to the people who went open minded and came away disappointed. It's very popular with fans in it's opening days, but I don't think this film rose to its full potential. I'm not a huge Batman fan, but I'm reviewing as a movie fan: there was a lot of wooden acting and the plot was very dull and predictable.
This is a film to be enjoyed by fans of the franchise. They will have less of a problem overlooking some of these performances and soporific plots.