Movie Title: The Dark Knight Rises
Director: Christopher Nolan
Date Released: July 20th, 2012
Date Seen: July 20th, 2012
Format seen: IMAX – Did the AMC Trilogy Event. That was awesome.
Part 1 – Spoiler Free Quickie Review
Before the movie even begins – we got some decent trailers. We got a more detailed look at Skyfall, which I was already excited about, a OZ trailer, a Man of Steel teaser trailer that looked pretty good…. and then THERE IS A HOBBIT TRAILER. The whole theater pretty much wet themselves. It looks great, obviously. But seeing a trailer for it on a big screen – I got teary eyed. It looks incredible.
The movie itself was fantastic. I loved it and I think nearly everyone in the theater did. The story is a great ending to the trilogy, and leaves a door open at the end for another, but it’s also a satisfying place to shut the door forever. I’d be ok with either at this point.
We all know Christian Bale is good as Batman, so why waste time talking about him? Let’s talk about the newbies on the scene.
Bane – Tom Hardy – YES. YES. YES YES YES YES. Fantastic. I love Tom Hardy in nearly everything but he was the perfect Bane. Even with that huge mask on the front of his face you can see exactly what is going on in Bane’s head. We learn a lot about the character which makes him just that much more satisfying, knowing where he comes from. My only problem with the Bane character, which wasn’t Tom Hardy’s fault, is that some times he was hard to understand. I did want more Bane though – because you can never have too much Tom Hardy – just because he was such an interesting character.
John Blake – Joseph Gordon-Levitt – Another fantastic performance. John Blake is more than just your average cop and develops a strong relationship with Batman. He goes above what is needed and is always trying to help.
Miranda – Marion Cotillard – Miranda is an investor and member of the board interested in a specific project at Wayne Tower. She is cute, and so the old men in Bruce’s life keep trying to get him to notice that. Cotillard is great in this part.
Selina Kyle/Catwoman – Anne Hathaway – I know you were all really just looking for this one, which is why I saved it for last. I have to say – I was SHOCKED at how good Anne Hathaway was in this part. I mean, at times, it did get a little too smooth-talking-sexy-voice, but that outweighed the good. For me, there was one scene in particular in which she pretends to be a hostage at a bar, when she really caused the fight, that I knew she was going to be great. She literally blew me away with her performance because it was so unexpected. Way to go, Anne Hathaway, for proving yourself.
Now, unlike some people, I did not feel that the movie had an obvious lack of Heath Ledger’s Joker. I mean, yes, it would have been nice to have had him there. But it wasn’t this huge slap you in the face problem like some people have made it out to be. We have a satisfying villain, and in the process of the movie we see the evolution of new villains as well as some old ones resurface…. it would have been nice to have the Joker, but it did well enough that I’m fine with him not being there. I am honestly glad they didn’t try to put him in there, because it just wouldn’t have been the same….
So go see the movie, it’s great. The first 30 – 45 minutes is a lot of talking and plot development, but it’s necessary and doesn’t drag. The action at the end is all great and you find yourself on the edge of your seat. The ending of the movie was HIGHLY satisfying and extremely well done.
Part 2 – In Depth Spoiler Review/Synopsis
The movie begins with some CIA agents picking up a nuclear physicist, Dr. Pavel, from some unidentified country. When they deliver the scientist, the men also say they’ve captured two men that work with Bane. They have hoods over their heads. The CIA agent takes them along and decides to start interrogating them by holding them halfway out the plane as it is moving. As he does this, one starts talking, and is revealed to be Bane. There is an awesome scene of Bane starting to take control of the plane as a larger plane flies over this smaller plane – some men repel down, rope it up, and end up tearing the wings off and opening a whole up in the roof. They’ve shot all the CIA agents, and they are kidnapping the doctor. They bring down another random man’s body and put the doctors blood on him – so that it will look like the doctor died. One of Bane’s men tries to go with them, and Bane says “no, brother, they’ll expect one of us in the wreckage” and the man willingly accepts his fate. This is the first glimpse at the sheer amount of power Bane has over his men and how they will follow him to the extremes. So they get out and then let the plane crash.
We now go to Gotham – at the Wayne mansion, rebuilt now, and we find a celebration of “Dent Day”. It is the 8 year anniversary of Harvey Dent’s “murder” by the Batman. The mayor talks about the fine things that have resulted since Dent was “murdered”, such as the Dent act which has put many people in prison. Gordon is holding a lengthy speech he has written, and when given his turn to speak, he begins saying he wrote a speech to tell the truth about Harvey Dent… but perhaps now is not the time, and he stuffs the speech into his coat pocket, and says the normal type speech stuff. Guests at the party are making comments about how Bruce never comes to these events. We then cut to inside the mansion, where the maids are talking about Bruce. They think he must be disfigured or something since he never leaves the East wing. Alfred gives one woman helping out a key to the east wing and a tray. The audience recognizes her as Selina Kyle/Catwoman (Anne Hathaway) from the trailers. So you know shits gonna go down… She takes the tray upstairs, and leaves the food on the table like Alfred said too, but then she starts exploring. In one room, she looks at some pictures, and then is interrupted by Bruce. Bruce is walking with a cane, and is completely out of shape and looks like an old man. She apologizes and just acts like the dumb curious maid. Bruce notices her pearls, and the striking resemblance they have to his mothers pearls. He looks at his safe, under where those pictures were, and finds it open. He mentions the safe was supposedly uncrackable and Selina says “Well, no one told me it was uncrackable… oops”. She then kicks his cane out from under him and jumps out of a window. Out the window she quickly rips off the white parts of her outfit, so it just looks like a black party dress, and jumps into a congressman’s vehicle (who was hitting on her earlier), asking for a ride. Bruce investigates further and finds fingerprint dust on the safe… Selina Kyle wasn’t really after the pearls (she just liked them)… what she was after was a copy of his fingerprints. But luckily, the pearls have a tracking device in them. Also during the party, one woman, Miranda (Marion Cotillard) was trying to meet with Bruce about some investments, but Bruce didn’t want to see her.
The next day we meet John Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a police officer. He is informing Gordon that the congressman never returned home after the event. So they start a manhunt for him. On daily duty, Blake finds a body washed up out of the sewers – and he recognizes it as a boy from a local orphanage. He goes and visits it and finds out that they have lost their funding as of two years ago from the Wayne foundation and are struggling. He talks to the washed up boys younger brother, and Blake finds out that something is going on in the tunnels, as many of the older boys have found work there. They also mention the Batman, and both the little boy and Blake wonder if he is ever coming back.
Selena Kyle goes to a sketch looking bar, with the congressman drugged up or drunk, in tow behind her. She is there to sell Bruce’s fingerprints to Dagget (Ben Mendelsohn), a business man who seems very shady. She hands over the fingerprints and tries to get what they owe her. They refuse – and so she says that they don’t have the thumb print, so that’d be stupid. She hands Dagget a cell phone to call her friend outside to bring in the thumb print. She does and then the men go to kill Selina. She again says that they are complete idiots – because she points out the police manhunt on the TV for the congressman, that she just brought into the bar…. so what, says Dagget, they’ll never find him here, and then Selina points out that the cell phone he just used was the Congressman’s. Police sirens come into earshot, and a mild fight breaks out. Right before the cops storm in Selina sits next to a table and pretends to be a screaming witness. The police rush in, chase everyone, and one escorts Selina out, who then walks away all non-nonchalantly like nothing ever happened. This was the scene that I was just blown away by Anne Hathaway in. Fantastic. Blake gets the congressman out, and then sees a number of the men running down into the sewers. Some police officers and Gordon chase them down there. There is a gun battle, and many of the random cops get shot, and Gordon gets captured. Up on the surface, Deputy Commissioner Foley (Mathew Modine) is being a jerk and not letting anyone else go down in the sewers since it’s too risky – even though Gordon is down there. Blake runs to where he knows the sewers let out (where he found the body the other day). Down in the sewer, Gordon is carried through a master operation going on in the tunnels. He sees a number of weapons, supplies, and men down there. He is brought to Bane. Bane searches Gordon, takes everything from him, including the letter, and then while he yells at the two men for being stupid and bringing Gordon there, and actually killing one of them, Gordon rolls off the platform into the sewer water. The other man shoots at him and tells Bane that Gordon must be dead. Bane says “oh, well then show me the body!” The man says he can’t. So Bane gives him a cell phone, tucks it into his shirt, and says “find him”. Then he shoots the man and shoves him into the sewer as well. We see Gordon come out of the sewer and Blake arrives just in time to catch him. Gordon is severely injured and rushed to the hospital.
Blake goes to Bruce Wayne’s house the next day to speak with him. This is the scene that I had the biggest problem with in the movie – I felt like it needed significantly more explanation. Blake goes in, tells a story about how he grew up at the orphanage after his mother died in a car crash when he was small, and later his dad was shot. He knows what it feels like to have lost everyone, just like Bruce. And when Bruce would come visit the orphanage, all the boys would be so excited to see him, and tell stories about the rich orphan. Blake says he knows the look in his eyes. And he’s seen that same look in Batmans eyes. And thus he knows Bruce = Batman….. what? I just had a serious problem with that dot connecting. But whatever….. It was really my only problem with the whole movie because it was so… wtf? It kind of felt like something might have been cut from that scene to save time – but it really needed it. So anyway, Blake tells Bruce that they really need the Batman again. He also mentions in passing about how the orphanage is no longer funded by the Wayne foundations. When Blake leaves, he asks Alfred about it. Alfred says he’ll call up Mr. Fox. Bruce says no, he needs to go have his knee checked at the hospital and will go there and go talk to Mr. Fox as well. Which hospital does he want to go to? Why, the one where Gordon is, of course. So he goes and talks to Mr. Fox who explains the company has been loosing some serious money. Fox explains that Miranda, the investor lady, is willing to back this project that has sucked a lot of money out of them – it’s building a nuclear reactor type thing that will create clean sustainable energy for everyone. So it’s just been sitting there wasting money and she is willing to back it. And Mr. Fox mentions how cute she is (Alfred had done so earlier as well). And just for old times sake, Mr. Fox shows him the new stuff he has. It’s all been consolidated to this one warehouse. There are some new suit type things, some more tumblers, and a new super fun flying vehicle. Bruce asks Fox what he calls it – “The Bat… and yes, it does come in Black, Mr. Wayne.” So this is a second person pushing him towards bringing the Batman back out. At the hospital, Bruce gets his knee checked out (and the doctor is Thomas Lennon… I about died laughing). Before leaving, he puts on a mask and propels down to visit Gordon in his room. Gordon is the final push of becoming Batman again. He tells Batman about the things he saw in the sewers, and how the douche deputy commissioner doesn’t really believe him, etc.
Back at the house, Bruce goes and sits in the Batcave looking more into Selina Kyle and also looking at his old stuff. Alfred is clearly worrisome about him becoming Batman again. He tells a story about how whenever Bruce was gone, for that 7 years in China and with Ra’s al Ghul, he (Alfred) would always go on a vacation each year and go to the same restaurant. He’d have a fantasy where he’d see Bruce with a wife and a family – being happy. They wouldn’t say anything to each other, but would acknowledge one another. Alfred still wants that to happen, someday.
One night in here, Bruce follows Selina to a costume party and dances with her. He is questioning her about the pearls and about what she has done with his fingerprints. He mentions he has a powerful friend that would love to know more information in exchange for helping him out. Bruce takes his pearls back – and she takes his car. Hilarious.
Another day we see the Gotham stock exchange. All of a sudden, in come in some sketch men – Bane’s men – and Bane. They take over the stock exchange and are holding everyone hostage – while one man starts to do some trades. He says it will take 8 minutes. Bane has some fun making fun of one of the men in the stock exchange, further showing how awesome he is. The police have arrived and so they decide to take their operation mobile. They push the hostages out in front of them and then come speeding out on motorcylces – each with one hostage on it as a method of protection. They start a police chase of police vs armed robbers. Once they get down in a tunnel, the lights start going out and some weird things start happening… and then…. BATMAN APPEARS OMG! Senor douchey deputy commissioner Foley turns the chase onto Batman, the “murderer” of Harvey Dent, and Blake keeps asking “What about the armed robbers”? Foley doesn’t appear to give a shit anymore. There is a nice chase that ends up with Bane getting away, and Batman stopping the man with the laptop. He sees “transaction complete” on the screen and decides to take what looks like a USB to analyze it. The cops surround him, he escapes on the motorcycle thing into an alley. They think they have him cornered – but no, he escapes using the new flying “Bat”. Awesomeness.
When Bruce gets back to the mansion, Alfred is super upset. They have a big emotional fight, Bruce brings up Rachel and how she was going to wait for him blah blah… and then Alfred does something unexpected…. he mentions the letter that she wrote, in the Dark Knight movie, that he never showed Bruce. Alfred says that he can’t live with Batman being back it’s just too stressful and he doesn’t want to have to bury another member of the Wayne family…. and then Bruce says “goodbye Alfred” confirming that he is going to continue being the Batman for a while. It’s an extremely upsetting scene.
After this, we see Selina, now as Catwoman, at Dagget’s home. She is trying to break into his safe to get what is owed to her. Dagget comes in and catches her, and there is a nice little fight scene. We find out that what she wanted was a clean slate – something to completely erase her past. Dagget reveals that it doesn’t exist and he was just leading her on. She tries to get away but ends up surrounded by Bane’s mercenaries. Turns out, Dagget is using Bane – for what, not sure yet. Batman shows up and helps Catwoman escapes. He asks her what she did with “Bruce Wayne’s” fingerprints. She says that she sold them to Dagget for the chance to have a free past, but didn’t know what he was going to do with them.
Well, we find out. They used the fingerprints as evidence to incriminate Bruce. At the stock market, they made a serious of trades in Bruce’s name and planted his fingerprints somewhere – that basically caused the entire company to go bankrupt. So, they are now in ruins. Mr. Fox takes Miranda to go see what they’ve been working on – the reactor. It’s a last hope to get her to invest and hopefully save the company. She seems so excited about the prospect of the clean endless energy from it and so is going to invest. The same day, after this incident, Bruce goes to visit Selina. She clearly doesn’t know they’re the same person. Bruce wants to set up a meeting with her and his “powerful friend”. She agrees. At home, Bruce finds Miranda there. No one is answering the door… obviously since Alfred is gone. They break into a window to get into the mansion. Then they have some tender moments and…. we see them nakie next to a fire that night. Bow-chicka-wow-wow! Once Miranda falls asleep, Bruce leaves to go as Batman and meet Catwoman.
He meets her down in the train tunnels – and asks to be taken to Bane. She agrees, on the condition that he get her the device that would allow her to have a clean slate. They go down, defeating some of Bane’s men on the way. Once they reach the central hub of Bane’s activity, Batman walks in… and Catwoman slams a gate down – locking Batman in there. She was too scared of Bane and thus betrayed Batman. Bane comes out – and then there is a shit storm fight. Batman hasn’t realized that he is actually physically weaker than Bane. He tries his best though. There is a long brutal fight scene between the two of them. The scene is made even more emotional by the lack of music – great choice. Catwoman is clearly upset by what she has done…. especially when she hears Bane call Batman by his real name, Bruce Wayne. She can’t believe they are the same person. Bane continues beating him up and shows him what their plan has been all along – he blows up the ceiling to his lair… revealing the floor of Wayne Tower’s Applied Sciences unit right above them. So they now have access to ALL the toys Mr. Fox has stored up their (weapons, some tumblers, explosives, etc.) After Bane beats the shit out of Batman some more, he takes him to a prison. This prison is where Bane “was made” and he is supposedly the only one to have ever escaped out of this prison. The prison is horrible because it is the true pit of despair. He says that you always need hope to have true despair. The pit has an opening, way up high, impossible to climb. But the men try, and fail. But that hope is what makes the suffering so much worse. Bane leaves him there, with a TV, so that Bruce can watch Bane destroy Gotham, and once that is done, he “gives [Batman] permission to die.”
The movie now gets cut with scenes of what is going on in Gotham, and what is going on with Bruce. To make this easier to read, I’ll tell both separately and make a note of where they meet back up. The important part though – is that both stories span over about 4 months. So a large amount of time is going by rather quickly.
Gotham: The police decide to storm the sewers to infiltrate Bane’s lair. They are getting ready to do this as Bane holds the Wayne Towers board hostage. He takes one of them, Miranda, and Mr. Fox down to the nuclear reactor. He forces them to “unlock it” so that the nuclear physicist can work on it. He works on it and says that “it is done” and now functioning. Bane then has them pull the middle part out of the reactor – ie the actual bomb part. The reactor was keeping it all stable. Without it being in the reactor, according to Mr. Fox, the bomb will go off in about 5 months time… or if someone detonates it. Next we see Bane heading over to a football game. This whole sequence was freaking awesome. We listen to a little boy singing the national anthem as they begin to raid the sewer system. As the boy finishes, Bane says “good voice.” I just love the random crap he says. The game starts, and as shown in the trailer, Bane pushes the button and blows up the tunnels, the stadium, and all the Bridges into Gotham at the same time. Some police, obviously, are killed, while the others remain trapped in the sewers. Their only possible escapes are blocked by rubble or guards. Bane comes out onto the field to strike fear into the hearts of Gotham. He brings out the bomb and the physicist. He explains that this bomb will destroy all of Gotham – if so much as one person leaves the island. He also introduces the doctor – explaining that he is the only one who knows how to disarm him… and then Bane snaps his neck. The national guard (outside of Gotham) decides to set up shop on the bridges to make sure no one leaves the island, for now. Bane also explains that one ordinary person has the detonator and can set it off at any time… so they all must be careful. Blake realizes that since all the cops are down in the sewers, they are kind of screwed. He also realizes that Bane is probably going to have Gordon killed. He rushes to the hospital, only to find Gordon having already killed the men sent to kill him and he leaves with Blake to go into hiding.
Bane then goes out to in front of the prison. There, in front of a large audience (and on TV) he pulls out Gordon’s letter. He reads it in front of everyone – it reveals the complete truth about what happened on that night 8 years ago – when Harvey Dent went mad and kidnapped his family and tried to kill his child. Bane takes this opportunity to now free the prisoners put in jail as a result of the Dent Law – made by liars, he says. As the men leave the prison they are given weapons. Bane decides to enact martial law on the town. There really end up being three established groups – the used-to-be-rich, the poor, and those working for Bane. The rich people are routinely rounded up, have their homes trashed, and taken to be “tried” for their crimes. It’s not actually a trial – they are already guilty. They are sentenced by the judge – the Scarecrow. This was a fabulous appearance. He was always insane but now he as fully embraced his insanity. He had a very mad-hatter quality about him. I loved it. Scarecrow would ask the person if they wanted “death or exile”. Exile would involve them taking the person out to the frozen river and making them try to walk across it to their freedom…. no one had ever made it. So in the next 4 months, the town has gone to complete shit. Some people are trying to hide from Bane and his men, such as Miranda and Mr. Fox, and other members of the board, while others are being helpful. Blake and Gordon for example are tracking three different trucks – one of them has the bomb on it. They are trying to figure out which one does have the bomb and mark it.
The foreign prison: Bruce works on regaining his strength, both emotionally and physically. He has the help of two men, both of whom are charged with keeping Bruce alive – to make sure he sees what is going on in Gotham. Over the time that he is there, Bruce learns the story of the child who was born there – and also the only one to have ever escaped. A long time ago, there was a mercenary who fell in love with the daughter of a warlord. They were together in secret until the warlord found out. He was going to send the mercenary to his prison – but the woman traded her life for the man’s. So the man was let go – thinking that his wife was dead and not knowing she traded her life for his. The woman, was pregnant. She had a child who grew up in the prison. The doctor, now taking care of Bruce, cared for them. One day, the cell door was left unlocked and the prisoners rushed in and attacked and raped and murdered the woman. The child started climbing – and managed to escape the prison. And who was the mercenary? Ra’s al Ghul. Ohhhh snap. Bruce believes that now he understands Bane a bit better – and believes that he can escape the prison. Bruce tries many times and continually fails. The doctor finally says that the only way to escape is to do it as the child did – without a rope (to catch you if you fall). Bruce does this… and manages to escape. He also throws a big rope down for the others to get out. That was slightly satisfying – but also worrisome considering we have no idea what some of the other people are in there for. But whatever, it’s a far away country supposedly, so it shouldn’t effect Gotham.
BACK TO ONE STORY LINE
In Gotham, we see Selina Kyle just walking around, helping a little kid, and then Batman appears. YAY OMG HE’S BACK! She apologizes for what she did and said she just didn’t know what to do. She also updates him on everything that is going on. Batman says that he needs her help to get Mr. Fox out of Bane’s hands. They let Bruce Wayne get “captured” and thus taken to where Mr. Fox is… Catwoman comes in, saying that Bane wants to see the two of them, and takes them out. Mr. Fox points out that the bomb is going to go off in 12 hours NO MATTER WHAT, so they really need to fix things. Batman sends Mr. Fox to the reactor to try and have it set up and ready to get the bomb back in it. He also creates a signal jamming device – that if put near the bomb, will prevent a remote detonation from working. That night, Blake has decided it’s their last chance to try to get the cops out of the sewers (who yes, have been stuck there for 5 months) out. He almost succeeds, but is ambushed by some more of Bane’s men. They start fighting him when all of a sudden, Batman shows up. He saves Blake, and then, using the Bat, blows a hole big enough for the police to start piling out. Batman also goes and saves Gordon and a few others – who were recently sentenced by Scarecrow – to “death by exile”.
Now we have a few different plot lines again, but all is happening at the same time:
Gordon – he is in charge of putting the signal jamming device on the truck with the bomb. They thought they had the right truck, end up stopping it, and it’s not. So then they have to scramble to find the real truck. Luckily, Gordon gets it in there with just about 12 minutes left on the bomb clock before it goes off.
Catwoman – she takes the motorcycle and goes and blows open the tunnels, so that normal people can try to escape the island that way. She is very conflicted about staying to help or going to save herself.
Blake – He goes and picks up his kids from the orphanage, sends some to alert people that the tunnels are now open, and then takes them to try and escape. On the bridge, the national guard won’t let them leave the island, obviously. Blake says he doesn’t know what they’re doing as “things have changed”. He piles the kids back on the bus for “protection from the bomb” even though he knows it’s hopeless.
Batman – Now is the epic battle. The newly released policemen, including the douchey deputy commissioner Foley, who is now redeeming himself, head towards the mercenaries. Bane tells the men to just open fire on the cops, using the tumblers. But Batman swoops in at just the right moment and shoots out tumblers. Then there is a fabulous Bane v. Batman fight going on while all the cops fight the mercenaries. One thing I love about Christopher Nolan is the fact that scenes like this, he uses extras. They don’t CGI in people to make it look like there’s more than there really are. There really are a good few hundred men fighting during this scene. So the fight goes on for a while, and Batman realizes that Bane’s face mask is a bit of a weakness. He kind of screws with it, and they continue fighting, and end up in the entrance of a building. Batman has the upper hand and is beating Bane to get him to tell him where the ignition switch to the bomb is. All of as sudden… Miranda appears behind Batman and stabs him in the gut. She reveals that she has the detonator. Why? She’s really Talia al Ghul – the child of Ra’s al Ghul. She was the one who was born and raised in the prison – and Bane was her protector there. She escaped and found her father and then came back to save Bane. When they arrived, his face was so torn up that they could never fully save his face. The masks stops the pain he will always have. In this scene, more than anyone, you feel for Bane. Or maybe just I did… but dear god. She then reveals that Ra’s could never accept Bane because he looked like a monster and thus had him excommunicated from the League of Shadows. She never been close to her father since then, but after Batman killed him, she decided to come finish his mission of restoring balance to the world. She hits the button to blow up Gotham… and it doesn’t work. She realizes that they must have done something to block the signal. She leaves to go blow it up herself, leaving Bane to finish off Batman. Bane is about to do so, when Catwoman appears out of nowhere and shoots Bane in the back.
Now there is a nice chase scene, with the Bat and Catwoman trying to force the truck with the bomb to head for the area where the reactor is. It’s a good few minutes fight. It ends up falling and crashing – so that they can’t drive it. They are all unsure of what to do…. They only have a couple of minutes left. Batman has an idea – he is going to fly the bomb over to the area. But they hear Talia laugh (she is now dying from the crash in the front seat of the truck) and say “Mr. Fox taught me how to use the reactor… including the emergency shut down.” And we flash to the room, with Mr. Fox, starting to flood. He luckily gets away And so Batman still picks up the bomb and decides to save Gotham – by flying the bomb out as far as he can into the bay. And so he does. Thus Gotham is saved… but Batman?
We next flash to a bit later – a funeral for Bruce Wayne. Mr. Fox, Gordon, Blake, and Alfred are there. They all now know that Bruce = Batman. Gordon was the last one to find out, finding out seconds before Batman flew off with the bomb. It was a heart breaking scene. We also see the town recognizing what Batman did for them by unleashing a statue of him. It’s a very emotional scene.
The ending minute was the best of the whole movie and I think is the best scene – ever. Blake hears the reading of Bruce’s will – everything monetary left to Alfred – and the house and grounds are not to be touched or destroyed and are only to be used to house the boys home (d’awwww). Blake is clearly thrilled about this. He goes and picks up a bag from somewhere, and the lady notices his full name… she says he should use it as it’s a nice name… Robin. He says thanks and leaves. He then finds a piece of paper with some coordinates on it and goes exploring – we see him nearing the entrance to the bat cave…. this is flashed with scenes of Alfred, going to his cafe in France… and sitting down and getting his drink and looking up…. flashing back to Blake swinging into the Batcave… he starts to explore it, and gets surrounded by bats – he is scared at first, just like Bruce was in Batman begins, but then stands up as they fly around him….. we see Alfred again, and notice him smile and nod to someone – the camera switches and we see Bruce sitting at a table with Selina Kyle. They both nod to each other and Alfred leaves extremely happy. Then we flash back to Blake, walking around the cave, and in the middle of it, the platform starts to rise, with Blake standing on it…… and that is the last we see.
That end scene was FABULOUS. The cuts were perfect, the back and forth, omg. I loved it. I would see the movie again JUST for that scene.
Overall: 8/10
I loved this movie. The ending made it worth it all for me. It left an extremely satisfying ending, with the possibility of taking that storyline farther – but if it doesn’t, that is completely acceptable as well. It was just a great ending to the whole trilogy. I think it’s well done, Bane was a great villain, and the movie was awesome. So go see it.
Maria's Movie Reviews 