If you didn’t see my earlier entry, let me recap here:
I really love the Batman movies. The ones by Christopher Nolan. I’ve been watching them repeatedly since Batman Begins came out seven years ago. I’ve obsessed over them and in no gentle way.
Partly this has to do with the fact that I grew up with the best cartoon Batman ever and partly it has to do with the general awesomeness of what Nolan accomplished with all three movies.
With the newest movie, Nolan has tied it all up, neat and tight. From beginning to end it’s a thoroughly satisfying narrative. He has managed to tell a story with all three movies in a way few directors could (Peter Jackson cheated by doing all three at once and using a single unified source. George Lucas uses plot holes to shore up a cliched story-arc.) They’re not perfect. I will not defend them to the death. There are gaps in logic and weird puns and stumbling lines and some oddly terrible actors hiding amidst stellar performances.
Speaking of which, Anne Hathaway surprised me. I’ve never had much of an opinion about her or her acting, but she took a character I could care less about and made me care. She was funny and bad-ass and stole almost every scene she was in.
But then, in general, The Dark Knight Rises manages to hit all the right notes. And here and there, they hearken back to the two earlier movies without hitting the audience with a sledgehammer. There are mirrored lines and motivations and scenes that vibrate along those sympathetic wave lengths that make you turn to the person next to you and say, “Remember from Batman Begins when that thing with the thing happened?”
And at the end, satisfaction, because it feels like this was how it was always going to end. It doesn’t feel contrived or forced. It’s a natural outcome of events as dictated by the actions of the characters.
And it was the best ending for a series I’ve been following for seven years.
Godspeed Batman.
-D-
dylancharles.net 
Lol, I saw your signature at the end and thought you gave it a “D” and was very confused. Good to see that wasn’t the case 🙂
Anyways good review, I feel like Nolan’s Batman movies have been a great unifying point for most cinefiles like us and there’s something very satisfying about seeing the series end on such a high (albeit maybe not as high as the Dark Knight) note. I just saw it for the second time in two days and I definitely recommend giving it a second viewing if you have the chance, I noticed a lot more finer points the second time that helped me build up a bit more understanding for a great deal of the latter half of the film
Shameless plug (we all do them some time or another, lol) Feel free to check out my review if you’re interested, I’ll be coming out with a series of reviews specifically digging into specific characters/plot points so I’d love to hear back from some of my fellow bloggers in a more spoiler-laiden zone
http://rorschachreviews.com/2012/07/20/dark-knight-rises-review-part-1-shock-and-awe/
After seeing The Dark Knight Rises over the weekend. I still think that TDK is the better movie because of the writing and the acting. Heath Ledger’s Joker beats Tom Hardy’s Bane by a mile. Christian Bale continues as a decent Batman, but I do not appreciate the Nolan’s Dark Knight because of him. And let’s not forget Aaron Eckhart as Dent/Two Face.
I definitely feel that The Dark Knight was the best of the series; in terms of plotting, pacing and script, it was a very tight movie. But I think the acting in both was about equal and I think the female leads were far more interesting in this movie than in the previous movies. Anne Hathaway was the best on-screen Catwoman ever, no contest.
While it was far from perfect, DKR was a great end to the series and was filled with brilliant moments, even if those moments weren’t strung together in the most efficient way.
Listen to some of the smart ass stuff A Hathaway says in real life and it might explain where some of Catwoman’s sauciness came from.