An epic conclusion to a great modern trilogy

Rating: 9/10 (24 July 2012)

It's eight years later and Batman has still not emerged from exile after taking the blame for the death of Harvey Dent. However, as a result of Harvey Dent's new law, crime in Gotham has essentially been eradicated. The city lives in peace until the emergence of a masked terrorist who's driven to destroy Gotham and he forces Batman to return to save it once again.
As I expected, this was an action spectacle (especially the last third), had a great soundtrack, some really cool special effects and much more adult, darker themes. Like it's predecessor, this is an action movie for grown ups. It was ambitious, grand and very entertaining; it never really felt anywhere close to 3 hours as the pacing was mostly good and when it wasn't there were always interesting story arcs of morality, duty and bravery sprinkled throughout.
The performances were very good. Bane as the villain was *fantastic*, to say the least. His brooding anger and blatant disregard were tonnes of fun and his dialogue was some of the more interesting moments of the film. This was the first villain in a film I actually feared in some time (unlike say Loki in The Avengers that was almost cartoonish). Anne Hathaway almost stole the show as Catwoman. She was clever, funny and sexy as hell in the role and to be honest, just seemed to fit it to a tee. I loved EVERY scene she was in. Bale is good as well and stronger than he was in the earlier films as you got to see a different side of Batman than what we've been treated to so far. But it seems once again he was out shined by great supporting performances, like Michael Cane who had the most moving performance in the film. His scenes seemed to be the most compelling and affected me the most (this rarely happens in an action movies).
I will say though, I believe that The Dark Knight had better performances and I found myself not as emotionally invested in this as I was the 2nd film. The performances from Ledger, Oldman and Eckhart were just incredible and were difficult to top. Ledger's Joker remains unchallenged as one of the most incredible performances I've ever witnessed in a film. As good as this film was, I appreciate the 2nd one more now as it took the genre of comic book films to new, unseen heights; heights Nolan wasn't able to top with this film. Yes, I know I'm nit picking here, it was almost impossible for him to top The Dark Knight and I wasn't expecting him to. There are a few surprises in store and especially if you managed to avoid the rumours and spoilers. And I really appreciated that this wasn't in 3D. Hopefully Hollywood figures out it's not about making more and more 3D movies and special effects to get people out to the theatre. It's about making good movies, because everything else is just icing.
I definitely watched it with a heavy heart. Knowing what happened in Colorado, it no doubt quieted my enthusiasm for the film a bit (I'd be lying if I said it didn't affect me to be perfectly honest). In time I'm sure I'll appreciate this film a lot more. But it's not fair to hold that against the film and it didn't affect my score. At the end of the day, I went to the movies, I saw a great film and LOVED the experience. So that douche bag LOSES and our love of the movies WINS!
In the end, I would say it was very memorable, satisfying and a great conclusion to the series. This is the best film I've seen so far this year to date and worthy of the ovation it got as the credits rolled.
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