Review: Dark Knight Rises

Personally, I like this image over the movie poster.

The third and final installment of the Dark Knight Trilogy is a wonderful conclusion to yet another take on the Caped Crusader.  The purpose of this trilogy is to try to add more realism to Gotham City and its denizens.  So no Smile-X gas, no Sugar and Spice, and no bombs you can't get rid of.  At least that's mostly true...both the first and third movies in this set have some Hollywood science that breaks apart easily if you actually stop to think about it, so it's best to just ignore those parts.

Following the end result of The Dark Knight, this movie starts off with Gotham City living in peace and free from organized crime due to the lie that Batman killed Harvey Dent, thus saving his spotless image, which was somehow needed to put away the crime lords...because I guess trials in Gotham City are based on popularity contests between the defendants and prosecutors and not evidence...or something...anyway, since Batman is no longer needed to clean up Gotham City (and he's a wanted man) he has disappeared and Bruce Wayne has become a recluse, feeling he has nothing left to live for with the loss of Rachel (who could also be called Two Face).

In steps Bane to mess up the peace and Catwoman to make things awesome (seriously, Anne Hathaway as Catwoman is amazing).  This movie has plenty of twists and turns and ups and downs, so I don't really want to wreck anything.  The only things of note are the aforementioned Hollywood science and Bane's character really has no depth whatsoever.  He's kind of just a mercenary leader who is strong.  And likes to hold the lapels of his jackets.  A lot.  But I'm actually kind of okay with the lack of depth because he's definitely better than previous Banes and I'm not sure if Bane really needs much depth.  It was weird that the whole Venom steroid thing that Bane usually has going on is completely MIA in this movie, but just like the lack of Joker's killing with a smile, it's probably for the best for this series since those are harder to suspend disbelief for given the level of realism.

Other than that, the only flaw is that the movie needs more Anne Hathaway, but I don't think I'd be satisfied unless the entire movie was just her.  That'd be way more watchable than a certain other "Catwoman" movie.