First Hit: A real waste of 164 minutes.
The beginning of an action thriller film needs to draw the audience in with intrigue.
This film starts off with lost mediocrity and because the beginning is not set well, the rest of the film fails. Not that there aren’t fun, interesting, and exciting moments, but the slowness and overly complex development of a unexceptional plot was wasteful of my time.
Christian Bale (as Bruce Wayne/Batman) looked bored and grateful that this will be the last time he has to pretend he’s the king of Gotham’s crime fighters. That the film hinted that Joseph Gordon-Levitt (as Blake) will become “Robin” in some future encounter was unfortunate. What worked? Anne Hathaway worked.
She played the petty thief Selina and every time she was on the screen, you watched her. She brought humor, intrigue, and something different than the dull overly scripted film that continued to unfold. Michael Cain as Wayne’s manservant Alfred, made an attempt to bring drama and passion to this film, but it was seen as just that; attempting to bring drama to a dying film.
One of the worst ideas in characters was having the evil enemy Bane (played by Tom Hardy), talk through a device covering his mouth which made him sound silly, not menacing. I could go on and on about how unengaged this film was with telling a good story but I won't.
Frankly, the film was a poor semi-showcase of visual effects and overly dramatic storylines which meant little because the set-up was so piss poor.
Bale, looked and acted bored with the role and film. Gordon-Levitt was reasonably good and brought energy to a dying film. Hathaway was engaging and delightful and the only reason to sit through the bloated story. Cain was wasted in this role although he did try to bring emotion to a heartless film. Hardy’s character was minimalized by the voicing device. There are a whole host of others who were part of this film that didn’t make it any better despite their wholehearted attempts. Jonathan and Christopher Nolan wrote a wasteful overly complex lifeless script. Christopher Nolan directed this and I’ve no idea of what he was trying to give the audience but it felt as though he didn’t care a whole lot.
Overall: Bloated, overly developed and stupidly complex – don’t bother.