dahlia_moon | The Dark Knight Rises

First things first, the lovely bits:

Alfred
Selina
John Blake (whom, I take it, fandom agrees is an amalgamation of the first two/three robins at least? I did see a little bit of Jason's history and Dick's mashed together and maybe if you turned your head sideways, there was a little bit of Tim there too - particularly the finding out on his own that Bruce = Batman - something that even JIM GORDON didn't know until like the very last minute, which just isn't right but well...it's Nolan's interpretation).
Talia Al Ghul (and the twist! I SO DID NOT SEE THAT)
OWEN HARPER!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN THE BATMAN UNIVERSE?

and the bad bits (at least for me):

felt way too disconnected. I guess I should say that I haven't seen the other two Nolanverse films, so maybe that contributed to that feeling for me
the way that the poor people were represented as the evil here, next to Bane and Talia (I did feel bad for Talia and Bane, who grew up in horrid circumstances). Like the only thing that poor people could be to survive in Gotham is to be criminals. And that, somehow, the rich and the wealthy were the sad victims here.

So no, I didn't think it was the greatest movie ever, but it wasn't bad either (the moments when Batman swooped in and fought the bad guys, I squealed a little bit inside and the car chases were exciting. I might be apathetic to Batman movies overall, but goddamn, I love what the man stands for, even if the movie'verse always veers toward the comical for me when it's supposed to be all SERIOUS BUSINESS). I also did cry a bit there at the near end when Bruce sacrifices himself to get the atom bomb away from Gotham even though instinctively I knew there was no way that death would stick. And also, possibly because TDKR took parts of the No Man's Land comic plot, I believe - haven't read it yet, but the whole blowing up of Gotham's bridges and its citizens being stranded there did sound familiar - and he's not dead there.

As much as I love Batman, he's not my most favorite superhero (that honor goes to Spider-Man) and I don't really like the dark and gritty that is so often associated with him, but to each their own.