As a whole this is an effective conclusion to Nolan's Batman trilogy, but it's not without it's flaws

Rating: 7/10 (24 July 2012)

Where the last two films in Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy played more or less like fairly intimate stories in the Batman universe, this one feels like it's going for the biggest scale it possibly could, with as much destruction and as many thugs as you can fit on screen. The problem here is the unrelentingness of everything that settles in at about the halfway mark. It grows tiring long before the climax kicks in because it's just too much of everything.
Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) has become a recluse and "Batman" has gone into hiding for the past 8 years since Harvey Dent's death. After an encounter with a cat burglar, Selena Kyle (Anne Hathaway) and an inspiring speech from his butler Alfred (Michael Caine), Bruce decides he needs to go back out to social events, and begin fighting crime as Batman again. Meanwhile, masked terrorist Bane (Tom Hardy), and a large group of followers take over Gotham city, destroying all ways of leaving or coming in, with the threat of setting off a nuclear bomb located on the island. Meanwhile (yet again), Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) is severely injured by Bane and stuck in the hospital, a new hot head cop John Blake (Joseph Gordon Levitt) is trying to stop Bane through detective work, and Wayne board member Miranda Tate (Marion Cotillard) is given control of Wayne Enterprises. Bane massacres Bruce Wayne and throws him into a prison located elsewhere, and it's up to Bruce to summon his strength to try and escape. Meanwhile the criminals take over Gotham and anarchy ensues.
There are a lot of characters here, but they are balanced in their sub-plots quite well. Anne Hathaway gives a really good performance as "Catwoman", both hamming it up at times, and also remaining quite subtle when appropriate. Levitt is also a good addition to the cast, as we have a character to care about that is fighting crime, but through detective work and not through being placed in the action like ol' Batman. Having so many main characters was nice to try and avoid repetition, though from the last hour plus, it doesn't work well enough.
The film grows somewhat boring by about the halfway mark. The pace becomes unrelenting, and it's just somewhat of a sensory overload. The editing is quick, the shots are quick, and while stuff is happening and Gotham is about to become a smoldering pit, too much is happening too quickly. And when the villains take over Gotham, you begin thinking of scenarios that would happen with the people of Gotham, and how they would react, but nothing does. They pretty much just go into hiding. Unrealistically, no vigilantes even try to take some of the villains out, but whatever, that's not what the movie is about.
This movie is not above running on many action movie clichés that feel like they belong in lesser pictures. People saving others at the last minute after seemingly coming out of nowhere, and the old everybody else gets killed but the main characters (for no real reason), and then of course many coincidences that happen to effect the outcome of the picture. The same clichés you'd see in a movie like "Sahara" from a few years back are prominently used here. Character motives also seem to be slightly off. Why does Batman turn to Catwoman for help exactly? No real logical reason except to pair the two up.
Hans Zimmer's score is effective in driving the action, in that his music here mainly consists of low strings acting almost as drums to move everything along. It drives the action, but at the same time is extremely generic and not very interesting, but it does keep a rhythm going in the action. And unlike Inception, the generic weepy Zimmer music doesn't intrude on scenes that are trying to be emotional. It's a step up from Inception's score in that regard, but is still quite mediocre.
The climax of the film is nice. After all the twists and turns are introduced, it gets down to the heart of the story, and the last ten minutes or so, minus some coincidental and corny moments, are really good and satisfying. For the most part, the conclusion to the film is satisfying and works on an emotional level.
This film concludes the Dark Knight trilogy quite well. It's an imperfect film, with a lot of drag time in the middle of the picture, and just a few too many clichés thrown in, but the ending is mostly very nice, and as a whole, the picture is entertaining, full of action, and enough happens to justify it's nearly three hour length.
My rating: *** out of ****. 165 mins. PG-13 for nonstop action violence.