This movie went exactly as I feared after watching the trailers. I think the best way for me to describe this one is "vapid". The first two movies were fantastic for two reasons: First, they were set in a realistic world, and second, the villains were well developed, both in their own characters and in their conflicts with Batman. For all their efforts, I never got the impression that Bane was anything more than a 'roided up thug while his conflict with Batman was as deep as a bottle cap. Ras al Ghul and Joker were far superior foils.
On Harvey Dent:
On lost realism:
Spoiler!
This is where the movie utterly fell down for me. The entire siege of Gotham was completely unrealistic, right up to the point where the outside authorities do absolutely nothing about it. 12 million people have apparently descended into anarchy and other than the ridiculous court scenes, it doesn't seem life has changed much for anyone but the important characters.
I did, however, get a good chuckle out of "So you choose Death ...by exile!" line.
Others loved it, but I HATED the football stadium scene. Both because it was a prime example of the "bigger 'splosions makes for a better story" fallacy, and because it was unrealistic. The football player doesn't realize the world is collapsing below his feet? The stadium itself is perfectly untouched? The crowd simply stops and stares for the most part? Brutal.
Finally, you invent a plot device that has a five-month timer, after which it will become too unstable and blow up. And yet, they can somehow bounce the damn thing around like a basketball within minutes of boom time (as if they'd know precisely when) without consequence? That entire "months to detonate" bit should have just been written out for how worthless it was, given the end game was Talia hitting the trigger instead.
Honestly, this one fell down as badly as Spiderman 3 and Matrix Revolutions did.
(un)fortunately...