Sound imbalance between soft spoken dialog and music or explosions...

Rating: 6/10 (7 August 2012)

The technical errors in THE DARK KNIGHT RISES are enough to warn viewers that they'll wish there were subtitles for some of the quiet scenes between Marion Cotillard and/or Anne Hathaway, both of whom have a habit of dropping their voices at key moments. Miss Cotillard has whole sentences that are key to an understanding of her character that are barely intelligible. Surely, whoever designed the audio mix has some explaining to do.
Otherwise, fans will get their money's worth of action and thrills despite a lumbering plot that takes far too long to unwind after a breathtaking opening shot involving mid-air hostages.
And the performances are uniformly fine from the large cast--Christian Bale, Tom Hardy, Anne Hathaway, Matthew Modine, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Gary Oldman and Michael Caine. But the flaws are there in the script which has too many strands of sub-plots to cover and too many humiliating fights between Bane and Batman before the man of steel redeems himself again.
Nevertheless, there are moments where it kicks into high gear between some dull stretches. Christopher Nolan sees to it that the action sequences are given top priority to any other values inherent in the script.
Personally, I still prefer the first and second "Batman" films to this one which is sometimes too muddled in content. Biggest drawback is the fact that the sound mix of voices vs. explosions (and Hans Zimmer's music) has been poorly handled at key moments in plot development.
Fans of "Batman" will probably overlook these weaknesses in the long run, but I felt they should be pointed out.