Everyone has some sort ideals relate to justice and heroism though.

That is where we are usually the most idealistic

That indeed was there, as it was in the last film even moreso with the issue of how far do we go to fighting terrorism.

However, I'm not sure the film really took a side like some people are saying. Both sides were wrong in the film. The leaders who lied to the public about Harvey Dent and used it to justify draconian punishments were bad -- even though they got the good result of little crime -- and the ones who led an armed revolution against them and turned the place into an anarchist's dream were also bad.

That's what I meant when I said it didn't have a political point of view. It had politics, yes, but it wasn't saying one side was wrong and the other was right.

I loved it

The one thing TDK always lacked is that this film was actually very entertaining, as well as a convincing and effective plot that raises the bar from the one established in Batman Begins. TDK was a good movie, but the whole Joker does this, Joker does that, He's the White Knight, I'm The Dark Knight was pretty lame and lazy. And for a film grounded in reality Joker was the most unrealistic character of the entire series.

The acting is top notch all around, and Bane is a terrifying matchup to both Bruce and Batman, and in many cases the polar opposite and even more shockingly how similar they are. Their motivations for their own version of "Gotham's Reckoning" is just the slightest of differences, that impact the city in majorly different ways. I actually like the Rocky III plot that it adopts. A cocky hero returns from retirement, gets is ass handed to him, changes his morals and style, and becomes and even purer form of himself. I loved Neesan's cameo and even though the final act was not really fleshed out. The action is great, with the sewer fight being just amazing. Ann Hathaway puts all the negativity to rest, and brings respect back to the character.

I actually would have preferred the film ending at the stadium destruction, and the film picking up with Gotham in ruins, batman destroyed. The battle for Gotham is a let down, but the final chase is great with a touching and powerful ending. A 2nd film would have really fleshed out a 3rd act that should have been a movie of its own. While I think the Robin reveal is a little lame, the idea of Batman representing everyone in Gotham is Nolan's best message he could have ever left.

And the ending is real. Just because he directed Inception, doesn't mean everything is a dream. And Inception's ending was real too. Just like in Memento he killed his wife, and just like the endings of Insomnia and Prestige are cut and dry. It's Bruce's final gift of Alfred to show how much he loved him and that he was right all along. The ending being fake would negate the entire point of the film. The fear of moving on after heartbreak and tragedy is heavy for a Batman film, but it plays so well in here.

It's a great end to a great series.

Batman Begins A+
The Dark Knight A
The Dark Knight Rises A+

Nolan is still betting 1000 with me.

"leaders who lied to the public about Harvey Dent and used it to justify draconian punishments were bad "


Batman agreed to that as well, Batman wanted to keep him as a hero to inspire people to fight back against crime.

Also considering how bad crime was the only way to fix Gotham was to crack down.

Chaos > Fear

Yeah, this is my favorite of the Nolan series. It combines all the best elements of the previous two into one mega movie.

Had this discussion with some coworkers at lunch who had seen the film, one noteworthy point made was though Batman is clearly against guns, he ditches this logic and shoots the truck driver dead when he HAS to. Interesting that Batman ditches his moral authority in the face imminent mega crisis i.e. comes the conclusion that preventing the nuke from going off is worth ditching his code of values and murdering the guy without thinking twice.

He also obviously is responsible for killing Talia. DK if that is politics or reading into it to much, but I found it worth noting.

I remember back when the Catwoman pictures came out. I was wondering how Nolan would fit that silly costume into his universe. In his universe, costumes need to have a point to being how they are, and Cat's costume seemed to be just for style. Turns out she was wearing that costume even before she started helping out Batman, so she didn't start wearing for any particular reason.

Batman and Nolan are realist...

Ideals and values such as not using guns work in normal times.

But in times of crisis you have to act in different ways.

I'm at a loss of words. This was too much to take it all in with just one viewing. Seeing it again in a few hours.

BB - 8.5/10
TDKR - 8/10
TDK - 8/10

After two viewings, I definitely prefer this one to TDK. Still prefer BB over both sequels, but overall it is a very good trilogy. I love how much TDKR ties in with BB. Good finish, Mr. Nolan.

Yeah it's nice that he didn't ignore BB, thinking that it was much less popular than TDK. Instead it's TDK that is somewhat overlooked. I understand that Nolan didn't want to talk about the Joker, but it would have been nice to hear at least a few words about him. At least they come back on the whole Dent-going-insane thing.

The ending of TDK I found better due to the epic speech.

Actually I would say at least tied...

The Statue Scene was great, was one of the moments that I will remember these films by...

Well unlike traditional comics, the joker wasn't the dominant force of the series. I mean because of Nicholson the villains always had a large impact on the other films. It's nice to see Nolan do his own story while also being faithful to the mythology. It's more his own limited comic series.

I preferred Batman Begins to TDKR, just. TDK is much much lower on the scale. I don't think it's a good movie.

There were many problems with TDKR, albeit small ones. I wasn't overly expecting a great movie in the first place since BB and TDK both let me down when I saw them in 2005 and 2008.

BB - 8/10
TDKR - 7/10
TDK - 5/10

TDKR wasn't too long, I had no problem with the running time. My problem was that there wasn't any heroic shots of Batman. A comicbook hero movie needs that, and that was lacking. It was very stop-starty. I didn't see the twist coming, which wasn't a great one anyway. When Bane dies, that was the shittest scene ever. At least show us him getting torn apart or something. What's with the zoomed in camera shots all the time? When Batman has Bane on the floor and is talking to Talia, we should be able to see Bane at least. Didn't like seeing Hardy's face in the prison, and I hated it when she says "Should use your real name, Robin" CRINGEWORTHY!

Most of the scenes were good, and the fighting was a little better than BB where you couldn't see anything. The finale was a bit of a letdown, and I think at the very end that Nolan shouldn't have shown Bale at the table with Catwoman, he should have just shown Alfred nodding, then cut. Would have been better.

Robin finding the Bat cave was silly too. You can't have Robin without Batman, so it was silly. I know there will be no more movies, but still.

The main thing that annoyed me was that all I was waiting for was to see how it ends. Once you know that, there's nothing really to make you excited about the film. For example, I cannot remember one scene where I could say "that was awesome", unlike The Avengers, which had many more moneyshots.

I still firmly believe that Batman is a character that can't be grounded in reality. This trilogy isn't as good as Batman (1989) and Batman Forever. Batman is a camp character, and making it gritty and dark and real just makes it more irritating. The animated series' are the best, and they are OTT, which makes them great. That said, I am looking forward to Man of Steel for its reality and grit.

Overall: 7/10

?

I was thinking the same thing. Batman is a pretty dark character, in a pretty dark universe. Much more than Spider-Man, X-Men...

Wait, so Batman is supposed to be campy and you're looking forward to a gritty Superman movie? That makes sense...

Superman should actually be less serious imo...

You know, TDKR is actually ahead of TDK and Avengers at IMDB's user ratings. Of course it has many less votes and it will likely go down. Still, it has only 50% less votes than Avengers, and it's 0.4 points ahead. But it has like 6x less votes than TDK.

I think it fall to around 8.8 ish..


TA will fall to around 8.4 or so...

i like how nobody metions nolan version of the lazarus pit. how it brings men back to life

? You mean the prison from which Bruce climbed out of?

In your opinion Batman is a dark character, but for me he is not. I don't think it works when Batman is dark and mature. I prefer it when Batman hits his enemies and KAPOW!

Whereas with Superman, I'm intrigued to see a dark and gritty version.

but Batman IS a dark character