The following is my opinion. I wrote a more well thought out, cohesive review for my town's paper and got twice as many mail in total than for any review in my three years working there combined. These are just my thoughts, and while I respect the general consensus of the film, I disagree with a majority of it.
With that said, my number two disappointing film would have to be TDKR. I knew it wouldn't be as good as TDK, but I didn't expect to find it to be the black sheep of the trilogy and well as the red headed stepchild of Nolan's entire filmography.
With that said it was a good film, but had WAY to many flaws for me to ever considered great. Nolan's characters have never really stroke a chord with me, but Caine and Oldman have been an exception. So needless to say I was a little upset that Blake, Dagget, and Foley took much of their screen time. Dagget didn't need to be on the screen as much as he did, and the Foley side plot was focused on way too much. Hathaway was the closest thing I've gotten to having a female character from Nolan that I enjoyed, but I never really found the character to be that engaging. It might have been that her character arc was predictable from the start, but I just didn't like her nearly as much as most people who praised her have.
Honestly I didn't care for Blake to much either. Even my good friends who liked the film less than I did thought he was the best character, but I don't see it. [BLACKOUT]The story needed more Bruce Wayne/Batman not some character whose every scene was clearly constructed to help establish himself as the successor. Maybe it was just pre-release chatter, but it was obvious right from the start which direction they wanted to take the character in. I also thought his deduction of Bruce's identity was eye roll worthy. [/BLACKOUT]
Besides his voice which they could have made more menacing I loved Bane in this-but seriously imagine Darth Vador with Bane's voice, I just couldn't wrap myself around how silly it was. But his entire character was ruined for me with the end finale. For me it completely destroyed everything I felt for this villain, and as a fan of every movie Nolan has done, I believe it to be one of the worst decisions he has made. Not only did the now infamous "reveal" undermine his character, but his demise was completely anti-climatic. I've never rolled my eyes during a Nolan film, but I did just that four or five times for this one.
[BLACKOUT] Like Blake, the entire angle of "Talia" was way to obvious for me. The close up of the scar, Bruce sleeping with a chick who otherwise had about as much presence as Morgan Freeman, I saw through it right away. Again, my subconscious may have been recalling earlier internet rumors, but that really doesn't take away from the fact. [/BLACKOUT] The movie would have been much better without her involvement. SIDE NOTE: Can anyone recall a movie that had more rumors and predictions come true?
Ironically, my favorite act was the second; the only part of the movie that those who loved it generally feel was the weakest. The prison scenes were excellent, albeit mostly improbable. The motivation to lose the rope while on the climb was pure Nolan brilliance. Loved how the prison pit was a direct sendoff of the well Bruce fell in from Batman Begins. For all of it's obvious flaws, the movie did a great job of keeping in tune with the theme of "Why do we fall."
I'm not one of "those guys" who claims this film had plotholes or anything. It honestly just underwhelmed me. I still hold TDK is the best CMB of all time, and Nolan is clearly one of the best directors in the biz. Yeah I was more excited to see The Avengers, but I still thought that TDKR would have gotten much better acclaim from critics and audiences, so I was surprised that wasn't necessarily the case. But even the little things I loved about the first two weren't there. In fact it was the opposite. I thought having the climax in the day made the contrast between Batman's black costume looked as ridiculous as Captain America, and so on. The imagery of this film in particular just wasn't as memorable/epic as the first two were.
I'd give the film a 6 or 7 overall because there was a lot I liked. But even with all the flaws, I can't get around how horrible I thought the ending was. I don't think I could ever rate this movie any higher than a 7 for that fact alone. Definitely one of the top ten trilogies of all time, but this and to a lesser extent BB make it a tough sell to rank it along with Star Wars, LOTR, and the Dollars trilogy.
