[Cecil Terwilliger]

Just saw it again yesterday and even though it is probably past the point of anyone caring enough to read it, here are my thoughts. One quick note, I've listened to Kevin Smith's breakdown on the film so if some of this seems similar, that's because it is. I agreed with almost his entire review/analysis from start to finish, including what he calls minor quibbles (and what EE calls movie hating amateur critic dbagery)


-man I loved Bane. Loved the voice, the characterization and unlike others I felt that the fact that he wasn't the leader of the LoS didn't diminish his role in any way at all. In fact his "love" story with Talia, which was really only revealed for about 4 mins towards the end of the film, was wonderful.

- Littlefinger was the CIA guy and Quinn was the cop on the bridge. Nothing to do with anything, just thought I'd mention it. Oh and the doctor was the LOTR nerd from that Zac Effron movie with Matthew Perry (don't ask me why I've seen that)

-Not a huge fan of how they started with Batman already having been on hiatus for 8 years. Seems out of character for Bruce Wayne. It seemed like the speech Alfred gives him about 10 minutes into the movie (about the cafe in France) should have come closer to the midpoint of the film, not right at the start.

-Anne Hathaway was awesome. Loved the scene when she went from being the innocent maid girl to the confident cat burgler in the opening scene at Wayne's house. Even her facial expression went from demure to devious in about 2 seconds. Great ass too.

-I won't get into too many details about the progression in the plot or how some sequences don't seem to fit seemlessly into the movie. Nolan's movies will never be big on having good pacing and I'm not about to rehash all my thoughts on his filmmaking again as I've already done it in this thread. All I'll say is that I found the non-logical or sensical plot elements to be less distracting here than they were in TDK (although I've seen TDK about 15 times so maybe that is why) Which brings me to the one thing I can't resist mentioning again...

-The astronomically stupid stock exchange thing still bothered me. I still can't fathom how no one, NO ONE!!, in Gotham or apparently the world was the slightest bit curious as to why there was a cyber-terrorist attack on the stock exchange one day and the very next day Wayne's trades went through and no one from Bruce Wayne to Wayne Ent to the media even mentioned it. Like I said, Nolan isn't real good at connecting plot points in a good, sensical manner. They are cool enough you kinda forget how silly it was that you got to that point and usually I can let most of it go. This one was too stupid. Only thing "good movie" wise that I couldn't rationalize to myself.

-As mentioned the one nerd thing that bothered me was the name of Dick Greyson. Can't believe they changed that. Just appalling.

-Now I'll actually address some of the other quibbles that have been brought up.

-His knees - I'm surpirsed they didn't explain this better. It would have been such an easy fix to just say that the knee brace thing from Wayne Ent R&D helped restore cartilidge. Instead they just ignored it. Weird. Once again though, it perhaps healed in the prison which resembled the Lazarus Pit from the comics which does have the power to restore life and well being (or some such ####).

-Alfred leaving - heard a few people complain that this was contrived and it was silly for his life long best friend and second father to just walk out on him. Yes it was a bit contrived I'll admit, but it made sense. Otherwise Bane and the riots would have affected him and we can't have Alfred dying now can we? In fact, this is one of the few times I applaud Nolan for actually thinking about the common sense aspect of the plot and realizing that having Alfred remain in Gotham would have been silly. They had to make him leave to stay safe. Instead of Bruce sending him away to stay safe they decided to work an emotional angle into him leaving. Fine with me.

- On what city Gotham is - Just wanted to mention that there was a scene early in the movie where they show Gotham and I'm 90% sure it was NY. Thought I caught a glimpse of the Empire state building. I'm not saying it's supposed to be NY, just another example of them never letting one single city be Gotham. It is an amalgamation of numerous cities.

- On him ending up with Selina - I didn't see it as a stretch at all. When she betrayed Batman, she didn't know he was Bruce. There is even a shot when Bane says whatever about "not compared to the mistake you just made, Mr Wayne". They cut to her and she's surprised. Think about it, yes the random orphan boy who had only seen bruce for 2mins 20 years ago knew instantly (more on that in a sec), but Selina had no idea that he was Bruce at that point. She had a love/hate thing going on with Bruce but didn't know until that moment that the guy she was playing the game of cat and mouse with was actually Batman himself. Plus she was desperate so I could see Bruce forgiving her even though she betrayed Batman.

-Ok JGL as an orphan kid knowing it was him. Again, I get what Nolan wanted to do and that's great. He just didn't really think through the logic of having a 10-12 year old recognize Bruce Wayne as Batman. He'd likely never seen Batman up close in his life, he just knew it was him because of the look on his face? Ugh. Really would have liked the reason to be better but then JGL couldn't have given the speech about the anger and the masks so I guess I can overlook this one. Luckily it doesn't play a huge role in the film.

-I actually really bought pretty much all of the terrorist takeover except one thing. How the eff were the cops trapped? What about the place where JGL found the homeless kid and later retrieved Gordon's body? Did they block that exit? More obviously, what about the manholes? Did they seriously weld shut 5000 manholes? Why wouldn't the cops just walk right out through those? Again, I get what Nolan wanted to do, he just should have done it better.

-Bane dying. I liked the way he died. I was actually less happy about the way Talia died. So you kill your big baddy with a cannon shot from the bat motorcycle thing, sure I'm ok with that. Cool surprise to see Catwoman back to save good ole Batman. But then after that quick death you kill the brains of the operation baddie in a car wreck? yet again, just minor quibbles. God did I love Bane though. Loved the voice too.

-Pretty much any scene this entire trilogy with Michael Caine in it was money. Goddamn that was a good casting choice.

-As mentioned I'm not the biggest fan of the way Nolan sacrifices common sense and logical storytelling to make sure the film fits his vision but damn his vision is good. Every relationship and character arc makes sense and shows incredible depth in the characters (and by extension the actors who play them).

-Quick aside, Katie Holmes was way better than Maggie Gyllenhall. Yeah I said it. I don't even think she's that bad of an actress. (not that bad, didn't say great). Only mentioning this becaue I noticed it is her picture on his desk when Talia visits Bruce.

-Kinda wish they ended it Inception style with Alfred looking up and getting that warm and fuzzy look on his face and then just cutting to black. I get why they wouldn't but that would have been cool.

-Seriously, I can't ####ing believe they made the character's first name Robin. Not cool Nolan. Can we get some sort of nerd edit where the woman says Dick, not Robin? (although in the context of her exact wording it would seem weirdly like she was hitting on him or was a skank)

-One last thing. did anyone else think that the logo for the Gotham football team kinda looked like the old Shrevport Pirates (CFL team) logo? Not exact but I remember thinking of that when I saw it.

Hats off to Nolan and crew. Now I just can't wait until Avengers comes out on bluray so I can watch the #### out of that movie. Can't believe I only saw it once in theatres.


Ok one last, last thing, I saw a preview which I thought looked awesome and now I can't remember it. not the stupid Tom Cruise movie and it wasn't Superman. Anyone have any ideas? I seem to remember it having a lot of famous people in it. Yeah I know, I could just google it but I'm lazy.