Spoiler thread
So I saw this at midnight but I never really posted real spoilery impressions.
- The actors were really good. There was some clunky dialogue in the "goodbye, Alfred" scene (among others... Nolan always has some clunky dialogue) but Michael Caine saves it and makes it emotional. The theatre was definitely dead silent when it came to that scene. I can't help but wonder if Nolan really wanted to keep Alfred alive for the end of the film and needed a way to keep him out of Gotham... With Bane knowing Bruce's identity I thought Alfred was going to be killed in this film for sure.
- Caine, Oldman, Freeman, JGL, and Hardy do not disappoint in the slightest. Oldman in particular felt like an older, hardened Gordon and Hardy was quite different from what I initially expected of Bane, but he really delivered. The audience really reacted to all the scenes in which he broke people's necks and it was also really quiet when he came out for his speech on the football field like it was during Alfred's goodbye.
- Bale was fantastic in this one, and Hathaway was amazing in every scene that she had. While I think Bruce was a little too trusting (he didn't make much of an effort to hide his identity from Selina and gave her lots of second chances) I also take it he was a little infatuated and maybe saw a bit of his Begins self in Selina. I bought all the Batman-Catwoman interactions though.
- Cotillard was fine but didn't really stand out for good or for bad. I was surprised they did go the Talia Al Ghul route since Ra's only mentioned a wife in the first movie. It didn't feel like a bad or artificial twist, but it was just kind of there. I wondered if it was coming after Bane was "revealed" to be the son of Ra's. "Well, in Batman lore Ra's does have a daughter..."
- Really, both villains were finished off rather quickly I felt compared to past films but I guess the climax was more about the end of Batman than his triumph over Bane and Talia. Bane's defeat was good and his final moments felt like a fitting conclusion to that character; I almost got a "death of Darth Vader" vibe from some of his last moments after Batman pummels him. Talia's? Not so much.
- I didn't think they would actually use the Knightfall imagery of Bane "breaking" Batman over his knee. I thought we'd get a throwaway "break you" line but not the actual lift. Both fights with Bane were really well done, with the lack of music and Bane beating Bats in the first and in turn Batman's brutal beatdown of Bane in the second. I could like, see what was going on as well.
- I know the flashbacks seemed pretty unnecessary but I have a feeling they might've been for people who hadn't seen Begins in particular. Maybe it was because they didn't know if he was really back from the dead but a lot of people seemed kind of confused when Neeson showed up. I was quite surprised and glad that he did, wearing the same outfit (I think) as when he first found Bruce in prison in Begins. The whole film is really good about maintaining continuity. Speaking of which:
- It was nice to see all the board members again (including the one who was more loyal to Bruce who ends up coming with "Miranda" and Lucius to see the bomb) and I'm pretty sure that the cops in the initial Batman/Bane chase scene were the same ones following the Tumbler in Begins, weren't they?
- I was so happy to see Scarecrow again. The crowd loved him. Cillian Murphy finally got through a Nolan film without putting a sack over his head. Incidentally, I found it interesting that this makes Scarecrow the only enemy to appear in all three films and the only one aside from the Joker to survive in the universe. I was definitely hoping for a cameo once I saw the others in the film.
- I saw the ending coming as soon as Alfred mentioned his little fantasy for Bruce. It pains me to say it because Caine plays the character so well but it almost feels like Alfred is written differently in all three films... I feel like we should've gotten a hint in the earlier movies that this is what Alfred wanted for Bruce. But I was happy with the ending, and I liked that they took the "Dark Knight Returns" route of letting Bruce survive. The ending sequence really felt "right."
- The "Robin" reveal was neither here nor there for me but the theatre seemed to enjoy it. Interesting how after all this time Cotillard really was playing Talia Al Ghul and JGL really was Robin... sort of.
- This was a really dark movie. The Joker may have been more enigmatic and engaging in all of his scenes, but the destruction wrought by Bane and the consequences really feel like the biggest danger that Gotham ever faced. I really thought that any moment we'd see say, Fox's body on the television in the prison but somehow Nolan managed to make a film that felt really dark and hopeless without killing off any of the main characters (except arguably "Batman"). Even though most of them lost a lot along the way, everyone who made it through both Begins and TDK (Bruce, Gordon, Alfred, Fox, and uh, Crane) made it to the end of this one as well.
Anyway, that's my huge wave of impressions or comments. I really loved the film; it's not flawless to be sure but I thought it was an excellent end to the trilogy and I loved the connections to the first two films and the sense of danger throughout.