The Dark Knight Flop

Rating: 4/10 (29 July 2012)

I've never been a huge fan of these new Batman movies like everyone else seems to be, but I recognized as an avid movie-goer how well constructed the first two were in the series, and therefore how enjoyable they were to watch for the characters, story, and cinematography.
That being said, nothing in this film works.
First of all, why write in an 8-year span in the canon between TDK and TDKR if you're not ever going to fill in that back story, at least with even a little bit of fluff? That was the first thing that put me off. Along with that bit of poor writing, you have the "too many bad guys" effect; Bane is built as the main bad guy for the entire movie, then is undercut in the most horrible way, and then the "overarching" bad guy comes in and gets taken out within 10-20 minutes of revealing themselves. And then there's the threat of a nuke. Ugh.
My second quarrel is with the characters. You're introduced to three or four new characters right from the beginning of the movie and only one of them gets a developed back story. Now I know this isn't LotR where the story is essential, but seriously? Catwoman acts with zero moral ramifications, but by the end of the movie she's suddenly a good guy? (And I won't go on about how horrible Anne Hathaway was) Batman is hardly ever on screen and when he is it's mostly to get his ass kicked by Bane. Now I liked Gordon-Levitt's character because it added a normality to an otherwise frequently unrealistic (and here I'll mention the doctor in the Pit) sequence of events, but I didn't feel any depth to his character. Bane was... disappointing. You can't understand him half the time and he is no where near as terrifying as the Joker. He's supposed to be cruel and calculating and downright evil, and the biggest threat he asserts is a nuclear device... lame. And then Miranda/Talia: well, let's just say I was unhappy with her character as a whole.
The action is so stylized that you can almost see the gap between the character's punches and reactions; it's so cheesy. The gadgets are something we've seen before, other than the Bat (but that gets blown up in the nuke and hardly ever does anything anyway). The fight between the mercenaries and the police was corny, unrealistic, and stupid. I mean, they're firing pistols and AKs and there's no gunshot wounds. Seriously? Then there's the end. Oh God, what did they do with the ending? I honestly felt like the ending was written by M. Night Shyamalan. It was THAT terrible. It left gaping holes in the plot, showed a lack of interest in the direction of the movie, and was just ludicrous.
So in summary, not a terrible movie by today's standards, but I thoroughly disliked every bit of it.